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Byline: melanie mcdonagh What's the first thing you think of when you hear the name George Bernard Shaw? Fabianism? My Fair Lady? - a film which came from his play, [...]

Byline: Chris Harvey Seven years ago, the playwright Dennis Kelly wrote the cult TV series Utopia, in which a mysterious new virus emerges across the world. It's labelled 'Russian flu', [...]

Byline: Theatre Dominic Cavendish theatre critic Beat the Devil The Bridge, London **** How's this for a rude reawakening? After more than five months of our theatres staying firmly, sadly [...]

Byline: Michael Hogan This week marks 50 years since the death of actor Arthur Leslie. He may no longer be a household name but Leslie certainly was during the Sixties [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish Few people can claim to have usefully alerted millions to the existence of Dominic Cummings. But that's exactly what playwright James Graham did last year with his [...]

Staged BBC ONE, 10.45PM & 11.00PM; NI, 11.15PM & 11.30PM ? Lockdown has produced some impressive responses from television and stage dramatists, Jeff Pope's Isolation Stories on ITV and BBC [...]

DONALD HOWARTH, who has died aged 88, was the last of the 'angry young men' who revolutionised British theatre at the Royal Court in the late 1950s. He was a [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish's great Armchair Arts theatrical speeches Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949) Looking back from the end of the 20th century to the 1949 premiere of Death [...]

Sir Michael Codron, theatrical producer, is 90; Mr Ray Illingworth, Manager, England cricket team, 1995-1996; former England cricket captain, 88; Dr Robert Stevens, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, 1993-2001, 87; [...]

STAGED BBC One, 10.45pm & 11.00pm; NI, 11.15pm & 11.45pm Lockdown has produced some impressive responses from television and stage dramatists, Jeff Pope's Isolation Stories on ITV and BBC Four's [...]

Miss Moira Anderson, singer, is 82; Dame Margaret Drabble, author, 81; Lord Rooker, Chairman, Food Standards Agency, 2009-13,79; Mr Nigel Rees, journalist and broadcaster, 76; Sir David Hare, playwright and [...]

LARRY KRAMER, who has died aged 84, was an American dramatist whose play The Normal Heart, an autobiographical tale of an angry young man fighting to warn the authorities and [...]

Unpredecented BBC FOUR, 10.00PM ? Another nimble reaction to the lockdown, this three-part compendium sees celebrated playwrights team up with more than 50 actors to perform short plays, shot in [...]

Byline: with Dominic Cavendish For three decades, Sir Alan Ayckbourn entertained London's theatreland like no other playwright. He packed out houses, made audiences cry with laughter, amassed awards. Every year [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish Should Shakespeare be available in child-friendly versions before they tackle the real thing? Children's author Michael Morpurgo thinks so. The War Horse author has announced his latest [...]

WOMEN these days only get married 'for the dress' because it's 'easy to be single and independent', according to Maureen Lipman. The 74-year-old, who was married to dramatist Jack Rosenthal [...]

Byline: Armchair Arts Dominic Cavendish's great theatrical speeches Lena's defence of Walter in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) When Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun opened [...]

Today: Sir John MacDermott, a former Lord Justice of Appeal of Northern Ireland, is 93; Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a former Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, 91; Prof Sir Alistair [...]

Byline: Armchair Arts Dominic Cavendish's great theatrical speeches Johnny 'Rooster' Byron's towering final speech in Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem (2009) Few young playwrights achieve the kind of overnight success Jez Butterworth [...]

MrSonnyRamadhin,former WestIndiescricketer,is91;Mr NaimAttaIlah,publisher,89;Sir BobReid,companychairman,86; ProfPhillipKing,sculptor; President,RoyalAcademyofArts, 1999-2004;86;MrIanCurteis, dramatist,85;MrJulianMitchell, writer,85;MissUnaStubbs, actress,83;SirJohnWheeler, formerConservativeGovernment Minister,80;MissJoanna Lumley,actress,74;ProfPaul Wright,ProfessorofProsthetic Dentistry,BartsandTheLondon SchoolofMedicineandDentistry, QueenMary,Universityof London,2000-ll,nowEmeritus, 74;SirGordonGreenidge,former WestIndiescricketer,69;Mr AntonyWorrallThompson,chef andrestaurateur,69;LordJustice Lewison68;SirPeterSmith,a formerHighCourtJudge,68;Mr ArchieNorman,businessmanand formerpolitician;Chairman,Marks andSpencer,66;SirMichael Stevens,KeeperofthePrivy Purse,62;MrJusticeHilliard, RecorderofLondon,2015-19,61; [...]

Byline: Armchair Arts Dominic Cavendish's great theatrical speeches Sir's 'storm' tirade from The Dresser by Ronald Harwood (1980) 'Backstage plays never do well,' John Gielgud tactlessly advised Ronald Harwood when [...]

TERENCE FRISBY, who has died aged 87, may not have occupied the front rank of playwrights who emerged in the 1960s, such as Tom Stoppard or Alan Bennett, but he [...]

Today: Dame Catherine Tizard, Governor-General of New Zealand, 1990-96, is 89; Mr Trevor Griffiths, playwright, 85; Sir Hugh Duberly, Lord-Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire, 2003-17,78; Prof Sir David Melville, Vice-Chancellor ofthe University [...]

By Dalya Alberge OSCAR WILDE consulted a fortune teller who predicted his early death, according to an Italian interview overlooked by biographers until now. In that account, published in 1908, [...]

Byline: Armchair Arts Setting the scene with Tim Robey Each weekday, we'll bring you expert analysis, recommendations and practical advice from some of our leading writers. Monday Rupert Christiansen's guide [...]

Byline: Robert Dingwall All infectious disease outbreaks generate three social epidemics - of fear, explanation and action. The last describes the pressure to 'do something', however pointless or irrelevant. The [...]

Byline: Olivia Lidbury 'There's nothing Mum doesn't know about my life' Nina Shenkman and her mother Jet Jet Shenkman, 59, (previous page) is the creative director and founder of Eponine, [...]

IN WHICH WE SERVE 1942, b/w BBC Two, 4.35pm Playwright Noel Coward turned to film editor David Lean to co-direct this thrilling story of the sinking of HMS Kelly as [...]

Byline: Gyles Brandreth The great Irish playwright Sean O'Casey summed it up nicely in Juno and the Paycock: 'The whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis.' Quite so. But, [...]

Byline: rowan pelling Every dramatist worth their salt knows the local boozer is the symbolic beating heart of our society - just look at the Queen Vic, Rovers Return and [...]

As we approach the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, we also approach the 75th anniversary of one of the most magnificent films made in Britain about the war, during the [...]

Byline: Kathryn Harkup It must be extremely stressful being a playwright in a city where disease is spreading through the population, claiming lives and threatening your livelihood by shutting theatres. [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish Theatre On Blueberry Hill Trafalgar Studios, London SW1 **** Aprison cell, a bunk bed, two men talking. But not to each other. On Blueberry Hill is worlds [...]

Byline: Craig Simpson JULIAN FELLOWES believes his opinions were 'automatically discounted' when he turned 70 and that dismissing the views of older people is a mistake. The writer of Downton [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish I THINK WE ARE ALONE An ingenious, compelling play by Sally Abbott - presented by ever-buoyant touring company Frantic Assembly - looking with humour and pathos at [...]

Byline: Mark Monahan In 2015, the Canadian duo of contemporary choreographer Crystal Pite and dramatist Jonathon Young, together with Pite's company, Kidd Pivot, unleashed their new show Betroffenheit. A borderline-genius [...]

Sir Everton Weekes, former West Indies cricketer, is 95; Sir Michael Perry, former company chairman, 86; Mr Paul Anderson, Olympic sailing bronze medallist, Mexico 1968; Vice President, Special Olympics Great [...]

Byline: GREGORY DORAN Earlier this month, this paper's theatre critic, Dominic Cavendish, wrote an article where he argued that 'woke' sensibilities regarding Shakespeare may ultimately result in his getting 'cancelled', [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish 'A ghetto street. A lamppost. Night' ... The scene-setting (scripted) description for Antoinette Nwandu's 2017 play refers to a place of harshness, isolation and (we will learn) [...]

Byline: Craig Simpson MORE women than men have written plays for the National Theatre for the first time since its pledge to ensure gender parity. In the year ahead, female [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish Bridge Theatre, London SE1 ..... London is enjoying a mini-season of plays by Caryl Churchill - minimal in length but maximal in implication, each attesting to the [...]

Miss Zoe Gail, actress and singer, is 100; Major Alexander Trotter, Lord-Lieutenant for Berwickshire, 2000-14, 81; Mr Jimmy Greaves, former England footballer and broadcaster, 80; Sir David O'Dowd, Chief Inspector [...]

Byline: ?oe ?trimpel The man who brought us Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of the great living British playwrights. Getting to see a new Tom Stoppard [...]

1. THEATRE HEATRE The he Upstart pstart Crow This live spin-off of Ben Elton's sitcom picks up where the series left off, and sees David Mitchell make his West End [...]

Byline: **** By Ben Lawrence Life was good in 2000, and as a callow twentysomething I took mild exception to Caryl Churchill's elliptical depiction of a world heading towards the [...]

Byline: Dominic Cavendish So here it is. Tom Stoppard's last play. Very possibly. Britain's greatest living dramatist has said that Leopoldstadt is likely to be the end of the road [...]

BARRIE KEEFFE, who has died of a heart attack aged 74, was a theatre and television writer who scored his only cinema hit with The Long Good Friday. The 1979 [...]

Byline: Tumbledown CHARLES WOOD, who has died aged 87, was a soldier turned dramatist whose sardonic plays and scripts examined the gulf between pretension and reality in the Armed Forces [...]

Byline: Eleanor Halls Before Tom Stoppard was the nation's greatest living dramatist, he was a motoring critic. He also couldn't drive. 'I reviewed the upholstery,' Stoppard flippantly reassured The New [...]

Byline: Phoebe Southworth SIR TOM STOPPARD, Britain's most celebrated living playwright, believes he may have written his last work. The 82-year-old has said that Leopoldstadt, which tells the story of [...]