STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
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Wooden bourgeois cliché
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
DEEPLY UNSYMPATHETIC: Kate Fleetwood (Elena Solness) and Ewan McGregor (Henry Solness) in My Master Builder / Pic: Johan Persson
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May
My Master Builder
Wyndham’s Theatre, London
★★
THE title of the new play currently showing at Wyndham’s Theatre dangerously invites comparison with the Ibsen classic on which it is loosely based. Comparisons are always odious but here would be a disservice. For, despite all its promise, My Master Builder is a disappointment.
It shouldn’t be. For a start, it’s directed by the highly experienced and accomplished Michael Grandage. Secondly, it stars Ewan McGregor, Kate Fleetwood and Elizabeth Debicki – she of The Crown. Thirdly, it uses a famed Ibsen story as its model. And lastly, it boasts Richard Kent’s stylish design, a glorious, pale steel, slatted set reaching for the stars and letting in light and seascape views to make your spirits soar.
But the difficulty with this play lies in Lila Raicek’s overwritten and somewhat pedestrian script, and in its failure convincingly to bring to life a story supposedly set in the Hamptons in 2025 but actually shaped by a long-gone society.
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