wed 23/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

Returning to Haifa, Finborough Theatre review - a bumpy journey into the Arab-Israeli past

Jenny Gilbert

This year the state of Israel marks its 70th birthday. Which means it will also be the year Palestinians remember the Nakba, the catastrophe, the mass dispossession.

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Macbeth, National Theatre - Rufus Norris goes for drab, gory and tricksy

Ismene Brown

Fair is foul and foul is drab, gory and tricksy in Rufus Norris’s first stab at Shakespeare direction at the National Theatre, Macbeth.

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Summer and Smoke, Almeida Theatre - exquisite renaissance of Tennessee Williams's neglected play

Marianka Swain

That this 1948 Tennessee Williams play is rarely performed seems nothing short of a travesty, thanks to the awe-inspiring case made for it by Rebecca Frecknall’s exquisite Almeida production.

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The Best Man, Playhouse Theatre review - Gore Vidal’s plodding presidential drama

aleks Sierz

Is it possible to get too much of American politics?

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Fanny and Alexander, Old Vic review - agile but shallow Bergman adaptation

David Nice

Could an epic cinematic masterpiece be turned successfully into a three-act play? Confession first: Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander is my No. 1 film.

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Harold and Maude, Charing Cross Theatre review - Sheila Hancock serene in thin production

Saskia Baron

The practice of mining the rich seam of popular movies to turn them into stage plays or musicals seemingly never grows tired in theatreland. And sometimes it produces a gem but all too often it’s just a cynical ploy to attract ticket sales by piggy-backing on fond memories of a beloved film. It’s unfair to accuse this stage adaptation of Hal Ashby’s cult movie, Harold and Maude, of cynicism; the efforts of all involved are patently sincere, but sadly it just doesn’t work.

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Frozen, Haymarket Theatre review - star cast explores the reality of evil

aleks Sierz

Whatever the weather, this week is Frozen. On Broadway, the Disney musical of that name begins previews, but let’s let that go. In the West End, our Frozen has no Elsa, no Anna and no glittery gowns. Although it does have plenty of ice imagery.

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Angry, Southwark Playhouse review – wondrously roaring Ridleyland

aleks Sierz

Monologues are very much the flavour of the start of this theatrical year. At the Royal Court, we have Carey Mulligan in Dennis Kelly’s brilliant Girls & Boys, coming hot on the tottering heels of Anoushka Warden’s My Mum’s a Twat, while at the Bush a season of solo plays is currently disturbing psyches with Monica Dolan’s B*easts.

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Girls & Boys, Royal Court review - Carey Mulligan is stunningly brilliant

aleks Sierz

This is Carey Mulligan week. She appears, improbably enough, as a hard-nosed cop in David Hare’s BBC thriller Collateral, as well as onstage at the Royal Court in London’s Sloane Square (she’s much better live than on film).

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The York Realist, Donmar Warehouse review - a miniaturist masterpiece

Matt Wolf

Peter Gill has been a quiet if invaluable mainstay of the Donmar over time. But the Welsh playwright-director has rarely been better served than by this emotional stealth bomb of a revival of his 2002 Royal Court play, The York Realist, presented here as a co-production with the Sheffield Crucible, where it will transfer following the London run.

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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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