Theatre
Veronica Lee
What a journey Jamie Eastlake’s play has had: his stage adaptation (which he also directs) of Jonathan Tulloch’s book The Season Ticket began life as a three-hander in 2022, when it was performed in a social club on North Tyneside. It has had various iterations since and now – with a greatly enlarged cast and multiple storylines – it has a short West End run.The show centres on “two reprobates from Gateshead", the titular Gerry (Dean Logan) and his best mate Sewell (Jack Robertson), two unemployed young men always on the lookout for a money-making opportunity (and comically, in Sewell’s case Read more ...
aleks.sierz
This year the Royal Court is 70 years old. Yes, it’s that long since this premiere new writing venue staged its opening season, whose third play was John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, a drama which redefined British theatre. The current celebratory year kicks off with Guess How Much I Love You?, by Luke Norris, whose debut Goodbye to All That was successfully staged here in 2012. Since then, the playwright has provoked interest with several theatre and television pieces, including the BBC’s Poldark and So Here We Are at the Manchester Royal Exchange. But because he’s hardly produced more than Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Scottie Fitzgerald, the sole offspring of F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, swigs from a hip flask where she shouldn’t (she inherited the transgression gene). She’s in the room that harbours her parents’ cluttered archive, and soon she conjures their ghosts who tell us the story of their lives.Or, more accurately, some of the story of their lives, continuing a trend in biopics (Bradley Cooper’s Maestro is an example) in which we’re either assumed to know the works or to accept that the artistic achievement is less interesting than the marital strife that fuels it. Inter alia, such narratives come Read more ...
Gary Naylor
On a motorcycle, you have to slow down once you get that sinking feeling that there’s an accident on the road up ahead. Even if you’re not rubbernecking yourself, you don’t want to be going at full tilt in close proximity to those who are. I made an effort not to look past the sirens and flashing lights towards the wreckage, but sometimes it was unavoidable.I recalled such incidents in the unlikely environment of the Hotel Malmaison’s first floor corridor and again inside six of its bedrooms, the venues for Dante or Die’s revival of their immersive production I Do. It’s not like Tunde (Dauda Read more ...
Gary Naylor
In the long slide from its imperial economic might, it’s hard to make a case for finding a place for “The UK” and ‘“World-leading” in the same sentence. But we’re pretty good at pop music, particularly once you offset Sir Cliff with Johnny Hallyday. C’mon Europe, whaddya got?It’s taken a while for that to be recognised by The Establishment, eventually getting round to gonging up Sir Macca and Sir Ringo, Sir Elton and Sir Rod, Sir Mick and Sir Tom. But who exactly is Sir Ray? He certainly needs more than one name, so what’s he ever done?That Knight of the Realm is, of course, Sir Ray Davies ( Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Humour is a good way of defusing tense situations. You know, social embarrassments, personal difficulties and existential puzzles. In the wonderfully titled Eat The Rich (but maybe not me mates x), Jade Franks turns her experience of being a Scouser who survived a Cambridge university education (just, and then some) into a short, but entertaining monologue. And, having really wowed Edinburgh last year, she brings this comedy of bad manners to the studio space of the Soho Theatre. But although there’s been a bit of loose talk about this being “the new Fleabag” (could this moniker be cancelled Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Such is the USA administration’s overwhelming saturation of the news cycle that, even with the comforting presence of an ocean between, it’s hard not to find Talking Heads’ unforgettable lyric relentlessly buzzing through your brain on repeat – “And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?”. It is the mission of The American Vicarious theatre company to “... create art that challenges us to confront the gap between America’s ideals and its lived realities”. Guys, there’s never been a better time.Almost three years on from their electrifying Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley recreated Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Lawlessness and lack of accountability seem, tragically, on the verge of becoming a new American norm, so what better time to re-consider High Noon, the classic 1952 Western that forefronts issues of moral rectitude. Will Kane, the marshal who stays on in his tight-knit New Mexico community to square off against an outlaw whom he sentenced to hanging five years before, possesses a moral propriety akin to the likes of Atticus Finch. And look how often To Kill A Mockingbird lands on stage. On the face of it, you can see the sense in adapting Fred Zinnemann's four-time Oscar-winner to the Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Just weeks after the theatrical version of the cult film Paranormal Activity successfully recreated the original’s nail-shredding fear, A Ghost in Your Ear offers its own distinctive route to transcendental terror. Where Paranormal Activity – directed by Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett – leans heavily on superb stage illusions, A Ghost in Your Ear, as the title suggests, largely channels its chill factor through soundwaves. It was only going to be a matter of time till a theatre maker brought together a ghost story and binaural sound effects. Both have enjoyed increasing popularity in Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Lyle Kessler’s 1983 three-hander has embedded itself in the American repertory, attracting a Tony nomination and star casting. Here it was graced with an award-winning turn onstage from Albert Finney, who later starred in a film version. But is it more than an actors’ play?The little Jermyn Street stage brings its simmering tensions straight to your seat, as brothers Treat (Chris Walley) and Philip (Fred Woodley Evans) clash at their Philadelphia row-house. Treat, a self-styled tough guy, is a petty thief who preys on hapless pedestrians, bringing home his booty – watches, cash, jewellery – Read more ...
Heather Neill
Egad, what a simply spiffing time is to be had at the Orange Tree just now! Director Tom Littler has taken Sheridan's first play, and (with his associate Rosie Tricks) pruned and honed and moulded it into an even sparkier version of itself. The plot, the satire of manners, are still intact but now Lydia Languish, Jack Absolute, Mrs Malaprop et al inhabit the Bath, not of 1775 but 1927. This allows for a speediness of playing and a skipping pace, incorporating jazzy singing and frequent opportunities for Charleston moves, including during scene changes. There is literally never a dull Read more ...
Matt Wolf
If it's possible for snippets from live theatre to play in the mind on a perpetual loop, the London theatre during 2025 offered many such moments that I am (very happily) finding it hard to shake. I won't soon forget, for instance, the first glimpse of the furry, pint-sized Peruvian otherwise known as Paddington bear in Paddington the Musical, that rare homegrown musical painstakingly nurtured over time that spoke to the effort paid in bringing Michael Bond's creation to the stage. Amidst the bouquets that have quite properly been thrown the direction of the show's creatives - Luke Read more ...