Royal Court Theatre
© Helen Maybanks

Royal Court Theatre

London's edgy new writing powerhouse
  • Theatre | West End
  • Sloane Square
  • Recommended
Advertising

Time Out says

London's premiere new writing theatre, the Royal Court made its name in the 1950s when it was synonymous with kitchen sink dramas and the Angry Young Men, and has scarcely looked back (in anger) since.

The commercially successful reign of Dominic Cooke was famously marked by his stated mission to acknowledge the nature of the Sloane Square theatre's audience and 'explore what it means to be middle class'. The quote probably came back to haunt him, coming to define a reign that was marked by lots of new writing from BAME playwrights, plus such towering West End transfer successes as 'Enron' and the peerless 'Jerusalem'.

Previous Royal Court artistic director Vicky Featherstone took the theatre down a much more experimental route that occasionally baffled but frequently thrilled, while still managing to score the odd transfer smash via older associates of the theatre: Jez Butterworth’s ‘The Ferryman’ was a monster of a hit. She has been succeeded by David Byrne, formerly of the New Diorama, whose tenure has only just begun at time of writing.

There are two venues, the tiny Upstairs and large Downstairs, plus a welcoming bar kitchen that's a fabulous place to visit for a gander at the cream of London's playwrights and creatives, who inexorably drift through throughout the day.

Details

Address
50-51
Sloane Square
London
SW1W 8AS
Transport:
Tube: Sloane Sq
Price:
Various
Opening hours:
Check website for tour times and show times
Do you own this business?Sign in & claim business

What’s on

The Unbelievers

4 out of 5 stars
Nicola Walker is a brilliant TV actor: her sullen, sarcastic charisma brings an automatic edge to the sundry MOR terrestrial Brit dramas – we’re talking Spooks, Last Tango in Halifax, River, The Split, Annika – in which her career has flourished. But even though she has done some great stuff on stage – notably her excellent turn in Ivo van Hove’s landmark production of A View from the Bridge – I’m not sure Nicola Walker has ever truly successfully brought her innate Nicola Walkerness to bear in a theatre role. Until now!  Nick Payne’s new Royal Court play The Unbelievers isn’t quite the home run his last one Constellations was. But its star gives a turn that is absolutely, magnificently, unfettered Nicola Walker. Her unique gift for proper nuanced acting via a deadpan grumpiness filter is harnessed to perfection as she plays a grieving mother whose sorrow and grief at the unexplained disappearance of her son has curdled into something much darker and more disturbing. The play is set in three timelines, albeit heavily jumbled up and somewhat blurred. There’s the immediate aftermath of Oscar’s disappearance, when Walker’s Miriam is terse and snappy but fundamentally reasonable in both her grief and her burning desire to make progress on the case. There’s one year on, where things are beginning to slip with her. The play opens with a scene from this timeline in which a somewhat out of it Miriam is tending to a wounded hand which has arisen from a complicated series of events...
  • Drama

Porn Play

David Byrne’s tenure at the Royal Court has undoubedly seen the return of luxury theatre to the Upstairs venue. While Sophia Chetin-Leuner is a relatively up-and-coming writer, her intriguing new drama about a young female academic addicted to violent porn is blessed with an A-list director in the shape of Josie Rourke – her first showing at the Court for aeons – a great cast headed by Ambika Mod, and even Wayne McGregor doing the movement. Needless to say it’s sold out to high heck, but remember all tickets to Royal Court Mondays go on sale on the morning of performance.
  • Drama
Advertising
London for less
    You may also like
    You may also like