Latest news with #LynetteLinton
Time Out
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Not Your Superwoman
The Bush Theatre under the reign of outgoing artistic director Lynette Linton has rarely been about celebrity names – on the whole she's tended to deal with them seperately in her busy freelance career. But with her time in west London coming to an end, she can afford to allow herself something a little fancy. Not Your Superwoman is a new play by Emma Dennis-Edwards – created by her and Linton – and it will star Letitia Wright – aka Black Panther herself – as Erica, daughter to Golda Rosheuvel's Joyce. In the aftermath of the death of Joyce's mother, the two find themselves paralysed about what to do with their lives next.
Telegraph
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
This devastating play is one of the cultural events of the year
Seven years ago, an unknown young director called Lynette Linton made her name overnight at the Donmar Warehouse with a blistering production of Sweat, a work by double Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Lynn Nottage. Now Linton, firmly established as one of the shining stars in the directorial firmament, returns to the scene of her triumph for a revival of Intimate Apparel – Nottage's exquisite 2003 play about a black seamstress in 1905 New York. It is another devastatingly fine production, headed by a remarkable leading performance from Samira Wiley, known to global television viewers for The Handmaid's Tale. Wiley plays Esther, a skilled and trusted maker of 'intimate apparel for ladies', who dreams of opening her own beauty parlour for black women. She lives in a 'rooming house' and is adequately content with her lot yet, at the age of 35, longs for a little romance. A mutual acquaintance leads her to start exchanging letters with one George Armstrong (Kadiff Kirwan), a Barbadian man working on the Panama Canal and George's increasingly affectionate replies to her are projected in swirling italics on the theatre's back wall. The one problem with this epistolary exchange is that Esther can neither read nor write. Fortunately, two people are particularly keen to assist with the correspondence: Esther's no-nonsense prostitute friend Mayme (Faith Omole) and her wealthy client Mrs Van Buren (Claudia Jolly). The very personal nature of Esther's work means that class and race boundaries are collapsed; one of the beautifully crafted play's many narrative strands involves tales of this rich white woman's increasingly unhappy marriage being recounted obliquely during a series of lingerie fittings. George is not the only man on Esther's radar. There is also Mr Marks (Alex Waldmann), a Jewish fabric merchant whom she visits regularly on business. There is an unmistakable frisson between this gentle pair, a flirtation via fabric, and if they cannot touch one another, they can certainly caress the Japanese silks that they both so admire. Rarely has someone brushing a hair from someone else's jacket been so exquisitely sexy. Wiley superbly suggests the emotions bubbling within Esther: pride in her work and stoic decency, as well as an overriding desire to, at last, wear her own intimate apparel to seduce the man she desires. The character is convinced that she is plain, yet when she believes that she has at last found love, her face radiates the pure beauty of happiness. All six cast members are pitch-perfect and Linton proves once more why she is so highly regarded in a production that marks a magnificent conclusion to Tim Sheader's high-achieving first season as artistic director of this boutique gem of a venue.
The Guardian
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
New play about impact of dementia on Black Britons can start ‘conversation'
Part of the creative team behind a new play about the impact of dementia on a Black British family hope it can provoke a conversation about the disease, which disproportionately affects Black Britons. Miss Myrtle's Garden is part of Lynette Linton's final season at the Bush Theatre in London, and the artistic director said the 'beautiful and heart-wrenching' production was an important opportunity to discuss the havoc dementia causes. A report released in 2022 found that Black people had a 22% higher incidence of dementia recorded than white people in the UK. The play will be directed by Linton's successor Taio Lawson and is written by Danny James King. 'Dementia, particularly in the Black community and in the Caribbean community, is a conversation that we need to talk about more,' Linton said. 'It's affecting so many people … let's talk about it now and let's give people the support they need.' Linton's final season will also feature Superwoman Schema, which stars Golda Rosheuvel and Letitia Wright as two women struggling to come to terms with the death of their family's matriarch. It's about 'what that brings out for them and their relationship as they go on this journey to to work out what her death means,' Linton said. Several of the plays in Linton's final season focus on older characters and those in middle age. As well as Superwoman Schema and Miss Myrtle's Garden, Sweetmeats looks at forbidden love between two middle-aged South Asian characters. Linton recently directed Alterations at the National Theatre, which was a revival of a play by Michael Abbensetts, the ground-breaking British-Guyanese playwright who became established in the 1970s. She said there wasn't a conscious effort to include stories about older people in the season, but she did feel more stories that revolve around middle-aged Black and Asian leads need to be created. 'What's so beautiful about Sweetmeats is it's a love story between these two elders: how often do we see a love story between characters of a certain age? 'I think that's happened because there's something about us honouring our elders at this point as well. I feel very passionate about that. I've always felt passionate about that, but Alterations has really opened that up for me.' Other plays in Linton's final season including After Sunday, which is set in a cooking class that takes place in a prison psychiatric unit; Heart Wall, Kit Withington's play about the challenges of returning home as an adult, and House of Jenin, written and performed by Alaa Shehada. Linton is taking a break after she finishes at the Bush in two weeks before returning to direct Superwoman Schema. She has been a vocal advocate for creating a more diverse theatre landscape in the UK and for 'disrupting' the established canon with new work and rediscovered pieces that go beyond the likes of Ibsen, Pinter and Miller. She said: 'It was about really looking at the canon and making a decision to tell specifically British and Irish stories with a specific focus on Black and Asian voices, so that we could go: 'Look, we are here, and our stories are deserved to be in the West End.'' Her six-year run as artistic director alongside associate director Daniel Bailey who is also leaving, has seen more than 50 plays performed that were written by British and Irish playwrights, with a particular focus on writers of colour. During the pair's tenure they won four consecutive Olivier awards for productions and earned West End runs for original work, including Red Pitch and Shifters. They also founded the Bush Young Company during the Covid lockdown, and produced Lenny Henry's debut play, August in England. Did Linton have any advice for new boss Lawson? 'Follow your instincts … and remember the people that are around you are the heartbeat of that building,' she said.
