tue 12/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Tom at the Farm, Edinburgh Fringe 2025 review - desire and disgust

David Kettle

As shockingly beautiful as it is horrifyingly brutal, actor Armando Babaioff’s deeply Brazilian adaptation of thriller Tom at the Farm leaves a rancid taste in the mouth and harrowing images seared on the retina. It’s a show to shock and provoke, but also to deeply disorientate, blurring the boundaries between pain and pleasure, desire and repulsion in a way that stays with you, whether you want it to or not.

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Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - jaw-dropping theatrical ambition

David Kettle

With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across Edinburgh’s festivals, there’s no shortage of arresting stagings, innovative visuals and powerful, memorable design. (Just take Cena Brasil Internacional’s shocking Tom at the Farm as one particularly epic, raw example.)

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Every Brilliant Thing, @sohoplace review - return of the comedy about suicide that lifts the spirits

Helen Hawkins

The Fringe piece Duncan Macmillan devised with Jonny Donahoe in 2014 has since been round the world and back, finally landing in the West End. It feels as freshly minted as ever.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Beautiful Future is Coming / She's Behind You

David Kettle

The Beautiful Future is Coming, Traverse Theatre

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Good Night, Oscar, Barbican review - sad story of a Hollywood great's meltdown, with a dazzling turn by Sean Hayes

Helen Hawkins

Back in the day, when America’s late-night chat show hosts and their guests sat happily smoking as they shot the breeze for a growing audience, the most sought after guest was Oscar Levant. 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Monstering the Rocketman by Henry Naylor / Alex Berr

Veronica Lee

Monstering the Rocketman by Henry Naylor, Pleasance Dome

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Lost Lear / Consumed

David Kettle

Lost Lear, Traverse Theatre

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Make It Happen, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - tutting at naughtiness

David Kettle

You could distinctly hear the murmurs of recognition from the Edinburgh audience – responding to knowing mentions of the city’s Leith and Morningside areas, the building of Royal Bank of Scotland’s immense Gogarburn HQ, the institution’s towering greed and ambition – during James Graham’s epic new history of RBS, its single-minded CEO Fred Goodwin and the 2008 financial crisis that was unveiled at the Edinburgh International Festival.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: I'm Ready To Talk Now / RIFT

David Kettle

I’m Ready to Talk Now, Traverse Theatre

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Top Hat, Chichester Festival Theatre review - top spectacle but book tails off

Gary Naylor

After 76 years, you’d have thought they could’ve come up with a better story! Okay, that’s a cheap jibe and, given the elusive nature of really strong books in stage musicals, not quite as straightforward as meets the eye.

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Pages

Advertising feature

★★★★★

A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.
The Observer, Kate Kellaway

 

Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.

 

★★★★★

This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.
The Times, Ann Treneman

 

Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.

 

Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.


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