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Every single member of society is a potential member of Chickenshed - its 2,000-strong waiting list notwithstanding. The people behind the London children's and young people's theatre company believe that [...]

Five years ago Margaret Martin, a doctor of public health in Los Angeles, with no previous professional track record in musical theatre, or for that matter any kind of theatre, [...]

According to Genesis 2: 19, God made 'every beast of the field and every bird of the air . . . and whatever the man called each living creature, that [...]

Evita HHHHI On the Third Day HIIII Elena Roger, the new Evita, the new big star discovery, was on Woman's Hour last week answering Jenni Murray's questions about Eva Peron [...]

Titus Andronicus In Praise of Love Fool for Love Employing the logic that the last time England won the World Cup it was a home match, it would make sense […]

Jan, the principal character in Tom Stoppard's sharp new play, Rock 'n' Roll, at the Royal Court, did not in 1977 go to prison in Czechoslovakia (where Stoppard was born) […]

THEATRE 2 There was a distinct whiff of PR in overdrive at the reopening of the Roundhouse in north London on Monday. As it turned out, the ratio of paparazzi […]

Much Ado About Nothing Swan, Stratford, 0870 609 1110, in rep to Oct 12. Marianne Elliott has set her new RSC production in hot, languorous Cuba. Tamsin Greig (Green Wing, […]

Sunday in the Park with George Wyndham's, London, 0870 950 0925, to July 22. Transfer to the West End for the Menier Chocolate Factory's acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim's fantasy [...]

The first half of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is generally much more thrilling than the second. By the interval, Caesar has been murdered and, aside from Mark Antony's 'lend me […]

Nancy Dell'Olio once said: 'My life is like reading three or four books a day. I always learn so much...' Well, this week I have been reading a bit about […]

Nancy Meckler's Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon - kicking off the Complete Works Festival - looks like an advert for Gucci Homme. It looks as […]

Is a thing posh just because the Queen uses it? I am referring specifically to the rubber boot Her Majesty favours. Hunter, the makers of the wellington in question, were […]

A middle class, well-to-do American mother of young children became so obsessed with the politics of play dates and sleep-overs (for those not familiar with modern kid vernacular, a play […]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Garrick, 0870 890 1104, to June 3. Christian Slater is back as McMurphy; Alex Kingston is starched, terrifying and sexy as the new Nurse […]

I have been reading about engrams. They are, according to L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, impressions in our brains caused by painful and traumatic past experiences. Anyone, believed […]

Young Isabel Haverstick is, as so preciously portrayed by Lisa Dillon in Tennessee Williams's Period of Adjustment, one of those people you can be fond of but you'd pay money […]

In the publicity posters for her new single, Stupid Girls, the singer Pink is all lathered up like a sex-kitten. She's covered in sudsy soap bubbles and bent backwards with […]

Sharon Stone, who is 48, says that once a woman is over 40, she has entered her most interesting phase. Which is nice. This woman is, she continues encouragingly, 'sexual […]

There is little so soporific as the sofa/French-window combo on a stage, especially for the modern playgoer who has become used to a proliferation of cold steel and concrete. Add […]

Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety BY JUDITH WARNER VERMILION, pounds 12.99, 327 pp T pounds 11.99 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115 Someone with insight into […]

Boy George was given what is known in the New York media as a 'Rake Break'' last week. This means that instead of going to prison for falsely reporting that [...]

Nigel Dempster, the gossip columnist, once said, with quite impressive insight, that Prince Charles doesn't have a mother - he has a Queen. This explains why, when the heir to […]

I wonder if Dr Rebecca Lamason, a scientist in Baltimore who has proved that men really, truly are more susceptible to viruses, colds and flu than women, is in any [...]

I understand completely why the woman who parked her four wheel drive in a lake last week should want to remain anonymous, and I would stand up for her right […]

Great Expectations: not just a novel by Charles Dickens but also a) what Andrew Motion clearly has in regard for our children's literary skills and b) what divorcee Melissa Miller [...]

THEATRE 1 Robert Lepage is clearly an actor, writer and director of some genius. However, a large amount of credit for his show, The Andersen Project, at the Barbican, should [...]

It is so very fortunate that unborn babies cannot read what is tattooed on the outside of their mummies' tummies. If Angelina Jolie's was able to, for instance, he or […]

Stella Feehily's new play, O Go My Man, at the Royal Court Theatre, could be the pilot for one of those edgy, late-night sit-coms with a one-word title and an […]

Why Do I Love These People?: The Families We Come From and the Families We Form BY PO BRONSON HARVILL SECKER, pounds 12.99, 381 pp T pounds 11.99 ( pounds […]

In Mike Poulton's adaptation of The Canterbury Tales at the Swan Theatre, Stratford, Chaucer (Mark Hadfield) and the Host (Barry McCarthy), dressed in rough hessian trousers and wearing foolish headgear, […]

The Rubenstein Kiss Hampstead Theatre, 020 7722 9301, to Sat. James Phillips's compelling play based on the story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who passed on nuclear secrets to the […]

The Rubenstein Kiss at the Hampstead Theatre is James Phillips's fictionalised version of the true story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a New York Jewish couple who were sent to […]

The Hypochondriac Alice Trilogy Translations Jerusalem Hypochondriacs for some reason make us laugh. You need only to go along to the Almeida to see how hilarious someone in an over-anxious [...]

Looking back at notes I made while watching Howard Brenton's new play Paul at the Cottesloe Theatre I see that I transcribed an early line spoken by Paul (Adam Godley) […]

Mark Frith, the editor of the celebrity news - some would say gossip - magazine, Heat, answered his own phone this week, which was impressive and surprising. One would have […]

The World's Biggest Diamond, a new play by Gregory Motton, at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, is a moving, painful play about two ex-lovers who are reunited towards the end [...]

Otherwise Engaged, Simon Gray's 30-year-old play revived at the Criterion and starring Richard E. Grant, is about a man who has almost 100 per cent successfully detached himself from all […]

Theatre Heroes Ducktastic Blue Eyes and Heels I Was a Beautiful Day Heroes, at Wyndham's Theatre, is a French play about three war veterans who live in a nursing home […]

Ducktastic! at the Albery Theatre Ducktastic! opens tomorrow at the Albery Theatre (0870 950 0920) in London. The show spoofs the Siegfried and Roy magic spectaculars in Las Vegas, but […]

Theatre Richard II Misery At the start of Trevor Nunn's production of Richard II at the Old Vic, what looks like a hologram of a crown is suspended within a […]

The new children's theatre in Bath is called the Egg because the auditorium is egg-shaped. This is a relief because there was always the danger that there might have been [...]

Trevor Nunn's production of Richard II opens on Tuesday at the Old Vic Theatre (to Nov 26, tickets 0870 060 6628) and the real crowd-puller here will be the theatre's […]

Theatre Nathan the Wise Hair Playing with Fire Twelfth Night Two plays and a musical opened this week with the same overall message of tolerance towards others. Working chronologically, if […]

Theatre Two Thousand Years The Philanthropist Romance On the Ceiling The lovely thing about Mike Leigh's new play, Two Thousand Years, at the Cottesloe, is that it is everything you […]