“Sam Mendes and Jack Thorne have together created a brilliant piece of theatre, certainly one that’s fascinating to anyone with an interest in the industry, but equally entertaining for anyone who loves a good story.”
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"You’ll get goosebumps watching The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre – it’s a side effect of being in the company of ghosts. Jack Thorne’s deeply affecting play ... is about a lot of things...but perhaps most of all, it’s an ode to the idea that there’s beauty in the endeavour."
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" 'The Motive and the Cue' generates sufficient excitement not to require chivvying along from an outside source: the play and its players are in every way the thing."
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“It’s entertaining, with a rousing finale, but I wish ‘The Motive and the Cue’ had more of the grit and weirdness of ‘Hamlet’, not just borrowed its poetry...‘The Motive and the Cue’ may be a love letter to theatre, but in the end it feels a little too Hollywood.”
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"This is a witty, deft, touching evocation of a fascinating, fraught encounter that captures the mood of those times. "
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"This play is Thorne and Mendes's own love letter to the stage, full of both intellect and passion, clever and profoundly moving."
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“Thorne’s play does so extremely well but I suspect most people – certainly those outside the hardcore nerd demographic, those that theatres surely want to reach – are more interested in product than process.”
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“Immaculately directed by Sam Mendes, it’s a poised study of how two actors of radically different temperaments sparred in the run-up to opening night...Thorne has deftly woven the elements together, while Mendes gets first-rate performances out of his two leading players.”
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