Theatre Reviews
anthropology, Hampstead Theatre review - AI thriller runs out of codeWednesday, 20 September 2023
With more than 20 plays under her belt, San-Francisco based Lauren Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in the US. But she’s chosen London to premier her very topical new thriller. Read more... |
The Little Big Things, @sohoplace review - real-life story movingly realised onstageTuesday, 19 September 2023
It's rare that a new musical or play opens in the West End with as much positive word-of-mouth as The Little Big Things. Social media has been ablaze over the last few weeks, with critics and bloggers sneaking into previews and authoritative big names hailing a new hit long before the official press night. Read more... |
The Old Man and the Pool, Wyndham's Theatre - Mike Birbiglia makes a big splashSaturday, 16 September 2023
Few comedians are such good company that you never want them to stop. The young Billy Connolly was one such; affable American Mike Birbiglia is another. Read more... |
The Father and the Assassin, National Theatre review - Gandhi's killer given an outstanding star turnSaturday, 16 September 2023
From the moment that the blood-stained Nathuram Godse rises out of the floor of the National Theatre's Olivier stage and demands ‘What are you staring at? Read more... |
That Face, Orange Tree Theatre review - in-yer-face family dramaFriday, 15 September 2023
Playwright Polly Stenham MBE had a meteoric rise with this play, her award-winning 2007 debut which she wrote aged 19 and whose original Royal Court cast featured Lyndsay Duncan and Matt Smith, and earned a much-lauded West End transfer. Read more... |
Infamous, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Lady Hamilton challenges the patriarchy and losesThursday, 14 September 2023
Towards the end of the 18th century, Lady Emma Hamilton (like so much in this woman's life, hers was a title achieved as much as bestowed) was the “It Girl” of European society. Read more... |
Private Lives, Ambassador's Theatre review - classy revival lacking physical excessThursday, 14 September 2023
There is a grainy piece of black and white film on YouTube featuring Noel Coward as the celebrity guest on a 1964 edition of the popular television panel show, What's My Line. He signs in with panache, paying careful attention to the diaeresis over the e in Noel and enveloping his first name with a stylish C from the second. Read more... |
God of Carnage, Lyric Hammersmith review - a dark piece is lightened with slapstickSaturday, 09 September 2023
Yasmin Reza’s God of Carnage (2008), like her British megahit, 1994’s Art, is not strictly a comedy. The French dramatist likes to create gladiatorial spaces disguised as chic living-rooms, where the professional classes slug it out, chewing their way through all manner of pieties and prejudices to reach some kind of climactic end point. Read more... |
As You Like It, Shakespeare's Globe review - vibrant, ebullient fun in a forest where anything goesTuesday, 05 September 2023
To proclaim that you’re playing gender games with Shakespeare’s As You Like It seems a little like announcing that you have a bicycle with two wheels, or indeed that you’re doing something interesting with rhythms in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Read more... |
Next to Normal, Donmar Warehouse review - terrific cast in a punchy musicalFriday, 01 September 2023
The journey from off-Broadway to central London has taken 15 years, but the multi-award-winning musical Next to Normal has finally made it. That time lag may lead to suspicions that its subject matter has become a tad outmoded, but this staging, directed by outgoing Donmar director Michael Longhurst, is fresh and affecting. 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...
Bach Mendelssohn Festival, Part I, Oxford Philharmonic Orche...
“I am not better than my fathers.” Cracked, pained, occasionally rasping, rising to a fearsome roar then subsiding to a throaty whisper, Sir Bryn...
Album: White Denim - 12
White Denim’s literally titled 12th album opens with the fidgety “Light on.” Drawing a line between electronica and Tropicália, it exudes...
theartsdesk on Vinyl 87: Roots Manuva, Bogdan Raczynski, Son...
VINYL OF THE MONTH
Blood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)
...
Currie, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - s...
Kahchun Wong’s final concert of 2024 in the Hallé Manchester season was something of a surprise. At first sight, the sparkle in the programme...
Blu-ray: Juggernaut
That Juggernaut is as good as it is seems in hindsight to have been a happy accident. Inspired by a bomb hoax on the QE2 in 1972, the...
Rigoletto, Irish National Opera / Murrihy, Collins, NCH Dubl...
How many Rigolettos have regular operagoers among you sat through where there wasn’t some major defect, in either the production or the...
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Ta...
Last month a portrait of Alan Turing by AI robot AI-Da sold at Sotheby’s for $1.08 million – proof that, in some people’s eyes, artificial...
Album: Panelia - Nothing and All At Once
Nothing and All at Once is the debut album from New Delhi...
Music Reissues Weekly: John Cale - The Academy in Peril, Par...
The return to shops of a consecutive sequence of five of John Cale's Seventies albums through different labels is undoubtedly coincidental. All...