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GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Continued present importance
Oscar Wildes period piece transcends its Victorian setting and has an acute contemporary message on class and sex divides, says PETER MASON
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
A Woman of No Importance
Vaudeville Theatre, London
THIS entertaining Oscar Wilde play has been performed only once on the London stage in the past 20 years. A shame, as it’s almost as relevant in these times of social division as it was when written in 1892.
With its consideration of the status of women and its coruscating condemnation of the class system, the play was radical for its era but, partly for fear of alienating Victorian audiences, the original was amended by Wilde to reduce the amount of social commentary it contained.
Similar stories
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
It’s tiring always being viewed as the ‘wrong sort of woman,’ writes JENNA, a woman who has exited the sex industry