After years of decline and mismanagement, the Royal Shakespeare Company is staking it all on a cycle of the complete works. But is it now too late to regain the one principle that gave the RSC meaning—a national ensemble of…

He was a master of the flimsy trifle, but 100 years after his birth the best of them still flourish

I am an excellent pianist. The only snag is that I don't play very well

Herb Greer on a fine production of a flawed musical which proves that literature and theatre are very different things.

Too many opera directors display contempt for audiences and composers in their eccentric adaptations. We need more powerful intendants

Peter Hall has had another big bust-up, this time with his old friend the impresario Bill Kenwright. But he is still a national treasure

What happens to superannuated critics? They become judges at international drama festivals. Few are as bizarre as the one just held in the historic heart of the Ukraine

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and not John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, was the greatest mid-century influence on British theatre

The modern cult of the victim was foreshadowed by American playwrights in the 1940s. Blanche DuBois is the classic victim heroine and is almost beyond Jessica Lange

Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre is about to join the big time. Herb Greer looks back on 40 years of achievement and welcomes the company's latest production

Edward Pearce enjoyed "The House" and now wants to run Covent Garden