Michael Billington

Standard Name: Billington, Michael

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Harold Pinter
Michael Billington suggested in the ODNB that Pinter's reputation and career might have developed differently had this play been seen by the public at the time of its completion.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Literary responses Claire Luckham
Reviewer Michael Billington felt that the plot of Blackbird had a traditional feel—that using a death to precipitate a dispute over physical and emotional ownership was, along with other elements in the play, derivative...
Literary responses Edna O'Brien
Reviewer Michael Billington especially admired the vigour and irony of O'Brien's language.
Billington, Michael. “Fate meets human flaws”. Guardian Weekly, p. 16.
16
Literary responses Louise Page
Most reviewers preferred the first part. Michael Billington , reviewing for The Guardian, praised the play as less an anti-war diatribe than a feeling of the texture of ordinary lives.
Eisen, Kurt. “Louise Page”. British Playwrights, 1956-1995. A Research and Production Source Book, edited by William W. Demastes, Greenwood Press, pp. 291-00.
293
Literary responses Frances Burney
The reanimation of FB 's comedies is a happy story. Tara Ghoshal Wallace edited A Busy Day in paperback in 1984. A fringe production performed in Bristol in 1993, then in Islington, London, in...
Literary responses Louise Page
LP was so moved that she wept as she wrote this play. She later perceived an autobiographical element in it.
Page, Louise. Plays: 1. Methuen.
xii
Reviewers were on the whole less impressed than they had previously been by Page...
Literary responses Timberlake Wertenbaker
Some reviews (from Michael Billington , for instance) were favourable; others were stinkers, complaining of melodrama and missed opportunity. Since the critics' night followed the Evening Standard theatre awards (a notoriously boozy mid-day occasion),...
Literary responses Caryl Churchill
Nearly forty years on, critic Michael Billington wrote that Owners had announced the arrival of a major talent I signally failed to recognise.
Billington, Michael. “The room that roared”. The Guardian, pp. G2: 19 - 20.
G2: 20
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 Timberlake Wertenbaker
Reviewer Michael Billington thought highly of this exciting, provocative play, in which he discerned the same epic reach as in TW 's recent radio adaptation of War and Peace.
Billington, Michael. “Jefferson’s Garden review—Timberlake Wertenbaker’s American tragedy”. theguardian.com.
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 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...
Reception Caryl Churchill
Michael Billington judged that this play felt like cramming a trunkload of ideas into a tiny case; that being too compressed for its own good made it less successful than the dazzlingLove and Information.
Billington, Michael. “Ding Dong the Wicked – review”. The Guardian.
Reception Bryony Lavery
Trevor Nunn , director of Frozen, says that BL picks the most difficult subjects and faces them head-on, and finds that the writing is wonderfully spare and wonderfully poetic.
Barnes, Anthony. “She’s British and the Toast of Broadway. Can you name her?”. The Independent.
In England Frozen won two...

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