Latest news with #HaroldPinterTheatre
Times
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Airline pricing comes to the theatre: £5 for priority queue
After forking out £300 for a ticket, you would hope that might be the end of the cost of your trip to see Giant, a play about Roald Dahl, in the West End. You would be wrong. Theatres are taking a trick from the airlines and introducing 'extra' charges which make an already expensive night out even more costly. For those wanting to see Giant, which is on at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London until August, you can pay £5 to skip the queue to get into the venue. You can also pay £55 for the 'Gold Lounge' experience, which includes a 125ml welcome glass of champagne, a second drink, savoury nibbles, a 100g ice cream and a programme. The most expensive
Irish Independent
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Brendan Gleeson returns to the stage after 10 years to perform at Dublin's Olympia theatre
The show will run from Friday, August 8, to Saturday, September 6, this year at the Olympia Theatre. Gleeson will also make his West End debut when the play hits the stage at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London from September 12 to December 6. The Dublin actor began his career in the late 70s with the Passion Machine in Dublin's Project Arts Centre. He has gone on to star in numerous movies, including The Banshees of Inisherin, the Harry Potter series, Paddington 2, and Braveheart. 'Conor McPherson's The Weir is one of the rarest plays around,' the 70-year-old said. 'The last time I appeared on stage was ten years ago, at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, where I started my career. 'I can't wait to be back there, and then to play in the West End for the first time, at the beautiful Pinter Theatre – and to work with Conor on his profoundly moving, inspiring and ultimately hopeful play.' Conor McPherson added: 'I can hardly believe it's thirty years since I wrote The Weir – and about thirty years since I first met the wonderful Brendan Gleeson. 'It's an absolute honour to bring this play to life again with one of the great titans of Irish acting. 'I'm hugely looking forward to directing my play for the very first time and sharing this production with audiences in Dublin and in London very soon.' The Weir centres around the stories shared by four local men who meet a woman in an isolated pub in rural Ireland on a stormy night. It won an Olivier Award when it premiered at the Royal Court in London and has been performed all over the world, including at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2022. 'Along with a multitude of theatregoers, I was spellbound by The Weir when it first premiered at the Royal Court,' Theatrical producer, Kate Horton said. 'I've since been granted three wishes; to have Conor agree to direct his own masterpiece for the first time, for the magnificent Brendan Gleeson to agree to lead the cast, and for the brilliant Anne Clarke to join me as co-producer. 'The Weir is a beautiful play about human connection, the endurance of hope and the essential power of storytelling. It will be a joy to share this production with audiences.' Anne Clarke added: 'I remember where I was when Kate called to tell me she had been working with Conor McPherson on a new production of The Weir, and that Brendan Gleeson had agreed to play Jack. 'I had been lucky enough to work with Brendan before, when he played Dinny in The Walworth Farce at the 3Olympia Theatre alongside his sons Brian and Domhnall, and the thought of working with him on Conor's sublime play was a thrill. 'It promises to be hugely special, and I can't wait for audiences in both Dublin and London to see it.'
Bloomberg
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Bloomberg
How Giant, a Provocative New Play, Tackles Roald Dahl's Antisemitism
The summer of 1983 was a tough time to be—and to be around—Roald Dahl, according to Mark Rosenblatt, whose play about the iconic author, Giant, has just opened at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End. Dahl, then 66, was recently divorced; his fiancée was renovating his home, so he was living amid a construction mess while working on edits of The Witches; and the press was tearing him apart for a review he penned about a book on the 1982 Israel-Lebanon conflict. His essay went beyond criticism of Israeli actions and was widely denounced as antisemitic. 'Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers,' Dahl wrote.
Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Giant review — John Lithgow's Roald Dahl conquers the West End
★★★★★Are we likely to see a more enthralling play in the West End this year? I very much doubt it. In fact, we'll be lucky to encounter a more thought-provoking piece in the next decade. Mark Rosenblatt's debut drama, first seen at the Royal Court last autumn, really is that good. Nicholas Hytner's immaculately paced production arrives at the Harold Pinter Theatre trailing a clutch of Olivier awards, and with the American actor John Lithgow reprising his incandescent portrayal of children's author Roald Dahl as an unforgettable mixture of wit, charm, bully and unfiltered antisemite. With the war in Gaza still making news, Rosenblatt's study could hardly be more timely. If the TV drama Adolescence did a solid job of catching the zeitgeist,
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Funny, shocking and thought-provoking: John Lithgow's towering performance brings the big unfriendly giant who was Roald Dahl back to life in the West End
Giant (Harold Pinter Theatre) Verdict: Shock and awe Anyone familiar with Roald Dahl 's beloved children's story The BFG will know that not all giants are Big and Friendly. Not least this enormously tall, hugely imaginative, massively successful giant of a writer. In the course of Mark Rosenblatt's bold, brilliant dramatic portrait of Dahl, he reveals him to be both less and more: a monstrously complicated, immensely flawed, childlike human being, paradoxically overflowing with infinite compassion and unrepentant hatred. John Lithgow, in a transcendent performance that has won awards (and will doubtless win more) towers magnificently over proceedings as Dahl: initially witty and impish, but little by little growing into his true self — a gigantic bully as grotesque as one of his own creations. The play's setting is real. In 1983, Dahl wrote a blatantly antisemitic book review condemning the action of the Israeli forces on Beirut in 1982. Halfway into the piece, he says: 'Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much pitied victims to barbarous murderers. 'It proved incendiary, prompting death threats against the author and necessitating police protection outside the country house he shared with his fiancée, Liccy (played here by Rachael Stirling, sensible and Sloaney, expertly massaging his back and his ego). The situation is an invention. His British publisher, Tom Maschler (a delightfully laid back Elliot Levey, an 'anglicised' Jew who cares more about sales than politics) and a representative of his U.S. publishers, Jessie Stone (American actress Aya Cash, passionate, appalled but politely defending the will of people of Israel from that of the Israeli government) arrive for lunch to ask him to apologise. The play poses many questions, including that old one about whether art should be judged by the character of the artist. Which was easy to answer until the moment when Dahl rings a journalist to discuss his review and casually comments: 'Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.' Over the course of two hours, Rosenblatt's exposé of Dahl becomes a reflection of the unresolvable conflicts devastating our world today. Funny, shocking, thought-provoking, controversial, superbly staged (Nick Hytner) and performed, this play is all that theatre should be. Essential viewing.
