wed 23/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

After the End, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - suddenly relevant two-hander

Gary Naylor

Mark was teased about the fallout shelter at the bottom of his garden by his co-workers (that wasn’t the only thing – every friendship group has a target for micro-aggressions) but his foresight pays off when terrorists explode a suitcase bomb on a Friday evening. Louise, hungover after her leaving do, wakes up down there, Mark having rescued her from the rubble and sealed the door against the radiation. She faces 14 days locked down with him waiting for the air to clear.

Read more...

Henry V, Donmar Warehouse review - playing at war

David Nice

Sharp suits swapped for combat fatigues, a people’s commander: you’d think that Max Webster’s production of Shakespeare's  surprisingly nuanced propaganda history-play would have special resonance in a week which has seen horrors and heroism unleashed in equal measure. Yet despite input from former Royal Marines Commando Tom Leigh, this is too much of a gimmicky show of war to chime with what’s churning us up now.

Read more...

But I'm A Cheerleader: The Musical, Turbine Theatre review - two cheers for feelgood show

Gary Naylor

We open on “Seventeen is Swell”, the antithesis of Janis Ian’s 70s angsty anthem, “At Seventeen”. Megan is living it large as the cheerleader’s leader with her football captain boyfriend, two loving if strict parents and a golden future of all-American domestic bliss ahead. In short, she has all her pom poms in a row.

Read more...

Bloody Difficult Women, Riverside Studios review - political drama

Veronica Lee

Few critics become playwrights, but Tim Walker has done just that with Bloody Difficult Women, his debut. It's taking a risk; should any of his less generous critical colleagues wish to take a shot at the poacher turned gamekeeper, it's open season. On the other hand, it could place a friendly critic in an uncomfortable position; what if it's awful?

Read more...

When We Dead Awaken, The Norwegian Ibsen Company, Coronet Theatre review - living death, dying life

David Nice

In Ibsen's last and shortest play, further cut here, four people nominally climb a mountain, but actually seem to be crossing waste land towards the land of Samuel Beckett. It’s an amazing play in which reality is symbolic and symbols are real, where not one character is likeable and all speak with hallucinatory directness. The Norwegian Theatre Company, very much welcome back to the Coronet Theatre, do much of its strangeness justice.

Read more...

Red Pitch, Bush Theatre review - effortlessly and energetically entertaining

aleks Sierz

Football stories are never just about a game — they are also about life and how to live it. In Tyrell Williams’s Red Pitch, his debut play now getting an enthusiastically staging at the Bush Theatre after a shorter version wowed audiences at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2019, three young black teens meet at a five-a-side pitch in South London.

Read more...

Steve, Seven Dials Playhouse review - everything’s charming, except the script

Laura De Lisle

Steven (David Ames) is having a birthday party. He’s invited his closest friends – two of whom have recently started dating their personal trainer, Steve – and his partner, of course: Stephen (Joe Aaron Reid). Their eight-year-old son, Stevie, is being babysat by his grandma. Even the handsome Argentine waiter (Nico Conde) is called Esteban.

Read more...

The Collaboration, Young Vic Theatre review - artistic giants, wigs, warts and all

Demetrios Matheou

At first glance, it was the most unlikely of friendships, even for the solipsistic milieu of the New York art scene.

Read more...

Two Billion Beats, Orange Tree Theatre review - bursting with heart

Laura De Lisle

“You could read at home,” says Bettina (Anoushka Chadha), Year 10, her school uniform perfectly pressed, hair neatly styled. “You could be an annoying little shit at home,” retorts her sister Asha (Safiyya Ingar), Year 13, all fire and fury in Doc Martens and rainbow headphones.

Read more...

Never Not Once, Park Theatre review - disappointing UK debut for a feminist award-winner

Helen Hawkins

Carey Crim’s 2017 play arrives from the US at north London's Park Theatre trailing a feminist playwriting award for its dissection of what happens when a smart college senior raised by two women starts to question her parentage...

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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Tosca, Clonter Opera review - beauty and integrity in miniat...

At first sight, it seemed that Clonter Opera’s decision to tackle Tosca this year might be a leap too far. Its once-a-year complete...

Album: Paul Weller - Find El Dorado

Paul Weller occupies a strange place in the cultural sphere. Especially since he was adopted as an elder statesman of Britpop in the mid 1990s, he...

BBC Proms: McCarthy, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth review - s...

It started like Sunday afternoon band concert on a seaside promenade, a massive ensemble playing it light. But while there were several too many...

theartsdesk Q&A: writer and actor Mark Gatiss on 'B...

Having played Sherlock Holmes’s politically involved older brother Mycroft in the BBC’s hit crime series Sherlock...

Ballard, Prime Video review - there's something rotten...

Following the success of its screen version of Michael Connelly’s veteran detective Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver,...

Don't Rock the Boat, The Mill at Sonning review - all a...

Now 45 years in the past, its dazzling star gone a decade or so, The Long Good Friday is a monument of British cinema....

Blu-ray: The Rebel / The Punch and Judy Man

Comedian Tony Hancock’s vertiginous rise and fall is neatly traced in the two films he completed in the early 1960s. The warning signs were...

Bookish, U&Alibi review - sleuthing and skulduggery in a...

As a sometime writer of Poirot, Sherlock and Christmas ghost stories,...

Album: Spafford Campbell - Tomorrow Held

Guitarist Louis Campbell and fiddle player Owen Spafford started playing together as teenagers in the National Youth Folk Ensemble when Sam...