Michael Billington

Standard Name: Billington, Michael

Connections

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Literary responses Winsome Pinnock
In 2018 critic Michael Billington described the play as insightful, honest, and shocking. Its shock was topical: audiences gasped when a character told he can escape deportation by securing his citizenship for fifty pounds bitterly...
Literary responses Gillian Slovo
Michael Billington wrote that Slovo's skillfully edited pieceasks the right questions in a way that is clear, gripping and necessary. He also wrote: It is fascinating. But is it theatre? He then answered his...
Literary responses Caryl Churchill
The author said her play was a political event, not just a theatre event.
Brown, Mark. “Royal Court acts fast with Gaza crisis play”. The Guardian.
She was proved right. The Court's artistic director said that an apolitical, escapist period in the theatre was ending: People really...
Literary responses Winsome Pinnock
Michael Billington wrote that Wine in the Wilderness is about the moral value of personal truth, while Wateris about the commercial value of artistic lies.
Billington, Michael. “White out”. theguardian.com.
Kate Kellaway discerned in this play a rage over...
Literary responses Gillian Slovo
Michael Billington found this play richly informative and utterly compelling.
Billington, Michael. “Another World review—compelling insights into Islamic State”. theguardian.com.
But Nadia Latif and Omar El-Kairy (whose own play about the radicalisation of young British Muslims, Homegrown, was banned—unjustly, said Billington) questioned the objectivity...
Literary responses Winsome Pinnock
Michael Billington in the Guardian called the whole ensemble an engrossing evening and a potent reminder that theatre, among its myriad other functions, has a mission to inform.
“Winsome Pinnock”. Playwrights.
Literary responses Caryl Churchill
Michael Billington found the final section reminiscent of Samuel Beckett. He wrote: While initially it seems slight, I find it's grown steadily in the mind since I saw it.
Billington, Michael. “Here We Go review’Caryl Churchill’s chilling reminder of our mortality”. theguardian.com.
Literary responses Pam Gems
This play brought PG 's work to the attention of critics and playgoers alike. While reviews were generally quite positive, some had difficulty accepting the play's feminist perspective. For instance, Ted Whitehead in The Spectator...
Literary responses Pam Gems
Gems called her play uterine.
Wandor, Michelene. Understudies. Methuen.
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It received mixed reviews. Michael Billington praised it as a dignified theatrical love letter, but other critics found it rambling and unfocused.
Demastes, William W., editor. British Playwrights, 1956-1995. Greenwood Press.
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Since 1977 it has seen several revivals.
Demastes, William W., editor. British Playwrights, 1956-1995. Greenwood Press.
161
Literary responses Harold Pinter
Michael Billington in his biography takes the first two poems seriously, as better than Pinter's poems of the previous year. He finds alliterative exuberance in the first
Billington, Michael. Harold Pinter. Faber and Faber.
29
and an undeniable haunting, crepuscular power in...
Literary responses Seamus Heaney
Michael Billington in the Guardian expressed dislike for the production by Lorraine Pintal , which in making tyranny generic deleted the specific and topical references, but found the words austerely memorable and the play superbly...
Literary responses Sarah Kane
This play outraged the critics, putting Kane on the news pages of tabloids as well as the arts pages of broadsheets.
Greig, David, and Sarah Kane. “Introduction”. Complete Plays, Methuen Drama, p. ix - xviii.
x
Paul Taylor in The Independent likened it to having your whole head held...
Literary responses Harold Pinter
This play met with European as well as British success and was filmed in 1963. The excellent reviews, a complete reversal from the catastrophic ones for Pinter's previous London opening, are ascribed by Michael Billington
Literary responses Sarah Kane
Michael Billington in 2005 called this his least favourite of Kane's plays. Yet he recognises its complexity. While he first saw it as a poetically allusive meditation on the obsessive nature of love, he later...
Literary responses Harold Pinter
Bernard Levin called the play, in a revival of 1978, unendurable.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
93
In the ODNB a quarter-century later, Michael Billington called it a rich climax to Pinter's naturalistic writing for the theatre.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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