Michael Billington

Standard Name: Billington, Michael

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Health Harold Pinter
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.
Billington, Michael. “Jefferson’s Garden review—Timberlake Wertenbaker’s American tragedy”. theguardian.com, 10 Feb. 2015.
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, 18 Oct. 2000.
Kate Kellaway discerned in this play a rage over...
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 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. “Jefferson’s Garden review—Timberlake Wertenbaker’s 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.
Billington, Michael. “Our Ajax — review”. theguardian.com.
Billington, Michael. Peggy Ashcroft. John Murray, 1988.
Billington, Michael. Peggy Ashcroft, 1907-1991. Mandarin, 1991.
Billington, Michael. “Review of Blackbird by Claire Luckham”. Guardian Unlimited.
Billington, Michael. “Seven Jewish Children, Royal Court, London”. The Guardian.
Billington, Michael. “Tanzi Libre — review”. The Guardian, p. 45.
Billington, Michael. “The best British playwright you’ll never see”. Guardian Unlimited.
Billington, Michael. “The Burial at Thebes”. Guardian Online.
Billington, Michael. “The Lady from the Sea”. Guardian Unlimited.
Billington, Michael. “The Riots—review”. theguardian.com.
Billington, Michael. “The room that roared”. The Guardian, pp. G2: 19 - 20.
Billington, Michael. “White out”. theguardian.com.