Every couple of years an international show comes to the Barbican and blows people’s mind in the U.K. And the second day everyone goes back to doing what they used to do before (as practice, aesthetic, approach to making theatre). Have seen this “movie” a couple times already it’s almost funny 🤣

Migrants in Theatre doesn’t have an account (yet) on bluesky but this is the latest statement to put together. We are all concerned with what’s going on in this country and need the solidarity of our peers from the theatre industry. Feel free to follow us on Instagram.

10 years ago it was the Eastern European migrants, then it was Brexit. When they couldn’t use these excuses, they got obsessed with the “illegal” migration and refugees. Let’s be honest, NOTHING will satisfy these people waving the flags these days. THEY will ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING else…TO HATE!

Following the tragic death of the great Russian theatre director, Yury Butusov, the online platform StageRussia (completely independent and USA based) is running a special offer package of buying 3 recording for 15£. Proceeding will all go to the surviving family. 👇 vimeo.com/ondemand/but...

Such a tragedy - Yuri BUTUSOV, the famous theatre director who left Russia after the start of the war, drowned in Bulgaria. 💔💔 He directed The Seagull production which we watched part of the European Theatre Club during the pandemic + The Good Person of Shezhuan at the Barbican some years ago.

90% of calls for directors/assistants/trainees/resident are ALL about what the applicant can offer. Almost no meaningful thought in terms of what the theatre/institution can offer in terms of craft and artistic development for the person applying. It’s all so one sided…and uninteresting really…

I would dare to argue that THE SERVANT (1963) is the best British film ever made. 🙊

Good to see the Young Vic studio making a come back…

What the Labour government doesn’t understand is that you can’t win the argument with some voters and some communities. So many of these folks adopted a victimhood mentality and resentment - yesterday it was Brexit and EU migrants, today it’s the “illegals” , tomorrow they will find someone else…

I am really looking forward to that play that stops idealising (mostly) white working classes and also deals with the racism, xenophobia and victimisation that exists with a lot of people from these communities. Genuinely getting tired of folks finding excuses for the far right voters…

How the hell is still possible for Farage to count in politics? He’s the architect of Brexit, the biggest mistake of U.K. politics in decades. Political rivals should remind everyone that every time Farage opens his mouth. The media should do that too. Are the Brits seriously switching to Reform?

Question for my Canadian friends if they can illuminate me: P. POILIEVRE losing his seat for the first time since 2004 - isn’t this a bit strange given that the Conservative didn’t do that bad overall? Is he actually less popular than his own party?

Part of me would really want to see Canada becoming a USA state for one reason only: It will be the state with the most electors given its population and it would probably vote Democrats, hence it would become borderline impossible for the Republicans to ever win the presidency. 😂🙃😂

In a city like London, with so much offer in terms of theatre, standing out is absolutely essential. And still - almost no theatre institution has a fully shaped/assumed artistic identity. Everyone does the same - a bit of everything basically. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Trump’s assault on universities is textbook autocratic behaviour. We’ve seen this in so many other instances (Hungary, Germany în the 30s, Russia). The only chance is for ALL American universities to stand together on a matter of principle and rally popular support.

Been noticing this for years but now we have the data. Or better said - don’t follow the money, follow the studios (I reckon loads of theatres that used to produce show in their studio space stoped doing that). For eg. YV. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is an interesting discussion (although I always roll my eyes when chats about “European theatre” never make it further than Amsterdam in terms of concrete references). I would add a few things that make the difference: lack of ambition and vision (both in programming and artistic intent)

When you are reading a German play written in 1892 and outside is 2025 😀

Wait until Trump finds out the Brits regularly transfer shows from the West End to Broadway. He will put tariffs on those ones too. “The British theatre is ripping us off” 🙊😂😂

I genuinely think that one of the biggest mistake you can make as a board în the theatre world is to DELAY appointing an ARTISTIC DIRECTOR. We can look at so many examples when that happened and how various theatre institutions/festivals have slowly gone off the radar/started losing any identity.

It’s been a long time (maybe since 2019?) since I attended a show in person in the German speaking (theatre) world. 🙃

Hmm, am I mis-interpreting or there’s a risk for ACE to be abolished too given the approach they took with NHS England? If not, what’s different? It sounds a bit like a similar arms length principle?

The Olivier really need to split in two the BEST NEW PLAY category. They could have instead: 1. BEST NEW ORIGINAL PLAY. 2. BEST (ADAPTATION) PLAY. Writing a new play from scratch is a whole different thing than adapting a pre-existent material into a play…

The Canadians are the only so far to give Trump a run for its money. And funny enough I also think they have loads of cards to play (since it’s all about that these days). www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Sometimes you got to give it to the Brits - they can be charming, honourable and relied upon to do the right thing. 🙏👌🙏 Compared to the USA these days, I feel we are in paradise here in the U.K. (government discourse wise).

Imagine being Putin now and watching all that exchange. He can’t believe his luck of having two absolute idiots (POTUS and the VP) doing his bidding without him lifting a finger. That exchange is almost unbearable to watch given the consequences and tragedy that will follow….

STARMER at the WHITE HOUSE - i don’t even know if we are watching a satire, a reality show or a vomite inducing slice of reality? Every day I feel more and more like the whole world became the reality from The Emperor’s New Clothes folktale by Hans Christian Andersen…(due to one orange guy).

The Brutalist is a good movie but bloody fell, couldn’t they find to cast some Hungarian actors? I get it that you need big names for the leads but at least some of secondary character or something? Casting feels like it’s from the 1950 a bit….

I genuinely think an undercover KGB agent as USA president would have been better than Trump. At least the undercover KGB agent would have tried to keep up appearances and not give too much to Putin. Trump seems genuinely in love with Putin out of his honest convictions…

I am very un-judgemental în general but if you go on holiday to Dubai or UAE or some similar country with various forms of workers exploitation akin to modern slavery, I will judge you all day long 😂😂

It turns out that the whole AI powered future/economic growth was one huge bubble that just got burst by a small Chinese company. What a surprise!!! And huge thanks to the Chinese “socialists” for showing us how corrupt and manipulated is the capitalist system of money and wealth 😂😂😀

I keep saying this - the only way to “hurt” and “calm down” guys like Musk is their business and pockets. And the price of shares depends and fluctuates a lot on boycott movements. Do you actually think MAGA people buy Tesla and electric cars?

1. What a beautiful and moving piece from Kyle MacLachlan…and how much theatre could learn from this… (See second tweet for the rest of the piece)

Did you come across anything more DISGUSTING lately than how these “powerful” and “daring” tech billionaires are becoming doormats in front of TRUMP? They would probably sell their mothers in the market without the blink of an eye for their business to continue….

D A V I D L Y N C H 😢💔😢

You read the bio of some actors and come across stuff like “he graduated in classics at Cambridge uni in 2000 and then joined the RSC for their 2000/2001 season appearing in 5 plays”. How can this be a “normal” trajectory/progression when you didn’t even train as an actor? What world is this?

Absolutely PATHETIC to see all these “powerful” billionaires become door mats in front of Trump. If you are dismantling your DEI schemes you either: 1. Didn’t believe in them in the first place and you were enacting them for performative reasons. OR 2. They readdressed all the problems.

So much this - the many number of times I went to see Tennessee Williams staged in London (usually in abstract spaces/sets) only to be distracted by a bad (southern American) accent. It doesn’t bring anything, on the contrary, it often sounds fake and not truthful. And creatives still opt for it..🤷‍♂️

W. Faulkner Herta Muller Dostoyevsky Philip Roth Elena Ferrante

Luckily for Germany, the regional theatre houses are as exciting as the Berlin ones (in some cases even more exciting). But there’s something major going on in Berlin with the proposed arts cuts - breaking an incredibly solid and unchallenged tradition in terms of funding and purpose of the arts.

It’s only a matter of time until they make that MUSICAL about LUIGI 🙃

The German theatre system - literally the envy of the world when it comes to funding and aesthetic diversity - is facing some great challenges. Berlin theatres în this case but I wouldn’t be surprised if this repeated with other major cities….

The problem with Robert Icke is that since he became more of a playwright his directing got worse. Not a shade on playwrights, but rather a natural consequence - if you focus more on developing your skills as a writer you obviously risk neglecting the ones as a director which are quite different.

I am looking at the film medium and notice the incredible aesthetic diversity and the co-existence of various genres (even within the English speaking countries). I am looking at the theatre medium in the English speaking countries and see so much aesthetic uniformity like in no other medium. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Been thinking about this and the fact that in the last few years I didn’t come across a “killer show”. In the past I used to travel more and find some show like that on the continent probably but nowadays I am rarely able to do that.

during covid, the Schaubuhne streamed some of Ostermeier's productions with Lars Eidinger that were shown 3sat: Hamlet, Richard II, Hedda Gabler. These can still be seen on noodlemagazine's site, but unfortunately you'll have to dig through some pron. @alexistudor.bsky.social

While the Schaubuhne faces closure, a sampling of past work. Bella Figura, Yasmina Reza dir. Thomas Ostermeier, Schaubühne (2015) starring Nina Hoss! www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4tY... @alexistudor.bsky.social

From a distance, I feel one of the main differences between Us and U.K. theatre culture now is that it’s still popular to do dramas/plays in the west end (with a lot of transfers too) while on Broadway it’s basically crowded with musicals and/or huge names type of projects.

Artist development programme with @headlongtheatre.bsky.social for early career directors from outside of London. Includes £5000 bursary and 12 months of development support. Deadline for applications 10am 27th November. www.headlong.co.uk/origins