Inspired by the infamous feud between Hollywood actors Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, Bette & Joan is set in the bedroom of Bette Davis – where, in the last moments of her life, she is lying in bed wearing a nightie and hairnet, grumbling about her glamorous past whilst clutching a picture of her daughter in one […]

Uniting the oral tradition with physical theatre, Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni come together for Tell Them That I Am Young And Beautiful in the studio space at the Arcola Theatre. Comprised of short stories from around the world, with text by Gilles Aufray, the production is an impeccable example of the strength that lies in simple […]

Whatever else, I liked it. In making a show about manga artist Osamu Tezuka, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has taken on the challenge of meeting and responding to an enormous body of work (~150,000 pages, hundreds of characters, illustrative styles spanning several decades) and created a rich, intelligent, sprawling work which communicates – and perhaps, for some, […]

Handspring Puppet Company are best known in the UK for their key contribution to the multi-award-winning NT production War Horse. Their earlier production Woyzeck on the Highveld – here restaged by director Luc de Wit, produced by a international conglomerate of festivals, and presented here under the auspices of UK Arts International, Puppet Centre Trust and Barbican’s BITE […]

It is the Führer’s 56th birthday, his downfall is imminent, and unease festers in the air of his Berlin Bunker. Stuffed Puppets’ Neville Tranter portrays Adolf’s subservient valet and takes us through a cavalcade of infamous figures, from Eva Braun to Goering and Goebbels, in the puppets he manipulates. Each is a self-obsessed caricature, manifested in […]