A year or two into the new millennium HP
began to get indigestion and to feel weak and exhausted. An endoscopy revealed oesophagal cancer. He planned for chemotherapy, then surgery. In February 2002 he learned...
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, 20–26 Feb. 2003, p. 16.
16
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, 29 Nov. 2015.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
qtd. in
Eisen, Kurt. “Louise Page”. British Playwrights, 1956-1995. A Research and Production Source Book, edited by William W. Demastes, Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 291-00.
293
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, 17 Apr. 2016.
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
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, 1997.
xii
Reviewers were on the whole less impressed than they had previously been by Page...
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.
qtd. in
Wandor, Michelene. Understudies. Methuen, 1981.
65
It received mixed reviews. Michael Billington
praised it as a dignified theatrical love letter, but other critics found it rambling and unfocused.
qtd. in
Demastes, William W., editor. British Playwrights, 1956-1995. Greenwood Press, 1996.
161
Since 1977 it has seen several revivals.
Demastes, William W., editor. British Playwrights, 1956-1995. Greenwood Press, 1996.
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, 2007.
29
and an undeniable haunting, crepuscular power in...
Timeline
By 13 May 2007: The director of London's National Theatre,...
Women writers item
By 13 May 2007
The director of London's National Theatre
, Nicholas Hytner
, alleged that critics (whom he called dead white men) showed misogyny in reviewing plays by women.
“Are the critics strangling theatre?”. The Guardian, 15 May 2007, pp. G2: 28 - 9.
G2: 28-9
Texts
Billington, Michael. “’Nothing is the hardest thing to do’: Guardian/NFT interview: Stephen Daldry”. Guardian Unlimited.
Billington, Michael. “A Criminal Coldness”. Country Life, pp. 94-5.
Billington, Michael. “Another World review—compelling insights into Islamic State”. theguardian.com.
Billington, Michael. “Ding Dong the Wicked review”. The Guardian.
Billington, Michael. “Fate meets human flaws”. Guardian Weekly, p. 16.
Billington, Michael. Harold Pinter. Faber and Faber, 2007.
Billington, Michael. “Her Naked Skin”. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/aug/02/theatre1.
Billington, Michael. “Here We Go review’Caryl Churchill’s chilling reminder of our mortality”. theguardian.com.
Billington, Michael. “Jeffersons Garden review—Timberlake Wertenbakers American tragedy”. theguardian.com.
Billington, Michael. “Leave Taking review—insightful and honest tale of the anguish of immigrants”. theguardian.com.
Billington, Michael. “Making drama out of the Iraq crisis”. Guardian Weekly, p. 20.
Ezard, John, and Michael Billington. “Obituary: Joan Littlewood”. Guardian Unlimited.
Billington, Michael. “Oh What a Lovely War”. Guardian Unlimited.