Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse. Photo: Johan Persson

In a final season that includes some big names, including Jude Law, Ruth Wilson, Douglas Hodge, Karen Gillan and Eddie Redmayne, it’s Law and Wilson up first in a new production of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie (until 8 October 2011).

Eugene O’Neill’s epic, Pulitzer prize winning play is directed by Donmar associate Rob Ashford, fresh from directing Shrek The Musical at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and with design is by Paul Wills, whose Donmar productions include The Man Who Had All The Luck and Novecento.

Both Jude Law and Ruth Wilson are returning to the Donmar after performances in 2009: Law in Hamlet for the Donmar West End season and Ruth Wilson in A Streetcar Named Desire.

So what did the critics think? See our round-up of reviews, below.

Bruce Norris (centre) picks up his Olivier Award for Best New Play, posing with Eddie Redmayne and Lesley Manville

The prestigious award for drama was announced alongside the other prizes at a press conference today, 18 April 2011. The prizes will be awarded at a luncheon in late May in the Low Library on the Columbia University campus.

The Prize comes after the play has won every major Best Play award in the UK, including an Olivier Award, Evening Standard Theatre Award and South Bank Sky Arts Award.

The Pulitzer awards committee said that Clybourne Park was “a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness.”

It beat nominated plays A Free Man of Color by John Guare and Detroit by Lisa D’Amour. Last year’s prize went to Broadway rock musical Next to Normal, with music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey.

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is awarded to a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life. The prize is $10,000.

Clybourne Park is running in London for a strictly limited season at the Wyndham’s Theatre, staring Sophie Thompson and Stephen Campbell Moore, and is directed by Dominic Cooke. Bruce Norris’s bitingly funny satire is about property and racial tensions in America. The first act is set in 1959, when a black family buys a house in a white Chicago suburb. Act two sees the actors take on different roles and the story reverse to the same house but in 2009. The modern-day neighbourhood is now predominantly black, and a white couple are trying to buy the same house.

LINKS

TICKETS: Book tickets to Clybourne Park at the Wyndham’s Theatre
NEWS: More News on Clybourne Park
AWARDS: Pulitzer Prize for Drama – past winners
AWARDS: The Pulitzer Prize website

Sheridan Smith in Flare Path

This spring Trevor Nunn revives Terence Rattigan’s wartime romance Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, timed to celebrate the centenary of the acclaimed playwright. An all-star cast leads this compelling new production, including Sienna Miller (The Edge of Love) as Patricia, James Purefoy (HBO’s Rome) as Peter, Sheridan Smith (Legally Blonde) as Doris, Joe Armstrong as Dusty, Sarah Crowden as Mrs Oakes and Clive Woods as Swanson.

Set near an airfield in Lincolnshire in 1942, the year the play was written and first performed, Rattigan’s drama involves love and heartache between an actress, a young bomber pilot and a famous movie heartthrob. The revival runs at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 4 March 2011.

Read reviews, below, from the Times, Telegraph, Independent, Guardian and Daily Mail.

LINKS

Book tickets to Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
Flare Path: photos
Flare Path: More news

Ben Goddard (Jerry Lee Lewis), Robert Britton Lyons (Carl Perkins), Gez Gerrard (Jay Perkins/Bass), Derek Hagen (Johnny Cash) & Michael Malarkey (Elvis Presley) in Million Dollar Quartet. Photo: Helen Maybanks

Million Dollar Quartet is the hugely successful Broadway musical that has now made its way to the West End’s Noel Coward Theatre.

It tells the electrifying story of one night in 1956 when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis all came together to make music in the recording studio of Sun Records’ producer Sam Phillips.

The stars of the show, including Bill Ward as Sam Phillips, Ben Goddard as Jerry Lee Lewis, Derek Hagen as Johnny Cash, Robert Britton Lyons as Carl Perkins and Michael Malarkey as Elvis Presley, all get great notices from the critics, particularly Ben Goddard.

Whilst the book of the show comes in for some criticism, the music and performances more than makes up for it.

Read extracts of reviews, below, from the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent and Evening Standard.

Book tickets to Million Dollar Quartet at the Noel Coward Theatre

Elisabeth Moss in The Children's Hour

An all-star cast features in Ian Rickson’s revival of Lillian Hellman’s 1930′s play The Children’s Hour at the Comedy Theatre.

The critics are impressed with the star turns put in by Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss and Keira Knightley, but  the superlatives are reserved for newcomer Bryony Hannah, who plays the accuser Mary.

There is critical musing on whether The Children’s Hour is simply not a good enough play, and too much of a melodrama, to be revived and hailed as relevant for our times, but universal praise for Ian Rickson’s accomplished and beautiful production.

See our round ups of the Guardian, Independent, Times, Telegraphy and Daily Mail reviews, below.

Book tickets to The Children’s Hour at the Comedy Theatre in London

LINKS

Photos: The Children’s Hour

News: Ellen Burstyn to make London debut

Official Releases: Final booking for The Children’s Hour

Sophie Thompson and Lorna Brown in Clybourne Park

A terrific cast, including Sophie Thompson, star in Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris’s award-winning play directed by Dominic Cooke, that gets a well-deserved transfer from the Royal Court into the West End.

This bitingly funny play about property and racial tensions in America sees the first act set in 1959, when a black family buys a house in a white Chicago suburb. Act two sees the actors take on different roles and the story reverse to the same house but in 2009. The modern-day neighbourhood is now predominantly black, and a white couple are trying to buy the same house.

The cast is singled out for special praise, particularly Sophie Thompson, Stuart McQuarrie, Sarah Goldberg, Stephen Campbell Moore, Lucian Msamati and Lorna Brown.

The play is shockingly funny and the critics loved it as much the second time round as the first. The play has been winning every Best Play gong going, including the Evening Standard awards, and is tipped to do well at next month’s Olivier Awards.

See reviews below from the Telegraph, Guardian, Times, Evening Standard and Independent.

Book tickets to Clybourne Park at the Wyndham’s Theatre in London

Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark

After reporting earlier this week that New York critics were starting to get jumpy about being kept away from Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark at the Foxwoods Theatre in New York, despite the fact that thousands of people have already seen the show, Monday saw the gloves finally come off.

The endlessly postponed official first night, which was to finally be Monday 7 February, was postponed again. This proved too much for critics, including the all-powerful Ben Brantley of the New York Times, and UK critics who had booked their flights and were not going to rebook for anyone!

$65 million dollars is a lot to spend on a musical, and it’s safe to say that the show is nothing less than a phenomenon in the US, but not necessarily for all the right reasons.

The critics who have filed reviews so far did not hold back, with all of the majors we highlight below damning the show in pretty much every regard.

Whether their opinions will mean much to a show that is doing great weekly business at the box-office is hard to say, although much of the hype is built on the injuries and problems that have plagued the show rather than any kind of artistic or entertainment merit.

Book tickets to Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark at the Foxwoods Theatre in New York.

Book tickets to The Rivals at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

Book tickets to End of the Rainbow at the Trafalgar Studios

Book tickets to FELA! at the National Theatre