VIDEO The Best Man runs in the West End, directed by Simon Evans Ben Hewis • London • 5 Mar 2018 Martin Shaw, Maureen Lipman and Jeff Fahey are among the cast in the new revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, which opens at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. Directed by Simon […]

Hooked on Nigerian elders’ stories from childhood, Joan Iyiola swapped a potential law career for performing. The Mono Box founder tells Tim Bano why her latest role, in The Duchess of Malfi, shows change is happening What connects the Duchess of Malfi and Black Panther, the comic-book superhero? More than you might have thought, according […]

David Essex and Martine McCutcheon© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage Elf the Musical will tour the UK, playing three major arenas in December. Starring musician David Essex and Martine McCutcheon (Love Actually), the piece is based on the blockbuster movie of the same name, in which Will Ferrell played the lead role of Buddy. The stage […]

Anne-Marie Duff and Rory Kinnear in rehearsals for Macbeth. Photo: Brinkhoff/ Moegenburg Macbeth – National Theatre, London March is the month of Macbeths. There are three major productions opening as well as a new dance-theatre version at Wilton’s Music Hall. In Rufus Norris’ production for the National Theatre, Anne-Marie Duff plays Lady Macbeth opposite […]

Scarlett Leigh Fawcett Scarlett Leigh Fawcett recently finished playing Dorothy in Trinity Theatre’s 2017 Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz. Having entered the industry as a child in Les Miserables and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End, she went on to work for Disney Cruise Line and the Disney Channel. Fawcett’s recent […]

Sharon D Clarke and T’Shan Williams© Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage The winners of this year’s Offies have been announced in a ceremony at The Albany in Deptford. People recognised include Mimi Ndiweni for Best Female in a Play for her performance in The Convert at the Gate Theatre and Ken Nwosu for Best Male in […]

Confessions of a Box Office Manager Blimey, that looks a bit worrying. There are about 20 minutes of the Saturday matinee to go and a pair of the security staff heard something on their headsets that made them dive down the stairs towards the stalls. That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen Big Ed move. (I […]

Have you been outside recently? The Beast from the East has given us all a big chill, right at the start of spring. It’s all very seasonal in theatreland too – Frozen is playing in the West End and on Broadway (though they’re VERY different productions), the casting of Sunshine on Leith and Spring Awakening […]

Maureen Beattie, vice president of Equity© Paul Stuart Equity, the union representing 43,000 creative workers in the theatre industry, has released its Agenda for Change report, which focuses on sexual harassment. The union announced today that it would be launching a Safe Space campaign, which includes setting up a dedicated helpline. The campaign will also […]

Ross Ramgobin as Figaro and Katherine Aitken as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro (ETO)© Jane Hobson It’s ironic, since her production has nothing to say about Mozart’s opera, that director Blanche McIntyre declines to let the overture speak for itself. Instead – in a trope from a dozen other second-rate stagings – the director […]