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 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...
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, 2001, p. ix - xviii.
x
Paul Taylor in The Independent likened it to having your whole head held...
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.
qtd. in
Barnes, Anthony. “She’s British and the Toast of Broadway. Can you name her?”. The Independent, 6 June 2004.
In England Frozen won two...
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, 5 Oct. 2012.

Timeline

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Texts

Billington, Michael. “White Teeth review—Zadie Smith’s ’multiculti’ melting pot boils over”. theguardian.com.