Text of the day: “I think we all have a problem with what it is to be England at the moment.”

The death of David Bowie provokes the Critic to take a trip down the motorways and side alleys of memory

In their companion play to Death of England, Roy Williams and Clint Dyer explore the world of Michael’s best mate — and how

Bad stuff and change in a time of pandemic: a derivative lockdown poem

Princess Diana’s BBC soul-searching, and Martin Bashir's comeuppance, make for a rather slender docu-drama

New monologue about rage, racism and national identity is magnificent in its fury and perception: grreeaatt!

Return of the emotionally intense exploration of Palestinian identity — both personal and political

Earlier in the week, I watched the Blackeyed Theatre’s touring version of the classic Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of Four.

Billie Piper stars in Enron playwright Lucy Prebble’s stimulating, compelling and moving love story

Non-white cast bring a new energy to this revival of Lucy Prebble’s contemporary classic, but is it enough?

Unrelenting trauma: Ivo van Hove’s stage version of Hanya Yanagihara’s bestseller is a real misery fest

The poet laureate’s verbatim play about Brexit sinks into journalistic and untheatrical banality

Has the recent growth in reviews and reviewers gone too far?

Maxine Peake struggles to make the voice of reason heard in a rather reactionary feminist history play

Collection of four monologues is free-thinkingly transgressive, politically incorrect and thoroughly delightful

Censorship appears to be simple, but is actually quite complicated.

Triumphant, if crude, West End transfer of a heartfelt account of a Renaissance woman who has been hidden from history

Frantic Assembly’s latest is a moving meditation on war and masculinity — thanks to playwright Anna Jordan

At the end of last week, I went to see Picture a Day Like This, the fourth and latest collaboration between composer George Benjamin and writer Martin Crimp, which premiered at Aix…

The longest-running play in world history is in good shape, despite the lackluster and mechanical cast

Masterly revival of Inua Ellams’s 2016 autobiographical one-man show is both poetic and engaging

Playwright or director? Who is ultimately responsible for a piece of theatre? Our Critic attempts to find out

The love affair between playwright and actor lasted far beyond their early divorce

Text of the day: “I don’t personally know any Jew who doesn’t want a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.”

In the Brexit era, this site-specific revival of Agatha Christie’s 1953 courtroom drama works like a treat

Favourite stage direction: “The funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth II goes past.”

Can the stranglehold of naturalism and social realism in British theatre ever be broken?

More overviews of British new writing from the In-Yer-Face Theatre archive.

New play about the life of Jimmy Savile combines factual documentary with the fictional story of one of his victims

Take an imaginative ride through 400 years of British theatre with our fictional guides

Julia Pascal’s new play is an epic story of Jewish identity from Dublin to Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s

It’s not often that I get to say a heartfelt thank you to any newspaper, but I really must acknowledge the good work of the Guardian, and especially its arts website.

Fear, fury and fun in a new monologue that is a shout out for trans and non-gender-conforming rights

The Royal Court’s international season continues with savage Ukrainian play about women and war

Populist show is now on its sixth cast, but despite some noisy shocks it fails to chill the blood

Here is a sample from the introduction to my latest book about postwar British theatre — an alternative history

Roy Williams and Clint Dyer bring their monologue sequence to a triumphant conclusion — terrific!

Ryan Calais Cameron does it again: he portrays the male black British experience with joy as well as pain

Text of the day: “Seventy-eight goats!”

Feminist account of British imperialism is energetic and passionate, but rather slender — is it a play or a lecture?

Effortlessly and energetically entertaining: debut play about football and gentrification is pitch perfect

Explore the work of a handful of British theatre’s brightest and most exciting writing talents

One-man show about a rough sleeper is a rather puerile and cynical piece of soft socialism

Quote of the month: “Biographers like to attribute the turns in Shakespeare’s career to his psychological state (so he must have been in and out of love when writing comedies and s…

Martin Crimp’s Not One of These People has been staged using help from AI — but what does AI think of the show?

This time, I have time travelled with my companion Lia Ghilardi, crossing four hundred years of British theatre history.

Artificial Intelligence is much hyped — but can it review a theatre show?

Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestseller about Shakespeare’s wife and son is moving, but pedestrian

Ten prompts for writing about the year 2020

Text of the day: “Well... I kind of hate any writing that’s even vaguely autobiographical.”

Quote of the day: “Teh Internet Is Serious Business gives us a special insight into the raging hornets’ nests of anonymous (and Anonymous) chatrooms and imageboards, staying true t…