Reviews (or things people have said)
anthropology
Hampstead Theatre
‘An intriguing, inventive new play… fizzingly intelligent’ The Times
‘No chatbot could surely ever write anything as original and compelling' The Guardian
‘A highly original, beautifully written piece’ Daily Mail
‘An atmospheric and philosophically resonant piece’ The Telegraph
‘Acidly funny’ Evening Standard
‘A sleek, well-acted production’ The Upcoming
‘Grippingly watchable’ London Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
‘An intriguing, inventive new play… fizzingly intelligent’ The Times
‘No chatbot could surely ever write anything as original and compelling' The Guardian
‘A highly original, beautifully written piece’ Daily Mail
‘An atmospheric and philosophically resonant piece’ The Telegraph
‘Acidly funny’ Evening Standard
‘A sleek, well-acted production’ The Upcoming
‘Grippingly watchable’ London Theatre
Photograph 51
Ensemble Theatre, Sydney
Sydney Morning Herald * * * *
"Director Anna Ledwich's compelling production." John Shand
Broadway World
"Under Anna Ledwich's direction, this is a powerful piece of theatre." Jade Kops
Sydney Arts Guide
"Anna Ledwich directs a very fine production...her direction is assured and taut". David Kary
State of the Arts * * * * 1/2
"Directed by Anna Ledwich the show is one of the most memorable I've seen all year."Tolga Canbulat
Ensemble Theatre, Sydney
Sydney Morning Herald * * * *
"Director Anna Ledwich's compelling production." John Shand
Broadway World
"Under Anna Ledwich's direction, this is a powerful piece of theatre." Jade Kops
Sydney Arts Guide
"Anna Ledwich directs a very fine production...her direction is assured and taut". David Kary
State of the Arts * * * * 1/2
"Directed by Anna Ledwich the show is one of the most memorable I've seen all year."Tolga Canbulat
Dry Powder
Hampstead Theatre Main Stage
The Times * * * *
"Anna Ledwich directs with the pace of stiletto heels walking into a boardroom, tap-tap-tap...Slick, staccato and of-the-moment, this was a guilty pleasure." Ann Treneman
Daily Mail * * * *
"This 100-minute midtown-Manhattan tingler zips along and is slickly staged by Anna Ledwich." Quentin Letts
The Daily Telegraph
"Anna Ledwich’s slick production, in which characters enter through a back wall of revolving mirrors to the strains of a harpsichord, as though they are players in a courtly dance, nods to Restoration comedy." Claire Allfree
The Independent
"Anna Ledwich directs a slick, gleaming, snappily-acted production." Paul Taylor
Broadway World * * * *
"Crisply directed by Anna Ledwich." Marianka Swain
Theatre Cat * * * *
"“It is barkingly funny, played with quartet precision under Anna Ledwich’s direction." Libby Purves
Hampstead Theatre Main Stage
The Times * * * *
"Anna Ledwich directs with the pace of stiletto heels walking into a boardroom, tap-tap-tap...Slick, staccato and of-the-moment, this was a guilty pleasure." Ann Treneman
Daily Mail * * * *
"This 100-minute midtown-Manhattan tingler zips along and is slickly staged by Anna Ledwich." Quentin Letts
The Daily Telegraph
"Anna Ledwich’s slick production, in which characters enter through a back wall of revolving mirrors to the strains of a harpsichord, as though they are players in a courtly dance, nods to Restoration comedy." Claire Allfree
The Independent
"Anna Ledwich directs a slick, gleaming, snappily-acted production." Paul Taylor
Broadway World * * * *
"Crisply directed by Anna Ledwich." Marianka Swain
Theatre Cat * * * *
"“It is barkingly funny, played with quartet precision under Anna Ledwich’s direction." Libby Purves
Kiss Me
Trafalgar Studios
The Independent
"Anna Ledwich's meticulous, beautifully acted production." Paul Taylor
The Guardian
"Anna Ledwich’s tender production brings out the comedy and the pathos. The initial, entirely silent setup scene, is a little miracle of revelations."
Lyn Gardner
The Telegraph
"Anna Ledwich's finely tuned production finds real tenderness in the emotional collision between two lost souls." Claire Allfree
Time Out * * * *
"This is a well-crafted chamber piece given a straightforward yet tender staging by Anna Ledwich." Theo Bosanquet
Trafalgar Studios
The Independent
"Anna Ledwich's meticulous, beautifully acted production." Paul Taylor
The Guardian
"Anna Ledwich’s tender production brings out the comedy and the pathos. The initial, entirely silent setup scene, is a little miracle of revelations."
Lyn Gardner
The Telegraph
"Anna Ledwich's finely tuned production finds real tenderness in the emotional collision between two lost souls." Claire Allfree
Time Out * * * *
"This is a well-crafted chamber piece given a straightforward yet tender staging by Anna Ledwich." Theo Bosanquet
Labyrinth
Hampstead Theatre Main Stage
The Times * * * *
"There’s a great vroom vroom to this play, an energy that lifts it out of the ordinary. The director Anna Ledwich keeps mixing things up... Jagged music discombobulates, people appear out of nowhere, some scenes are paranoiac, others full of fire-in-the-blood swagger." Ann Treneman
The Guardian * * * *
"Racily exciting work...Played on a wide traverse stage, Anna Ledwich’s production has a hurtling energy." Michael Billington
The Telegraph * * * *
"Richly researched, it’s insistently useful and almost indecently entertaining. Anna Ledwich moves everything along at the pace of the Nasdaq data-feed" Dominic Cavendish
Daily Mail * * * *
"Anna Ledwich’s production enters fully into the carnival spirit... It also sets up a story which is in thrall to these glamorous lowlifes... a great night out." Patrick Marmion
Hampstead Theatre Main Stage
The Times * * * *
"There’s a great vroom vroom to this play, an energy that lifts it out of the ordinary. The director Anna Ledwich keeps mixing things up... Jagged music discombobulates, people appear out of nowhere, some scenes are paranoiac, others full of fire-in-the-blood swagger." Ann Treneman
The Guardian * * * *
"Racily exciting work...Played on a wide traverse stage, Anna Ledwich’s production has a hurtling energy." Michael Billington
The Telegraph * * * *
"Richly researched, it’s insistently useful and almost indecently entertaining. Anna Ledwich moves everything along at the pace of the Nasdaq data-feed" Dominic Cavendish
Daily Mail * * * *
"Anna Ledwich’s production enters fully into the carnival spirit... It also sets up a story which is in thrall to these glamorous lowlifes... a great night out." Patrick Marmion
Four Minutes Twelve Seconds
Trafalgar Studios/Hampstead Theatre
The Times * * * * *
CRITIC'S CHOICE, Top 10 plays of 2015
"A thoroughly modern morality tale that also turns into a psychological thriller... Anna Ledwich has paced it perfectly, the acting is faultless. It’s the story that matters here and it is riveting." Ann Treneman
The Sunday Times * * * *
CRITIC'S CHOICE
"Turns on a drip-drip-drip of unease about the digital age...ferociously funny."
The Guardian * * * *
"Often shockingly funny and full of little ambiguities...This is a punchy, thoughtful evening that gets an intense, claustrophobic production from Anna Ledwich and boasts a quartet of fine performances." Lyn Gardner
Evening Standard * * * *
"A well-merited transfer... Anna Ledwich's pared-back production provides the perfect complement to the tightly coiled script. There’s no fussing with props or scene changes, the better to allow us to focus on the mounting impact of the words." Fiona Mountford
WhatsOnStage * * * *
"Compelling and complex.. Anna Ledwich's snappy staging lets the twists and turns land, echoing the ambiguity with a succession of reversals." Matt Trueman
Trafalgar Studios/Hampstead Theatre
The Times * * * * *
CRITIC'S CHOICE, Top 10 plays of 2015
"A thoroughly modern morality tale that also turns into a psychological thriller... Anna Ledwich has paced it perfectly, the acting is faultless. It’s the story that matters here and it is riveting." Ann Treneman
The Sunday Times * * * *
CRITIC'S CHOICE
"Turns on a drip-drip-drip of unease about the digital age...ferociously funny."
The Guardian * * * *
"Often shockingly funny and full of little ambiguities...This is a punchy, thoughtful evening that gets an intense, claustrophobic production from Anna Ledwich and boasts a quartet of fine performances." Lyn Gardner
Evening Standard * * * *
"A well-merited transfer... Anna Ledwich's pared-back production provides the perfect complement to the tightly coiled script. There’s no fussing with props or scene changes, the better to allow us to focus on the mounting impact of the words." Fiona Mountford
WhatsOnStage * * * *
"Compelling and complex.. Anna Ledwich's snappy staging lets the twists and turns land, echoing the ambiguity with a succession of reversals." Matt Trueman
The Stick House
Raucous Collective/Lo-co Klub
The Guardian * * * *
"Anna Ledwich’s production piles on atmosphere, and the mingling of performance with technology is brilliantly unobtrusive and effective." Lyn Gardner
The Bristol Post * * * * *
" A wonderful, sinister, piece of theatre." Steve Mellen
Bristol 24/7
"With the aid of magical technology and a stunning level of inventiveness, designer Conor Murphy and director Anna Ledwich have created a dreamscape made real, a complete world which wraps itself around the audience as they move from one space to another...The Stick House needs to be added to the roster of this year’s ‘must see’ events. It is theatre like you’ve never experienced before." Toby O'Connor Morse
Raucous Collective/Lo-co Klub
The Guardian * * * *
"Anna Ledwich’s production piles on atmosphere, and the mingling of performance with technology is brilliantly unobtrusive and effective." Lyn Gardner
The Bristol Post * * * * *
" A wonderful, sinister, piece of theatre." Steve Mellen
Bristol 24/7
"With the aid of magical technology and a stunning level of inventiveness, designer Conor Murphy and director Anna Ledwich have created a dreamscape made real, a complete world which wraps itself around the audience as they move from one space to another...The Stick House needs to be added to the roster of this year’s ‘must see’ events. It is theatre like you’ve never experienced before." Toby O'Connor Morse
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How Does a Snake Shed Its Skin?
National Theatre Studio/BAC/Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe The Independent * * * * "Sparkily funny ....warm hearted and intelligent." Holly Williams Exeunt * * * * "a celebratory fruitcake with barely a hint of citrus bitterness." Alice Saville The Scotsman "gloriously anarchic and messy." Sally Stott |
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Blue Remembered Hills
Theatre On The Fly at Chichester Festival Theatre
Daily Telegraph * * * *
"Anna Ledwich's production achieves an ideal fusion if design, direction and performance... The cast is uniformly excellent...The door framed vista of the park lends a particular enchantment to this magical production and Ledwich uses the space with dazzling ingenuity." Jane Shilling
The Observer
"Anna Ledwich's stage direction troubles the boundaries between fiction and reality by exploiting the possibilities offered by the temporary wooden theatre designed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Chichester's Festival theatre. From a dirt-strewn stage rises a glade of blue scaffolding "trees"; lightbulbs dangle between the "branches". Beyond these, in the place where the back wall would normally stand, a gaping space gives the audience a clear view over the green field of Oaklands Park. The action flows between these two spaces as precisely playful performances devastatingly convey a tragic tale of childhood innocence lost... As this lucid production demonstrates, we see in disconcerting simultaneous vision, not just the adults these children will become but also the grown-ups who have deformed their childhood. As embodied by this excellent ensemble, it is profoundly unsettling." Clare Brennan
Photograph: Donald Cooper
Dream Story
Gate Theatre
The Times * * * *
"Impressively dramatised by Anna Ledwich...Ledwich powerfully recreates Schnitzler's tale of passion and healing wisdom...Her astonishing achievement is to create disconcerting episodes with a cast of only four actors." Jeremy Kingston
The Guardian * * * *
"Anna Ledwich's new production shows that, when sex, dreams and shame are invoked, plenty can still be revealed about the human animal. Ledwich has turned the novella into a cool but nightmarish four-hander, which draws us into its antihero's sexual imagination with miasmic effectiveness...Under her precise direction his panic is keenly felt. In Ledwich's potent production the cast are uniformly strong...Helen Goddard's claustrophobic set and Adrienne Quartly's disorientating soundscape heighten the sickliness as fears and desires swarm into life." Brian Logan
The Spectator
"Anna Ledwich adapts another bewildering masterpiece sprung from the intellectual turmoil of Old Europe. Schnitzler’s Dream Story may be better known now as the basis for Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, but Ledwich’s version is more faithful to the old fashioned Freudianism of the original...Ledwich’s production enthralls...[she] knows exactly how to play with our erotic aesthetics...we’re easily implicated in the intimacy of the erotic exploitation on stage. And the supposed resolution is deeply unsettling, ensuring that Ledwich’s production will haunt you long after you’ve left the theatre." Kate Maltby
Gate Theatre
The Times * * * *
"Impressively dramatised by Anna Ledwich...Ledwich powerfully recreates Schnitzler's tale of passion and healing wisdom...Her astonishing achievement is to create disconcerting episodes with a cast of only four actors." Jeremy Kingston
The Guardian * * * *
"Anna Ledwich's new production shows that, when sex, dreams and shame are invoked, plenty can still be revealed about the human animal. Ledwich has turned the novella into a cool but nightmarish four-hander, which draws us into its antihero's sexual imagination with miasmic effectiveness...Under her precise direction his panic is keenly felt. In Ledwich's potent production the cast are uniformly strong...Helen Goddard's claustrophobic set and Adrienne Quartly's disorientating soundscape heighten the sickliness as fears and desires swarm into life." Brian Logan
The Spectator
"Anna Ledwich adapts another bewildering masterpiece sprung from the intellectual turmoil of Old Europe. Schnitzler’s Dream Story may be better known now as the basis for Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, but Ledwich’s version is more faithful to the old fashioned Freudianism of the original...Ledwich’s production enthralls...[she] knows exactly how to play with our erotic aesthetics...we’re easily implicated in the intimacy of the erotic exploitation on stage. And the supposed resolution is deeply unsettling, ensuring that Ledwich’s production will haunt you long after you’ve left the theatre." Kate Maltby
Photograph: Tristram Kenton
LULU
Gate Theatre/Headlong
The Guardian * * * *
“Ledwich’s production is compelling, even if it makes for an uncomfortable evening of comi-tragedy that casts the audience as voyeurs in a spiralling masturbatory nightmare...there is a great deal to admire, not least in Helen Goddard’s design, which conjures the peep show and perhaps the abattoir, too, as befits the play’s shocking ending...in Sinead Matthew’s performance this Lulu is a wonder: so greedy for life, trailing such throaty laughter that she dazzles like a mirage. Ledwich's production is compelling…[Lulu] is brought into sharper focus than usual in this intelligent, compressed version of Wedekind's original two plays.” Lyn Gardner
The Times * * * *
"Anna Ledwich [steers] a fine cast through her almost fiendishly, incisive script with a gratifyingly sure hand...
Sinead Matthews is…sensationally apt casting...Lulu is such a multifaceted character that the clarity they bring to her story can be thrilling, especially in the confines of a venue the size of a shoebox...Credit can be shared with the designer Helen Goddard, whose set of rough wood, curtains and stretched canvas is peeled back in layers as the play progresses. The atmosphere of squalid intimacy this production conjures is just right.” Donald Hutera
Gate Theatre/Headlong
The Guardian * * * *
“Ledwich’s production is compelling, even if it makes for an uncomfortable evening of comi-tragedy that casts the audience as voyeurs in a spiralling masturbatory nightmare...there is a great deal to admire, not least in Helen Goddard’s design, which conjures the peep show and perhaps the abattoir, too, as befits the play’s shocking ending...in Sinead Matthew’s performance this Lulu is a wonder: so greedy for life, trailing such throaty laughter that she dazzles like a mirage. Ledwich's production is compelling…[Lulu] is brought into sharper focus than usual in this intelligent, compressed version of Wedekind's original two plays.” Lyn Gardner
The Times * * * *
"Anna Ledwich [steers] a fine cast through her almost fiendishly, incisive script with a gratifyingly sure hand...
Sinead Matthews is…sensationally apt casting...Lulu is such a multifaceted character that the clarity they bring to her story can be thrilling, especially in the confines of a venue the size of a shoebox...Credit can be shared with the designer Helen Goddard, whose set of rough wood, curtains and stretched canvas is peeled back in layers as the play progresses. The atmosphere of squalid intimacy this production conjures is just right.” Donald Hutera
The Sunday Times * * * *
CRITIC'S CHOICE
“Wedekind’s famous play, so scandalous in its time, gets a powerful adaptation and shocking and moving production from Anna Ledwich. Sinead Matthews plays Lulu like an angel from hell. Do not miss...Lulu (Sinead Matthews) is her own prisoner, a predator and a victim, innocent and cunning, on heat but cold inside...This is more than an adaptation...it’s a reimagination. Ledwich directs with an impeccable sense of darkness [and] Matthews gives a brilliant performance, thrilling, shocking and moving.” John Peter
CRITIC'S CHOICE
“Wedekind’s famous play, so scandalous in its time, gets a powerful adaptation and shocking and moving production from Anna Ledwich. Sinead Matthews plays Lulu like an angel from hell. Do not miss...Lulu (Sinead Matthews) is her own prisoner, a predator and a victim, innocent and cunning, on heat but cold inside...This is more than an adaptation...it’s a reimagination. Ledwich directs with an impeccable sense of darkness [and] Matthews gives a brilliant performance, thrilling, shocking and moving.” John Peter
The Independent on Sunday
“Flickering between callous materialism, panic and seemingly genuine love, this Lulu is made to seem mercurially complex...Sinead Matthews’s pint-size Lulu is interesting casting, disturbingly like a little girl imitating MTV tarts, or Marilyn Monroe...Helen Goddard’s makeshift set – all rough planks, scaffolding and plastic sheeting – is oddly beautiful, softly side-lit by Emma Chapman...Anna Ledwich is one to watch.” Kate Bassett
“Flickering between callous materialism, panic and seemingly genuine love, this Lulu is made to seem mercurially complex...Sinead Matthews’s pint-size Lulu is interesting casting, disturbingly like a little girl imitating MTV tarts, or Marilyn Monroe...Helen Goddard’s makeshift set – all rough planks, scaffolding and plastic sheeting – is oddly beautiful, softly side-lit by Emma Chapman...Anna Ledwich is one to watch.” Kate Bassett
Lovely & Misfit
Trafalgar Studios
The Daily Telegraph * * * *
"Lovely & Misfit turns out to be an unexpected pleasure and a genuinely enlightening glimpse into Tennessee Williams's art and heart...fascinating and touching...All credit to the excellent director Anna Ledwich for giving these short, unexpectedly resonant plays such a welcome outing." Charles Spencer
Trafalgar Studios
The Daily Telegraph * * * *
"Lovely & Misfit turns out to be an unexpected pleasure and a genuinely enlightening glimpse into Tennessee Williams's art and heart...fascinating and touching...All credit to the excellent director Anna Ledwich for giving these short, unexpectedly resonant plays such a welcome outing." Charles Spencer
The Sunday Times * * * *
CRITIC'S CHOICE
"These three one-acters by Tennessee Williams, recently discovered, are like unexpected gifts bequeathed by a long departed friend...the acting is excellent: precise, deeply felt and entirely unsentimental. " John Peter
CRITIC'S CHOICE
"These three one-acters by Tennessee Williams, recently discovered, are like unexpected gifts bequeathed by a long departed friend...the acting is excellent: precise, deeply felt and entirely unsentimental. " John Peter
Metro * * * *
"Anna Ledwich's production is an excellently staged opportunity to witness Tennessee Williams's emerging theatrical voice...a superbly sensitive portrait of a hidden world." Claire Allfree
"Anna Ledwich's production is an excellently staged opportunity to witness Tennessee Williams's emerging theatrical voice...a superbly sensitive portrait of a hidden world." Claire Allfree