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Michael Billington

Headshot of Michael Billington

Michael Billington has written about theatre for the Guardian since 1971. His books include The 101 Greatest Plays and State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945

May 2026

  • Michael Pennington as Claudius in Hamlet at the Gielgud theatre, London, in 1994.

    Michael Pennington was an actor of astonishing range, a wise writer and witty company

  • Photograph taken on 11 May 1951 showing an audience wearing special glasses to view a 3D stereoscopic film at the Telekinema on London’s South Bank during the Festival of Britain. Catalogue reference: Office of Works.2WWDHFE Photograph taken on 11 May 1951 showing an audience wearing special glasses to view a 3D stereoscopic film at the Telekinema on London’s South Bank during the Festival of Britain. Catalogue reference: Office of Works.

    double quotation markAs a schoolboy, I was dazzled by the Festival of Britain – but it revealed a divided nation

    Michael Billington

April 2026

  • Greg Hicks performing in Coriolanus at the Old Vic, covered in stage blood

    Ranked
    To see or not to see? Every single Shakespeare play – ranked!

  • Anthony Sher (left) and Greg Doran in 2007.

    Book of the day
    Walking Shadow by Greg Doran review – Shakespeare’s healing power

March 2026

  • Italian playwright Dario Fo tips his hat at the Edinburgh Book Festival

    Dario Fo at 100: a deliriously funny playwright with a deadly serious purpose

  • Jane Lapotaire in Pam Gems’s play at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s the Other Place, Stratford, in 1978.

    Jane Lapotaire was a sensation as Edith Piaf – and a majestic actor you’d never regret seeing on stage

January 2026

  • Adrian Lester as Henry V at the National Theatre in 2003.

    double quotation markA new Henry V is a barometer of our times – what can Shakespeare’s war play tell us amid global chaos?

    Michael Billington
    Revivals of this history play usually reflect the politics of the moment. Now a fresh RSC retelling arrives in a world of instability and fractured alliances
  • Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre

    Lovers and fighters: how Les Liaisons Dangereuses reveals the passions of Christopher Hampton

    As the writer turns 80, his masterful adaptation of the French novel is being revived at the National Theatre. It highlights his lifelong interest in political power play

    • double quotation markFrank Dunlop was a theatrical visionary and the Young Vic is his enduring legacy

      Michael Billington

    • ‘Melancholy magic’: how Judi Dench and a host of stars came under the spell of the greatest comedy in history

    • ‘As evil as Iago’: the return of Terence Rattigan’s shocking Man and Boy

November 2025

  • Tom Stoppard photographed in 2023.

    Tom Stoppard: a brilliant dramatist who always raised the temperature of the room

  • (from left) Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez in Merrily We Roll Along.

    The flop that finally flew: why did it take 40 years for Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along to soar?

  • Zoe Wanamaker (Kate Keller) and David Suchet (Joe Keller) in All My Sons by Arthur Miller @ Apollo theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue (Opening 27-05-10) Tristram Kenton 05/10 (3 Raveley Street, LONDON NW5 2HX TEL 0207 267 5550 Mob 07973 617 355)email: tristram@tristramkenton.com

    Ivo van Hove’s All My Sons extends the UK’s special relationship with Arthur Miller

  • Carmela Corbett (Sheila Birling) and Clive Francis (Mr Birling) in An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley @ Playhouse Theatre. Directed by Stephen Daldry.Designed by Ian MacNeil. (Opening 10-11-16) ©Tristram Kenton 11/16 (3 Raveley Street, LONDON NW5 2HX TEL 0207 267 5550 Mob 07973 617 355)email: tristram@tristramkenton.com

    An inspector’s calling: JB Priestley’s plea for justice echoes beyond his best-known play

October 2025

  • Prunella Scales holding a candle stick.

    Prunella Scales was a queen of comedy with a passion for classical theatre

    The actor best known as TV’s Sybil Fawlty dazzled over five decades on stage, in roles from from Shakespeare to Alan Bennett
  • Still bringing down the house … Adam Gillen and Marina Prior in Les Misérables in 2025.

    Les Misérables: a musical full of heart and hope that continues to defy its critics

    When it opened in 1985, the mighty Les Mis got some rotten reviews. Forty years on, our writer sees it afresh and producer Cameron Mackintosh reflects on the show’s spectacular success
  • Patricia Routledge in The Importance of Being Earnest at Chichester Festival theatre in 1999

    Patricia Routledge brought humanity to an array of eccentrics, from Hyacinth Bucket to Lady Bracknell

    The versatile star, who has died aged 96, portrayed absurdly pretentious and apparently grotesque characters with wonderful sympathy

September 2025

  • Sharon Small (Agave) in Bacchae at the National Theatre.

    Hit and myth: Bacchae brings into view the National’s history of revamping Greek tragedies

  • Poet and playwright Tony Harrison.

    Classics with added Yorkshire class: tributes to Tony Harrison

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