Articles By Anne McElvoy
April 2019
Joshua Harmon’s new play about the struggle to get into top American universities could not be more timely
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2019
The classic Tartuffe transposed to Highgate provides a witty commentary on post-crash London
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
February 2019
New plays on Broadway and at the Royal Court take on gay coming of age and corporal punishment
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
February 2019
The brave dissident East German singer and songwriter still standing up for freedom
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December 2018 / January 2019
A new play about a bereaved London Caribbean family avoids the preachiness of much contemporary drama
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2018
George Gershwin’s masterpiece is revealed in all its splendour by ENO’s sprightly new co-production
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2018
Stephen Karam’s Broadway hit about a family at the mercy of the market resonates in London too
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2018
The American director Bartlett Sher has restaged two classical musicals with style and panache
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2018
Little theatres like the Donmar and Jermyn Street are important venues for attracting new audiences
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2018
The rap musical Hamilton reminds us that shakedowns and steamy liaisons are far from new in US politics
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2018
A Congreve classic revival and a new play tackle societal mores and the battle of the sexes 200 years apart
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2018
The hit musical is going on tour, demonstrating a success that eludes the National Theatre’s Shakespeare
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2018
The National Theatre’s former director is giving it stiff competition further down the Thames
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
February 2018
A new production of The Birthday Party emphasises its roots in the grim reality of post-war Britain
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December 2017 / January 2018
The Old Vic is tarnished by its refusal to face the truth about its former artistic director
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2017
A drama about the Middle East peace process and a Sondheim revival explore wasted opportunities
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2017
Stockard Channing is now lighting up the London landscape that was shaped by the late Sir Peter Hall
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2017
James Graham catches the atmosphere of Sixties tabloid jounalism in his new play about Murdoch’s Sun
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2017
The National Theatre’s new play about Enclosure is a dud, unlike On The Town in Regent’s Park
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2017
Jez Butterworth pulls off a first at the Royal Court — a play that doesn’t blame Mrs Thatcher for everything
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2017
The memoir of the National Theatre's former artistic director is absorbing, insouciant and amusing
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2017
Daniel Radcliffe puts Potter behind him as Rosencrantz in the Old Vic’s revival of a youthful masterpiece
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2017
A new play charting the SDP’s attempt to reshape UK politics is, fittingly, all talk and little action
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2017
A movie star’s Broadway outing in Stephen Sondheim’s musical revival attains pointillist perfection
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December/January 2016/17
Harriet Walter as Prospero and Glenda Jackson as Lear redress Shakespeare’s gender imbalance
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2016
From the Easter Rising in Dublin to Lenin and Joyce in Zurich, revolution is a gift to the dramatist
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2016
The director Polly Findlay shows once again her ability to invest a classic play with a modern sensibility
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2016
Harry Potter takes to the stage in an enjoyable romp with enough twists for both parents and children
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2016
Serial killer, misanthrope, misogynist — Richard III gives Ralph Fiennes plenty to work with
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2016
Sunset Boulevard was a splendid vehicle for a Hollywood star to bring a tearful audience to their feet
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2016
Britain changed hugely between The Caretaker and Billy Elliot but some themes seem oddly familiar
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2016
Dominic Dromgoole bids farewell to a lively decade at the Globe with a relaxed and tricksy Tempest
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2016
Ralph Fiennes is ideal for Ibsen’s Solness while James Graham evokes the sad clown Screaming Lord Sutch
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
January/February 2016
Despite its political pieties, Caryl Churchill’s Here We Go is a thoughtful look at life and death
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December 2015
Harley Granville Barker upset the censor with his study of a political idealist and bedroom bounder
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2015
Rachel Cusk’s version of Euripides’s Medea boldly reworks the eternal theme of domestic disharmony
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2015
Patrick Marber cuts Turgenev back to the essentials while Cumberbatch triumphs in a muddled Hamlet
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2015
Behind the National’s interpretation of The Beaux’ Strategem is a lasting insight into marriage and money
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2015
A revival of a classic satire on social mobility, a debunking of tabloid editors, and a deflating of Boris
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2015
Mark Strong gives an award-worthy performance as a Hercules brought low in A View from the Bridge
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2015
Two productions of Antigone show the elasticity of one of the most challenging plays in the canon
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2015
Despite its intractable subject matter, The Hard Problem is an elegant and ingenious work
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
January/February 2015
Assassins is a tasteless but energetic gallop through the long roll-call of America’s obsessive killers
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December 2014
The Rivals was a flop when it premiered in 1775. Yet Sheridan's comedy of manners still delights us
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2014
Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Henry IV was not the politically correct muddle it might so easily have been
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2014
An ambitious stage version of Pat Barker’s Regeneration helps us reflect on the Great War without hectoring
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2014
Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire is the perfect vehicle for Gillian Anderson's talents
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2014
A highly-rated Broadway hit imagining Armageddon in America makes an uneasy transfer to London
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2014
Like other stage depictions of the NHS, This May Hurt a Bit worships a system in desperate need of reform
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2014
King Charles III is a "what if" play. Mike Bartlett's counterfactuals may be improbable but they do entertain
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2014
Versailles trots out Keynes’s tired arguments while 1984 mistakes Winston Smith for Edward Snowden
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2014
Tom Hiddleston was the latest big-screen heart-throb to bring Shakespeare to his adoring fans
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
January/February 2014
It was a fine year for the Bard, with David Tennant, Rory Kinnear and Jude Law impressing, but there was far more than just Shakespeare
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2013
Henry Goodman is outstanding as Arturo Ui, the German playwright's terrifying caricature of Hitler
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2013
Vicky Featherstone’s first outing as artistic director of the Royal Court is tiresome and intolerably preachy
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2013
Lucy Kirkwood's absorbing and visually ambitious Chimerica ranks as one of the year's best plays
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2013
Peter Nichols’s Passion Play is a trifle dated, but it may make you wonder anxiously where your other half is
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2013
The West End’s latest box office hits specialise in existential angst and domestic backstabbing
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2013
A double bill of Alan Bennett plays expertly transports us to a world of childhood hopes and grief
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2013
The Book of Mormon has some awful jokes but ultimately succeeds because of its affection for its subject
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2013
Revivals of Harold Pinter and Simon Stephens explore memory and the consequences of actions long ago
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
January/February 2013
Castigating conservatives on stage is now mandatory—This House at the National doesn’t, and so succeeds
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December 2012
Four Uncle Vanyas in a year is too many, but better Chekhov in Russian than ‘immersive theatre’
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2012
Scenes from an Execution proves that age cannot wither Fiona Shaw but Juliette Binoche's British debut in Mademoiselle Julie is a flop
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2012
Two new plays and one classic depict young women who are mad, bad and dangerous to know
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2012
Contemporary analogies and a strong cast can save below-par Shakespeare like Timon of Athens
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2012
The National's Antigone is politically compelling but lacks a sense of awe
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2012
Amid the fad for immersive drama, a Rattigan/Hare double-bill shows you just can’t beat good writing
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2012
Revivals from three countries explore the anxieties of superfluous men and women
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2012
A brave new play at the National challenges liberal received wisdom on multiculturalism
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2012
She Stoops to Conquer at the NT is so unsubtle as to be OTT—like many of the National’s comedies
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
January/February 2012
The death of Christa Wolf has left Germany bereft of a powerful bridge of literary consciousness, whose universal work could talk to a once-divided nation
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
January/February 2012
Peter Capaldi at the Gielgud is a scream but Lenny Henry at the National gets out of hand
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
December 2011
The wonderful story of The Pitmen Painters is spoiled by Lee Hall’s insistent left-wing moralising
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2011
The West Yorkshire Playhouse’s production of King Lear is a pacy triumph
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
October 2011
A new revival of Top Girls shows that Caryl Churchill’s Thatcherite satire retains its dramatic vigour
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
September 2011
The Donmar’s new production of Anna Christie benefits from Jude Law’s muscular energy
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
July/August 2011
Reworking a masterpiece can be a tricky business. The National Theatre succeeds with Goldoni but not with Chekhov
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
June 2011
The National’s dramatisation of the Ipswich murders is touching and telling in equal measure
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
May 2011
On the centenary of his birth, two Rattigan revivals showcase his best — and worst — work
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
April 2011
Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy casts a chink of light on social misery. Neil LaBute’s new play lets in even less
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
March 2011
The climate has changed for eco-dramas. Greenland at the National doesn’t work; The Heretic at the Royal Court does
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
November 2010
By making Elsinore a modern surveillance state, Hytner’s production has added menace
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
August 2008
Nudge is glib trickery, albeit of a very nicely spoken, bland cross-party 21st-century sort
Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below
[1]
About Anne McElvoy
Anne McElvoy is a senior editor of the Economist and a columnist for the London Evening Standard. She broadcasts regularly and presents the arts programme Free Thinking on BBC Radio 3.
Popular Standpoint topics
- The inevitability of Fortress Europe
- The way forward for Europe’s great outsider
- The devout sceptic: hope for those of little faith
- Corbyn waves the flag of anti-Semitism
- In Corbyn’s mind, there is no place for the Jews
- Corbyn's road map to a communist Britain
- Is the mental illness epidemic just a myth?
- Women storm the podium