tue 07/10/2025

Theatre Reviews

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: REVENGE: After the Levoyah / Puddles and Amazons

David Kettle

REVENGE: After the Levoyah, Summerhall  

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Òran / This Town

David Kettle

Òran, Pleasance Courtyard  

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The Fabulist, Charing Cross Theatre review - fine singing cannot rescue an incoherent production

Gary Naylor

On opening night, there’s always a little tension in the air. Tech rehearsals and previews can only go so far – this is the moment when an audience, some wielding pens like scalpels, sit in judgement. Having attended thousands on the critics’ side of the fourth wall, I can tell you that there’s plenty of crackling expectation and a touch of fear in the stalls, too. None more so than when the show is billed as a new musical.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Ni Mi Madre / Bi-Curious George: Queer Planet

David Kettle

Ni Mi Madre, Pleasance Dome  

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Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's Globe review - Egypt in sign language, Rome in pale force

Tom Birchenough

More surely than any other London stage, the Globe has opened up our theatrical perspective on different languages. Its triumphant “Globe to Globe” 2012 season presented the Shakespeare canon in 37 different linguistic interpretations.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Bellringers / Suitcase Show

David Kettle

Bellringers, Roundabout @ Summerhall  

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The Birthday Party, Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath review - Pinter still packs a punch

Gary Naylor

Before a word is spoken, a pause held, we hear the seagulls squawking outside, see the (let’s say brown) walls that remind you of the H-Block protests of the 1980s, witness the pitifully small portions for breakfast. If you were in any doubt that we were anywhere other than submerged beneath the fag end of the post-war years of austerity, the clothes confirm it. And a thought surfaces and will jab throughout the two hours runtime: “How different are things today in, say, Clacton?”

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Peanut Butter & Blueberries, Kiln Theatre review - rom-com in a time of Islamophobia

aleks Sierz

At one point, in John Fowles’s 1977 novel The Magus, the guru character in the story compares sexuality before and after the 1960s. He says that although “young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not”, there is also a loss – “a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion”.

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Death of England: Michael / Death of England: Delroy, Soho Place review - thrilling portraits, brilliantly performed, of rebels without a cause

Helen Hawkins

Two boys in east London, one Black, one white, grow up together, play pranks at school, then decades later have a tempestuous falling out. That’s the main narrative arc of these twin plays, but it accounts for none of their extraordinary richness and the superlative acting they entail. 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Adam Riches: Jimmy / TERF

Veronica Lee

Adam Riches: Jimmy, Summerhall 

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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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