thu 06/03/2025

Theatre Reviews

Albion, Almeida Theatre, review – Victoria Hamilton’s epic performance

aleks Sierz

Prolific writer Mike Bartlett is the most impressive penman to have emerged in British theatre in the past decade. The trouble is that his work is so uneven.

Read more...

A Woman of No Importance, Vaudeville - Eve Best is superb as a woman scorned

Veronica Lee

In a rather clever wheeze, Dominic Dromgoole, former artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe – who therefore knows a thing or two about historically accurate stagings – has established Classic Spring, a new company dedicated to celebrating work by “proscenium playwrights” and staging their plays in the theatres they were written for.

Read more...

Beginning, National Theatre review - assured, intimate, but short of surprises

Sam Marlowe

Loneliness: in the age of the digital hook-up and the flaunting narcissism of social media, it’s become a strange sort of taboo – a secret shame, the unsexy side of singledom. So it’s good to see playwright David Eldridge putting it centre-stage in this tender, pleasingly unsentimental two-hander.

Read more...

The Seagull, Lyric Hammersmith review – is Lesley Sharp's Irina a sex addict?

Ismene Brown

The awful mother, the celebrity-obsessed teenager, the mediocre old writer who wants some young sex in his life – there are motifs in Chekhov’s The Seagull that fly merrily from one century to another, and Simon Stephens and...

Read more...

The Busy World Is Hushed, Finborough Theatre review - new play puts the G-word centre stage

Jenny Gilbert

God makes few appearances at the modern playhouse – so few that the Finborough Theatre saw fit to print a glossary in the programme for its latest production.

Read more...

Young Frankenstein review - Mel Brooks musical is blissfully bonkers

Matt Wolf

What a difference an ocean and a change of scale can make. When I saw the Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein on Broadway a decade ago, the show seemed to take its cue from the lumbering monster contained within it, who stutters and sputters before eventually being kickstarted into something resembling life.

Read more...

Saint George and the Dragon, National Theatre review – a modern folk tale in the Olivier

Heather Neill

Bold and fearless are adjectives that might describe playwright Rory Mullarkey as accurately as any chivalrous knight. He made his name in 2013 when, at the age of 25, his play Cannibals, part of which was in Russian, took to the main stage at the Manchester Royal Exchange and went on to win the James Tait Black Prize.

Read more...

Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle, Wyndham’s Theatre review – paradoxically predictable

aleks Sierz

Playwright Simon Stephens and director Marianne Elliott are hyped as a winning partnership.

Read more...

Victory Condition, Royal Court review - Ballardian vision of the contemporary

aleks Sierz

What does it mean to feel contemporary? Feel. Contemporary.

Read more...

The Lie, Menier Chocolate Factory review - fake news, real feeling

Marianka Swain

A year after premiering acclaimed French playwright Florian Zeller’s The Truth, the Menier Chocolate Factory now hosts The Lie – which, as the name suggests, acts as a companion piece of sorts.

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

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

theartsdesk Q&A: Oscar-winner Adrien Brody on 'The...

Adrien Brody is on a roll. Following his Golden Globe and BAFTA Best Actor wins for his performance as László Toth in...

A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, ITV1 review - powerful d...

The story of Ruth Ellis’s execution in 1955 has found its own macabre niche in British folklore, and has been been the subject of several film,...

Album: Spiritbox - Tsunami Sea

Within the loud realm of metal, it often exists happily unbothered by the mainstream. And although a metal band going mainstream isn't always well...

Towards Zero, BBC One review - more entertaining parlour gam...

The BBC’s latest “cool” Agatha Christie adaptation has many...

Album: The Burning Hell - Ghost Palace

Cultural references run up the flagpole on Ghost Palace include Deep Purple’s “Space Truckin’” buskers covering Lynryd Skynyrd and Ed...

Mansfield Park, Guildhall School review - fun when frothy, c...

Let’s call it Jane Austen fit for the West End, but with opera singers. The fact that it also serves as a fun ensemble piece for students is also...

Chuck Prophet, Mid Sussex Music Hall, Hassocks review - the...

Forty years ago, Chuck Prophet was the Keith Richards-like guitar hotshot in Green On Red, peers of R.E.M. and among the raw country-punk...

Echoes: Stone Circles, Community and Heritage, Stonehenge Vi...

Stonehenge is about 5,000 years old; three photographic artists currently exhibiting in the visitor centre are all under the age of...