Mark Shenton
LondonTheatre.co.uk
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Mark:
Review - Peter Gynt starring James McArdle at the National Theatre
I'm not going to deny that Ibsen's Peer Gynt - here retitled Peter Gynt in David Hare's modern re-framing - is an epic slog. → Read More
How much of a part do expectations play in our experience of theatre?
OK, I admit it: I was seriously dreading Peter Gynt, which opened at the National Theatre last night. → Read More
Friday Briefing: Writing scandal blooms around Tree, and how far should trigger warnings go?
Barking up the wrong Tree? Tree, currently running as part of the Manchester International Festival at Upper Campfield Market Hall before it transfers to the Young Vic at the end of the month, was suddenly engulfed in a social media furore earlier this week, when two young writers Sarah Henley and Tori Allen-Martin posted a lengthy blog on Medium detailing how they'd been totally sidelined from… → Read More
Review - the end of history... at the Royal Court
This tender, bracing and beautiful portrait of family life is a throwback in many ways: not just because it occurs across three time spans in the recent past - from 1997 to 2007 and 2017 - but also → Read More
A chance to admire some of Broadway's greatest performers: Audra McDonald and Joanna Gleason
In a lifetime of theatregoing, it's inevitable that you accumulate a lot of favourite performances in your memory bank - and with them, you build a personal database of favoured performers in your mind, whose work you will try to never miss. And as a critic, your own words sometimes become attached to declarations about both particular performances and a performer generally. → Read More
Review - Gloria Estefan musical On Your Feet at the London Coliseum
Rhythm is gonna get you , promises the famous Gloria Estefan hit, and its not so much a promise as a threat as it blares out - very loudly - from a punchy live onstage rhythm band at the top → Read More
Prepare for yet another very Andrew Lloyd Webber summer
In 2017, Andrew Lloyd Webber became the first composer since Richard Rodgers in 1953 to have four musicals simultaneously running on Broadway, when The Phantom of the Opera (the longest-running musical of all-time there) and his most recent show School of Rock were joined by revivals of Cats and Sunset Boulevard. → Read More
Review - The Light in the Piazza at the Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall
No, it's not Mamma Mia!, the ABBA jukebox compilation threaded around an impending Greek island wedding that (as the advertising tagline has it) you alr → Read More
Review - Bitter Wheat starring John Malkovich at the Garrick Theatre
From the moment David Mamet's Bitter Wheat, a thinly-disguised portrayal of a Harvey Weinstein-like film producer's fall from grace was first announced as → Read More
Review - Afterglow at Southwark Playhouse
This import of a gay-themed play from Off-Broadway is quite an eyeful, in every sense. → Read More
Review - A Midsummer Night's Dream starring Gwendoline Christie at the Bridge Theatre
Read our review of A Midsummer Night's Dream - Bridge Theatre at The Bridge Theatre at LondonTheatre.co.uk → Read More
It may be Pride month, but theatre allows the community to stand up and be counted all year
We're in the midst of LGBT+ Pride Month - anyone visiting LondonTheatre.co.uk's twitter account may have noticed that the logo has gone rainbow-coloured there in celebration. And yes, we've come a long, long way in the 50 years since the first Pride march took place in New York in 1969 - I'm heading to New York at the end of the month to be there for Stonewall 50 - with the first London Pride… → Read More
Theatre relies on new found pleasures in the classic repertoire
New plays and musicals are the lifeblood of the theatre, endlessly renewing it and keeping it alive, but old work is its bedrock: the deep repertoire of past classics that we draw on again and again to inform the present moment through the lens of writers who've long preceded us. → Read More
Review - Wife at the Kiln Theatre
Read our review of Wife at Kiln Theatre at LondonTheatre.co.uk → Read More
The Week Ahead: BalletBoyz, Wife at the Kiln, and last chance to see two Broadway stars
Tonight (3rd June), the BalletBoyz swap their usual address at Sadler's Wells for a brief West End season, with the opening of Them/Us at the Vaudeville Theatre for a run to 15th June. A collaboration between the company's own dancers and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, both pieces are set to original scores and ask where we see ourselves in relation to the 'other'. → Read More
Review - Rutherford and Son at the National Theatre
Rarely-seen is all relative: Githa Sowerby's play, written in 1912, may not exactly be a theatrical standard, but it was last seen in London in 2013 in a transfer for Northern Broadsides' product → Read More
Importing more stunt casting to the West End
The West End's worst-kept secret was finally let out of the bag yesterday with the announcement that Lucie Jones is to take over as Jenna from Katharine McPhee in the West End production of Waitress from 17th June. One former reality TV star is replacing another - McPhee was a runner-up in American Idol, and Jones was a former The X Factor contestant over here. → Read More
Review - Orpheus Descending at the Menier Chocolate Factory
The ancient Greek mythical character of Orpheus is all the theatrical rage right now - he's currently on Broadway as a character in Hadestown (that originated at the National), and he's al → Read More
Review - The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson at the Park Theatre
Actor Will Barton makes the ultimate personal sacrifice in this play: he has dyed his natural dark brown hair (as evidenced by a rehearsal photograph in the programme) bright canar → Read More
Review - Henry IV Parts 1 and Part 2 and Henry V at Shakespeare's Globe
The Globe project - recreating the conditions in which Shakespeare's plays were originally performed - was originally thought to be about a desire to recreate a kind of historical accuracy; but it → Read More