Reviews

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Kindertransport ★★★★

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Kindertransport ★★★★

Diane Samuels’ landmark drama remains ever powerful in this imaginative anniversary production. It’s 25 years since Diane Samuels’ powerful drama first moved audiences, with something that was new to many. Since then the story of the Kindertransport children has entered public consciousness, thanks to…

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Checkpoint Chana ★★★

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Checkpoint Chana ★★★

A lively, telling exploration of the current debate around perceptions of antisemitism. In his timely play,  Jeff Page asks when pro-Palestinian criticism of Israel crosses the line to become antisemitism. Celebrated poet Bev seems to have crossed that line, judging from the Twitter storm aroused by Checkpoint Chana…

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Returning to Haifa ★★★★

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Returning to Haifa ★★★★

A vivid parable personalising the cost of years of conflict. Had he not been killed by a car bomb in 1972, aged just 36, Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Kanafani would have been an octogenarian. What would the highly-respected writer of the novella…

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Smile Upon Us, Lord ★★★★

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Smile Upon Us, Lord ★★★★

Travelling hopefully on a Jewish road trip. Celebrated Lithuanian director Rimas Tuminas grew up alongside Jewish compatriots and his familiarity with Jewish life and custom informs this glorious evocation. Smile Upon Us, Lord, which Tuminas adapted…

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Julius Caesar ★★★★

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Julius Caesar ★★★★

Nicholas Hytner's timely full-blooded production. Julius Caesar is perhaps Shakespeare’s most topical play right now. Nick Hytner’s modern-dress production for The Bridge Theatre, follows the RSC’s 2017/18 Roman-dress version. A populist leader adored by the populace

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Rothschild and Sons ★★★

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Rothschild and Sons ★★★

Feisty musical account of the founding of a golden dynasty. Five years after Sheldon Harnick and the late Jerry Bock struck gold with Fiddler on the Roof, they turned to Mayer Rothschild. Specifically the story of how he and his five sons transmuted the poverty of the ghetto…

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The Birthday Party ★★★★

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The Birthday Party ★★★★

Pitch-perfect Pinter in unnerving seaside fun at 60. Is it an accolade if your name becomes an adjective to describe your work as playwright? Brechtian is (perhaps lazy) shorthand for alienation and Pinteresque for menacing. Unsettling menace may permeate…

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East ★★★★

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East ★★★★

Berkoff’s dark exuberant hymn to London’s East End has lost none of its transgressive power. East first shocked and delighted audiences in 1975 and in Jessica Lazar’s production for Atticist Theatre it has lost none of its power. Her five actors relish Berkoff’s marriage of precisely choreographed physical theatre…

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Another year, another phenomenal Limmud Festival

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Another year, another phenomenal Limmud Festival

Going to Limmud Festival is always a source of wonderment: 2,500 delegates of all ages – from under one year old to over 90 – met at Pendigo Lake in Birmingham for the third year. Hundreds of sessions were given by an international cast of presenters…