Pete Postlethwaite has called the production of King Lear in which he is starring "misjudged". Photograph: Tristram Kenton

What happens when a play gets bad reviews? It's one thing when critics savage it, quite another when your own cast is questioning what you're doing.

That is exactly the situation Rupert Goold seems to have found himself in during the last few weeks, with his production of King Lear at Liverpool's Everyman. In what might count as one of the year's more surprising interviews, Pete Postlethwaite went on Radio 4 last night to announce that, far from defending the production, he was on the critics' side. "I'm not averse to criticism," he said, "particularly when it's well-founded". Oof. Continue reading...

Before the festive onslaught begins ... Wig Out! opens this week at the Royal Court. Photograph: Royal Court

With today's G2 feature on festive frolics it seems a good time to be planning your Christmas entertainment. Those allergic to panto dames will be pleased to hear that there is plenty of non-tinsel theatre over the coming season. This week alone sees a number of major openings including Neil LaBute's In a Dark House at the Almeida, August: Osage Country at the National, and The Pride and Wig Out! at the Royal Court.

Looking ahead into December, it's worth remembering that the really good pantos will sell out. Along with Mother Goose at Hackney Empire, your best bets are Oxford Playhouse, Theatre Royal, York, and Nottingham Playhouse. The Theatre Royal Stratford East effort has been a major disappointment in recent years, but maybe Hansel and Gretel will be a return to form. Phil Willmott meanwhile, has written and directed Aladdin at the Corn Exchange in Newbury. Continue reading...

Time for the ugly sisters to make their annual appearance. Photograph: Graham Turner

So Christmas is once again lurching towards us with all the stealth of a Salvation Army band and as I look around at what the arts have to offer I'm left with the same nagging question I have every year – how do we manage to make art about Christmas so boring?

There are few spaces as bizarrely, brilliantly theatrical as a city at Christmas. Fairylights and Christmas trees, nativity scenes and fat men in red suits, chocolate and fake snow and thirty-year-old pop songs, mistletoe and automated musical elves. Walking down the street is to be swept along in a tidal wave of contradictory signs and images; pagan and Christian mythology, fizzy soft drinks convinced they are the true spirit of the season, German markets, American pop culture and the unthinking celebration of a month and a half of unrestrained consumption. Continue reading...

Kathryn Evans as Norma Desmond in the Watermill's production of Sunset Boulevard. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

When they're not busy bemoaning John Sergeant's steps, what do Strictly Come Dancing judges do? Arlene Phillips has choreographed the insanely appealing Flashdance and is executive producer of the ITV series Britannia High; Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli spend half their year in the US, spouting their special brand of optimistic nonsense on Dancing With the Stars. But the acerbic Craig Revel Horwood is the busiest of all. So far this year, he has launched his autobiography, appeared as a judge on Dancing With the Stars in New Zealand and directed the dance spectacular Flamenco Flamen'ka at the Lyric. Now his revival of Sunset Boulevard is heading back to the West End.
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Footsbarn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed in Edinburgh this summer. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Are Shakespeare's plays more than their poetry? They must be – otherwise we would read them, not act them. If, for British audiences, it is the poetry that is paramount, then no one would ever go to see a foreign-language Shakespeare production. Yet we do in our thousands.

Shakespeare wasn't just a poet; he was also a brilliant and demanding playwright. Some of the best Shakespeare productions I've seen were in Romanian, Russian and Spanish – languages of which I have little or no knowledge. I may not speak Russian, but the acting was so luminous in Declan Donnellan's Twelfth Night that I felt as if I understood every word. Tim Supple's recent Dream mixed languages from around the globe with the language of physical theatre. And the late, great Ken Campbell performed Shakespeare in pidgin.

The reviews of Footsbarn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in east London's Victoria Park suggest that there remains a resistance to English-speaking productions of Shakespeare in which the emphasis is not entirely on the poetry or indeed the text. One reviewer, after pointing out some of the international cast's difficulties with the language, wrote: "The children in the audience and their parents loved it ... how reassuring it must be to think that you can enjoy Shakespeare without knowing Shakespeare, without even listening." Continue reading...

Michael Douglas as trader Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an English-speaking actor in Tokyo? Of course you have. Now, thanks to the Praxis Theatre blog, you can find out. This guest post by Benjamin Johnson describes some of the conditions that western performers would be likely to face should they decide to emigrate to Japan. According to Johnson: "the English-speaking actor in Tokyo is essentially a model paid to draw attention to products. Film and TV work is basically nonexistent, save for extra work and embarrassing guest appearances on variety shows ... [and] as far as I can tell there's not a single theatre job to be had for an English speaker in this town of 30 million people." It makes being an actor in the UK sound positively easy.

But let's head south now, from Tokyo to Australia, and join Alison Croggon. In recent months, Alison has been particularly concerned with the debacle surrounding an exhibition earlier this year by the Australian photographer Bill Henson. Henson caused a storm of controversy when he included in his exhibition some images of a nude 13-year-old girl. His work was confiscated by the police and he has become something of a national pariah. All this despite the fact that, on investigation, the New South Wales Department of Public Prosecutions recommended that no charges should be made and the Office of Film and Literature Classification declared the images "mild and justified" and gave them a PG rating. Continue reading...

Stanley in Joe Silovsky's The Jester of Tonga

We've all seen actors give a mechanical performance, but imagine, if you will, the great advantages of a mechanical performer. A robot actor wouldn't ask "what's my motivation?" It wouldn't demand high salaries, pull sickies or seduce fragile ingénues (unless those ingénues had a very particular kink).

Actually, many an ingénue might fall for Stanley, the adorable android who makes his stage debut this week in a New York production of Joe Silovsky's The Jester of Tonga. Silovsky, a theatrical mad scientist, details the true story of American businessman, Jesse Bogdonoff, who had himself dubbed court jester to the island nation of Tonga, and subsequently lost (or, according to some reports, absconded with) some £14m of Tonga's money. Silovsky narrates while the handsome Stanley, approximately the size of a newborn baby, but with longer arms and a silvery complexion, plays Jesse Bogdonoff, the joker with the unsavoury investment practices. Though somewhat limited in expression - and entirely lacking a nose - Stanley's an attractive and affecting actor, earning much more audience empathy and amity than the devious man he represents. Continue reading...

The couple sitting in front of me were clearly not enjoying themselves. They fidgeted, chatted and giggled – and then fidgeted some more. They weren't excessively noisy, but to anyone sitting in the theatre around them it was obvious that this play was not their cup of tea. And then, about 20 minutes from the end, they abruptly got up and left, clambering over several people to do so as they were sitting mid-row.

The production in question was Mick Gordon's On Emotion, a collaboration with the neuropsychologist Paul Broks, currently playing at the Soho Theatre. It's a curious thing, admittedly, more an essay with characters attached than a play; dramatically unsatisfying despite an abundance of ideas and some strong acting from James Wilby and Mark Down. Not to mention an ace spaceman puppet by Blind Summit. It's easy to see why it might infuriate as many people as it excites. Continue reading...

The cast of Fit. Photograph: Rikki Beadle-Blair/PR

When Drill Hall Theatre, Stonewall & Homotopia suggested that I produce a play on bullying and homophobia to tour in schools, I shocked myself with my own snobbery: "I do film, TV, radio, theatre – I don't do theatre in education!" As soon as I heard that voice, I knew not only that I should write and direct the show, called Fit – but I should be in it, go on the tour and interact with audiences myself.

Far from being a penance, it's been one of the most exhilarating, worthwhile, life-changing things I have ever done. Every morning, on a tour that pinballs up, down and across this island, I wake up at 5.30am vibrating with anticipation for the day ahead. A few hours and two shows later, my head and heart are brimming with the renewed certainty that the kids of Britain are amazing. I've met 15,000 of them so far: cheeky; loud-mouthed; sarcastic; nosy; self-centred and grammatically challenged – but amazing.
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Can we learn from Obama's campaign? Yes we can. Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty

It's a safeguard of long-standing traditions: a little bit fusty, occasionally pompous and in desperate need of attracting the next generation of young, loyal supporters. No it's not the Republican party, but London's West End that should be learning lessons from Obama '08. With theatres fighting to maintain audiences and boost their finances through private contributions, they should take tips from the masterstroke of Obama's presidential campaign: its brilliant use of the web. Continue reading...

Fever pitch ... Peachy Coochy reveals the art of presentation. Photograph: Getty Images

I took myself along to Riverside Studios for an afternoon of Peachy Coochy this weekend. What the heck, you may well ask, is a Peachy Coochy? And is it as cloying and fluffy as it sounds?

Put simply, Peachy Coochy is an appropriation - or rip-off - of Pecha Kucha, a performance format created five years ago in Tokyo by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham that's gained cult followings in cities from Adelaide to Zurich.

The deal at Pecha Kucha (and Peachy Coochy) gatherings is that speakers are put in charge of a projector. Each speaker has to come up with 20 images, accompanied by 20 seconds of chatter, with which to make a visual (and verbal) presentation that lasts just under seven minutes. Continue reading...

To London Bridge's Unicorn theatre, for Belgian playwright Klaas Tindemans's play Bulger, showing as a rehearsed reading as part of a two-day symposium of European theatre for young people.

In the event, the play's title turns out to be misleading. From the outset the text makes it clear that what we are seeing is emphatically not the James Bulger murder. Rather, we are presented with a riff on themes suggested by the case in which two girls and a boy – all 10-years-old – muck about, play childish games and end up abducting a toddler who subsequently dies as a result of their actions.

For the most part, it plays more like a cross between Blue Remembered Hills and Jack Thorne's Fanny and Faggot, than anything approaching the tabloid hysteria from which the Bulger narrative emerged. Continue reading...

Jack Blumenau, Gehane Strehler and John Cockerill in Red Fortress. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

The Christmas theatre season is almost upon us and, as usual, we parents will be quite happily taking the children off to see traditional shows and pantos. As Carol Ann Duffy and Tim Supple demonstrated with Grimm Tales at the Young Vic in the 90s, once you wipe away the Disney glitter, many traditional tales are treasure troves of terror featuring murder, mutilation and horror. We don't think twice about packing our children off to see those shows – or King Lear and Titus Andronicus, for that matter – but if our kids were going to see a contemporary play featuring family breakdown, rape and cannibalism, we'd probably have them off the school coach before you could say "Sarah Kane". Continue reading...

An amateur dramatics group rehearse A Midsummer Night's Dream at Hampstead Garden Suburb theatre. Photograph: Linda Nylind

The National Operatic and Dramatic Association is outraged today on behalf of its members – the country's admirable amateur companies. NODA has taken exception to the Arts Council and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport linking up to encourage young people's interest in theatre by distributing free tickets to see excellent professional productions. NODA's chief executive Tony Gibbs fumed: "If DCMS and the Arts Council really want to encourage young people to participate in the arts, they should be focusing on funding those very young people to participate at a local level in the first instance as opposed to issuing such gimmicks." Continue reading...

Lucy Ellinson in Third Angel's Presumption at the Edinburgh festival in 2007. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

This weekend is your last chance to catch Kneehigh's Brief Encounter in the West End, and it really is worth it. Kneehigh are currently preparing for Don John, a new production based on Mozart's Don Giovanni, which opens at the RSC in Stratford in early December and will then tour the UK. I reckon the subject matter and the talents of Emma Rice and her company could be an exquisite match. If you can't wait until then, Athletes of the Heart's own take on Don Juan is at the Riverside Studios from next Friday as part of FeEast, a festival of central and eastern European arts. Continue reading...