fri 25/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

Admissions, Trafalgar Studios review - topical and whiplash-smart

Matt Wolf

Joshua Harmon knows how to stir and excite an audience and does that and more with Admissions, newly arrived in the West End as part of the ongoing tsunami of American theatre across the capital just now.

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The Twilight Zone, Ambassadors Theatre review – retro wit for our new space age

Rachel Halliburton

As China and the US arm-wrestle for world domination in everything from trade to military power, we find ourselves in the throes of a space race again.

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Angry Alan, Soho Theatre review - superb monologue about the rise of 'meninism'

Veronica Lee

Penelope Skinner's monologue was a critical and audience hit at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, when its talking point found its moment. Here is Roger, a divorced father who lives in Walnut Creek and has lost his senior management job at AT&T, drifting along in middle age, when he discovers Angry Alan, his online saviour. 

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Waitress, Adelphi Theatre review - sweet if sometimes silly musical arrives from Broadway

Matt Wolf

There's a lovely, quietly subversive musical lurking somewhere in Waitress, and for extended passages in the second act that show is allowed to shine through.

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Medea, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Barbican review - lacerating contemporary tragedy

David Nice

Hallucinatory theatre has struck quite a few times in the Barbican's international seasons.

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Alys, Always, Bridge Theatre review - mildly perverse but rather dispiriting

aleks Sierz

Okay, so this is the play that will be remembered for the character names that have unusual spellings. As in Alys not Alice, Kyte not Kite, etc.

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Inside Bitch, Royal Court review - brave, hilarious yet very slender

aleks Sierz

Dear Clean Break, Thank you very much for your latest, called Inside Bitch, a show which is billed as "a playfully subversive take on the representation of women in prison". It's a great celebration of your 40th anniversary. I saw this at the Royal Court tonight and I will remember it because the cast were clearly having great fun, and so was the audience. And I could see why.

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We're Staying Right Here, Park Theatre review - rough and not entirely ready

Tim Cornwell

We're Staying Right Here, Henry Devas's debut play premiering on the smaller of the Park Theatre's two stages, carries a trigger warning on the theatre website: "May be affective for people coping with mental health issues".

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The Son, Kiln Theatre review - darkly tragic

aleks Sierz

Well, you have to give it to French playwright Florian Zeller — he's certainly cracked the problem of coming up with a name for each of his plays. Basically, choose a common noun and put the definite article in front of it.

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The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, Lyric Hammersmith review - enchanting graphic novel

aleks Sierz

Whenever I hear the word "cosmopolitan" I think of Europe in the 1920s: German Expressionism, Russian Constructivism, Czech eccentricity, Swiss DaDa, Italian Futurism and French Surrealism. With music from Weimar cabaret and visuals by Soviet agit-prop. Let's take an imaginary train journey from Paris to Berlin to Zurich to Prague to Milan. This is the world evoked by The Animals and Children Took to the Streets.

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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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