thu 09/10/2025

Theatre Reviews

The Gathered Leaves, Park Theatre review - dated script lifted by nuanced characterisation

Rachel Halliburton

The Gathered Leaves is set on the tectonic plates of a middle-class family menu reunion, in which three generations grapple with the shifting values of an indifferent world. Adrian Noble’s sensitively observed production investigates what happens when a tyrannical patriarch starts to succumb to dementia, making disorientating demands on a family that till this point has been more concerned with protecting a son suffering from autism.

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As You Like It: A Radical Retelling, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - breathtakingly audacious, deeply shocking

David Kettle

There is, let’s be honest, a certain self-congratulatory self-satisfaction among some particularly well-heeled sections of the Edinburgh International Festival audience, event-goers who’ve forked out a fortune to be fed high culture carefully curated for them, and who either reside in some of the city’s most well-off districts or have perhaps travelled hundreds, even thousands of miles for the pleasure.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Refuse / Terry's / Sugar

David Kettle

Refuse, Assembly George Square Studios

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Faustus in Africa!, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - deeply flawed

David Kettle

What new light can the age-old legend of Faust selling his soul to the devil shed on colonialism in Africa, slavery, the rape and destruction of the natural world, the exploitation and murder of the continent’s people? It’s a question you may well still be asking yourself after experiencing the visually spectacular but thematically opaque Faustus in Africa! from Cape Town-based Handspring Puppet Company and director/designer William Kentridge.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Imprints / Courier

David Kettle

Imprints, Summerhall

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Ode Islands / Delusions and Grandeur / Shame Show

David Kettle

The Ode Islands, Pleasance at EICC ★ 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Ordinary Decent Criminal / Insiders

David Kettle

Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ★ 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Kinder / Shunga Alert / Clean Your Plate!

David Kettle

Kinder, Underbelly, Cowgate ★ 

Drag artist Goody Prostate (yes, I know) receives a call from a local library. Garbed in lederhosen and sporting a preposterous German accent, she was expecting a brutal, no-prisoners-taking drag roast battle. Instead, she finds that she’s actually been booked to read to a bunch of kids.

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The Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC, Stratford review - not quite the intended gateway drug to Shakespeare

Gary Naylor

I have two guilty secrets about the theatre – okay, two I’m prepared to own up to right here, right now. I quite enjoy some jukebox musicals and I often prefer schools-oriented, pared back, slightly simplified Shakespeare to the full-scale Folio versions. There – I’ve outed myself!

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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Horse of Jenin / Nowhere

David Kettle

The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ★ 

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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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