Theatre Reviews
Long Day's Journey Into Night, Wyndham's Theatre review - O'Neill masterwork is once again driven by its MaryWednesday, 03 April 2024
Memory is a confounding thing. By way of proof, just ask the Mary Tyrone who is being given unforgettable life by Patricia Clarkson in London's latest version of Long Day's Journey into Night, which has arrived on the West End (and at the same theatre) a mere six years after the previous version of Eugene O'Neill's posthumously premiered masterwork; that one headlined a top-rank Lesley Manville in the same part. Read more... |
Opening Night, Gielgud Theatre review - brave, yes, but also misguided and bizarreTuesday, 02 April 2024
Is there a more purely likeable actress than Sheridan Smith, the performer who was still a teenager when she stole the show at the Donmar in Into the Woods and who managed, as Elle Woods in the West End premiere of Legally Blonde, to bring tears both to her eyes and ours? Read more... |
The Divine Mrs S, Hampstead Theatre review - Rachael Stirling shines in hit-and-miss comedyMonday, 01 April 2024
There are genres of theatre that demand buy-in from the audience – musicals, opera and the daddy of them all, pantomime. The usual entry price to the house, the suspension of disbelief, requires supplementing with an active desire to meet the production halfway. So it is with comedy. Crudely put, we could all sit there like Mount Rushmore if we wanted to, but what good would that do? Read more... |
Power of Sail, Menier Chocolate Factory review - alternately stiff and startlingSaturday, 30 March 2024
The Menier Chocolate Factory has made something of a habit of late out of trawling unexpected corners of the contemporary American repertoire. Read more... |
MJ the Musical, Prince Edward Theatre review - glitzy jukebox musical with a superb star but a void insideFriday, 29 March 2024
In a secret chamber somewhere, the producers of MJ the Musical may be keeping a portrait of the King of Pop that has acquired all his scars, physical and psychological. Read more... |
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Marylebone Theatre review - from Russia with loveFriday, 29 March 2024
Like all great literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final, eccentric, playfully wondrous short story seems to have been written just for us – across two centuries and on the other side of the world. It’s a resonance that ripples through Laurence Boswell’s eloquent, beautifully acted and staged, and sweetly optimistic production. Read more... |
Foam, Finborough Theatre review - fascism and f*cking in a Gentlemen's Lavatory that proves short of gentlemenThursday, 28 March 2024
In a too brightly tiled Gentlemen’s public convenience (Nitin Parmar’s beautifully realised set is as much a character as any of the men we meet), a lad is shaving his head. He’s halfway to the skinhead look of the early Seventies, but he hasn’t quite nailed it – he's too young to know the detail. Read more... |
Faith Healer, Lyric Hammersmith review - Brian Friel's masterpiece works its magic againSaturday, 23 March 2024
Brian Friel’s Faith Healer isn’t noted for its laughs, but Rachel O’Riordan has found more than most directors do in this rich, masterly piece from 1979. Her approach pays dividends in all but one respect. Read more... |
Red Pitch, @sohoplace review - the ebullient tale of teenage footballers gets a rollicking transferFriday, 22 March 2024
The reviews of Tyrell Williams' debut play on its first and second outings at the Bush Theatre were universally enthusiastic, even ecstatic. Multiple awards followed, including a clean sweep of those for first-time or promising writers. So how does it look in the newest venue in the West End, in the round – or rather square? Read more... |
WAKE, National Stadium, Dublin review - a rainbow river of dance, song, and so much elseThursday, 21 March 2024
In what feels like the beginning, or at least the Old Testament, there was Riverdance. Now, ready to flow through the world once the world knows it needs it, there’s a rainbow-coloured river of just about everything musical and choreographic that’s found its place in contemporary Ireland, performed with a pulsating energy as well as a poetry that stops you wondering too much about all the connections. 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...
MobLand, Paramount+ review - more guns, goons and gangsters...
A year ago Guy Ritchie brought us the Netflix series The Gentlemen, and now here he is on Paramount+ with his latest romp through the...
Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer gene...
The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at...
Four Mothers review - one gay man deals with three extra mot...
An Irish adaptation of Garcia Di Gregorio’s acclaimed 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, director Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers is the...
Album: Miki Berenyi Trio - Tripla
I saw the Miki Berenyi Trio play a warmly received sold out set at the Lexington last autumn, at which many of the songs now coming out on ...
The Importance of Being Oscar, Jermyn Street Theatre review...
It’s a greater accolade than a Nobel Prize for Literature – one’s very own adjective. There’s a select few: Shakespearean;...
Album: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Death Hilarious
Pigsx7 have hardly got a reputation for penning tender and soulful ballads, but Death Hilarious is a particularly aggressive and...
Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excess
That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of...
Misericordia review - mushroom-gathering and murder in rural...
“Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” The Aesop-ian maxim roughly applies to Jérémie Pastor (Félix Kysyl) in Alain Guiraudie's...
Owen Wingrave, RNCM, Manchester review - battle of a pacifis...
It’s quite ironic that the Royal Northern College of Music should have invited, as director of this,...