wed 01/05/2024

Theatre Reviews

Dear England, Prince Edward Theatre review - still a winner in its new West End home

Helen Hawkins

It was interesting, in the same week that the England football team trounced Italy 3-1 in a Euros qualifier, to see Dear England again, the National Theatre smash that has just embarked on a West End run at the Prince Edward Theatre.

Read more...

Portia Coughlan, Almeida Theatre review - atmospheric revival of Marina Carr's bleak 1996 drama

Jane Edwardes

In 1994, the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin commissioned Marina Carr to write a play to celebrate its centenary. She walked the wards, met the new mothers, and wrote in a hospital study.

Read more...

The Flea, The Yard Theatre review - biting satire fails to sting

Gary Naylor

A flea bites a rat which spooks a horse which kicks a man and… an empire falls?

Read more...

Meetings, Orange Tree Theatre review - three-hander that chews on big issues

Helen Hawkins

Mustapha Matura’s 1981 play, Meetings, is still a knockout. Supply the characters with mobile phones and it could be set in the present day. 

Read more...

Hamnet, Garrick Theatre review - conventional adaptation of the bestseller drains its poetry away

Helen Hawkins

The RSC apparently has a hit on its hands with its West End transfer of Hamnet. Box office demand has already prompted an extension of the run by six weeks, until February 2024.

Read more...

Dracula: Mina's Reckoning, Festival Theatre Edinburgh review - audacious and entirely convincing

David Kettle

An all-female production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – well, kind of – that transplants the novel’s more local action to the northeast of Scotland, and finds a bloody new calling for one of its less ostentatious characters? Elgin-born writer Morna Pearson is asking a lot from Stoker purists in her bold reimagining of the iconic, endlessly retold tale for the National Theatre of Scotland.

Read more...

Dead Dad Dog, Finborough Theatre review - Scottish two-hander plays differently 35 years on, but still entertains

Gary Naylor

I know, I was there. Well, not in Edinburgh in 1985, but in Liverpool in 1981, and the pull of London and the push from home, was just as strong for me back then as it is for Eck in John McKay’s comedy Dead Dad Dog.

Read more...

Sunset Boulevard, Savoy Theatre review - Nicole Scherzinger stuns in an exceptional production

Mert Dilek

Jamie Lloyd has the gift that keeps on giving.

Read more...

Blue Mist, Royal Court review - authentic, but not entirely convincing

aleks Sierz

Multiculturalism, according to the Home Secretary, has failed, so where does that leave British Black and Asian communities? Well, certainly not silent. In Mohamed-Zain Dada’s vigorous 90-minute debut play, Blue Mist, the pronouncements of the person he calls Suella de Vil are greeted with all the contempt they deserve.

Read more...

The Changeling, Southwark Playhouse review - wild ride proves too bumpy to land all its points

Gary Naylor

Writing about the upcoming 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Theatre in The Guardian recently, the usually reliable Michael Billington made a rare misstep.

Read more...

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.


latest in today

Minority Report, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre review - ill-judg...

Towards the end of David Haig’s new adaptation of Philip...

Mitski, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - cool and quirky, yet...

It was her 2018 album Be the Cowboy which saw Mitski propelled to stardom status. Laurel Hell, which followed in 2022...

Album: EYE - Dark Light

Skirting along the peripheries of doom metal,...

Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York), Criterion Thea...

Small-scale shows, nurtured in offbeat places, are becoming all the rage in the...

Queyras, Philharmonia, Suzuki, RFH review - Romantic journey...

As he approaches his 70th birthday, Masaaki Suzuki has not just travelled into pastures new but proved himself thoroughly at home in them. The...

Nadine Shah, SWG3, Glasgow review - loudly dancing the night...

First Nadine Shah raised hopes, then dashed them. “I’ve never had a dance off onstage before,” she observed at one point, impressed by the shapes...

Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, Tate M...

In 1903, Wassily Kandinsky painted a figure in a blue cloak galloping across a landscape on a white horse. Several years later the name of the...

Blu-ray: The Dreamers

Isabelle (Eva Green) leans over, her long hair catches fire from a candle, and Matthew (Michael Pitt) devotedly snuffs it out. She doesn’t miss a...

Orbital, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - the techno titans...

On Friday evening, dance veterans Orbital touched down in Birmingham to celebrate two of the most significant and acclaimed albums in...

Fern Brady, Netflix Special review - sex, relationships and...

An appearance on Taskmaster and the publication of her acclaimed memoir Strong Female Character have helped propel Fern Brady...