thu 31/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's Globe review - the Bard buried in bad choices

Gary Naylor

With tyrants licking their lips around the world and the question of how to respond to their threat growing ever more immediate, Julius Caesar director Diane Page eyes an open goal – and misses. 

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The Patient Gloria, Brighton Festival review - an electric exploration of the control and manipulation of women

Katie Colombus

The psychology of female desire in 1960s California, was a field awash with voyeurism and exploitation. This brilliant play uncovers not only the bizarre story of Gloria Szymanski, but catholic hypocrisy and everyday sexism too, with a nod to third wave feminism.

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Unchain Me, Brighton Festival review - Dostoevsky-inspired theatre through the streets of Brighton

Katie Colombus

To take to the streets in Brighton in pursuit of a superior political ideology isn't unusual. What is unusual is that some of the young folk currently lurking about the Brighton Museum are part of dreamthinkspeak, an immersive theatre company taking part in this year's Brighton Festival.

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Age of Rage, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Barbican review - shattering assault on all the senses

David Nice

Hunger for the gruesome horrors and euphoric highs of Greek tragedy seems to be stronger than ever. Yet when it comes to epic sequences, nothing in recent decades has quite had the impact of Peter Hall’s Aeschylus Oresteia at the National Theatre or John Barton’s three-night RSC journey from Aulis to Tauris The Greeks. Now Age of Rage from Ivo van Hove and his Internationaal Theater/Toneelgroep Amsterdam joins them in the pantheon of great theatre.

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House of Ife, Bush Theatre review - an Ethiopian-British family struggle to decide where 'home' is

Helen Hawkins

We are in a room in a simply decorated house in northwest London, where an Ethiopian-British family is gathering for a funeral “tea” for 28-year-old Ife, their first-born son and beloved twin brother of aspiring artist Aida. He has died of his crack addiction. But this is not exactly the house of the title.

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Oklahoma!, Young Vic review - a stunning, stripped-down version of the classic musical

Helen Hawkins

No surreys, fringes or corny chap-slapping: the Rodgers and Hammerstein revival that has arrived at the Young Vic from New York, trailing a Tony award, is no ordinary makeover. Daniel Fish, its director, has spent the best part of 15 years stripping down and remodelling the 1943 original.

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The Misfortune of the English, Orange Tree Theatre review - don't fret, boys, it's only death

Laura De Lisle

“We all make history, one way or another.” But some of us make more history than others, and a group of 27 English schoolboys who got lost in Southern Germany in 1936 haven’t made much, unfortunately.

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Middle, National Theatre review - a bit of a muddle

aleks Sierz

The traditional, and much derided, well-made play is meant to have a beginning, middle and end.

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Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's Globe review – a perfect piece of escapism for our uncertain summer

Rachel Halliburton

Lucy Bailey’s joyous, visually ravishing Much Ado About Nothing opens on a sombre note. On stage there is laughter and merriment as people prepare for a party in the sprawling grounds of an Italian estate, but then a lone soldier enters the auditorium, his head wrapped in a bandage, and the tension becomes palpable.

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Jerusalem, Apollo Theatre review - Mark Rylance blazes in this astonishing revival

Mert Dilek

At long last, the giant has come back. Over a decade after its critical apotheosis on both sides of the Atlantic, Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem returns to London in an astonishing revival starring Mark Rylance as the high priest of its proceedings. With the renewed intensity of its vision of an England in crisis, Butterworth’s infinitely rich play is proof that legends age well. 

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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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