Arifa Akbar

Arifa Akbar What must it have felt like to watch Sarah Kane's final play, whose depressed protagonist plots imminent suicide, knowing that the playwright killed herself the previous year?

Arifa Akbar There is abundant charm, humour and a pointed sense of play fuelling Femi Elufowoju Jr's musical drama re-centring the narratives around Africa.

Iman Qureshi’s play starts as a good, old-fashioned underdog story before exploring sexuality, homophobia and trans identity

Luke Brady is the hero navigating between godliness and humanness in a show that’s big on booming numbers yet short on emotion

Rebecca Frecknall’s usually bold directorial hand seems stilled in a glacially paced revival co-starring Michael Shannon and David Threlfall

Arifa Akbar Rebecca Frecknall has given some surprising spins to the American canon with her refreshing and untraditional revivals.

Arifa Akbar Outdoor theatre is by nature vulnerable to the weather, but there is a sense of a grand coincidence when an almighty storm whips

From Van Gogh’s starry skies to the nocturnal workings of Louise Bourgeois and Patricia Highsmith, sleepless nights have long inspired heightened creativity. Could those artistic impulses actually help us to sleep?

Zegler excels as Eva Perón and the crowds outside are used to capture the hypnotic appeal of populism but the narrative takes a backseat in his staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical

Arifa Akbar Director Jamie Lloyd has outraged some theatregoers, who evidently feel short-changed after paying good money to see Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón.