family relationships
Maiden Voyage, Southwark Playhouse review - new musical runs agroundWednesday, 30 July 2025
As the nation basks in the reflected glory of The Lionesses' Euro25 victory, it could hardly be more timely for the Southwark Playhouse to launch a new musical that tells the tale of The Maiden. That was the boat, built and sailed by Tracy Edwards... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, RSC, Stratford review - problem play proves problematicTuesday, 29 July 2025
There’s a deal to be made when taking your seat for The Winter’s Tale. It’s one the title alone would have signalled to the groundlings as much as those invited to rattle their jewellery upstairs back in the 17th century – it’s a fairytale, a... Read more... |
A Moon for the Misbegotten, Almeida Theatre review - Michael Shannon sears the night skyThursday, 24 July 2025
Michael Shannon's long legs reach to the stars – or perhaps one should say the moon – in the Almeida's hypnotic revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten, the late Eugene O'Neill play that hasn't been seen in London since Kevin Spacey and Eve... Read more... |
Don't Rock the Boat, The Mill at Sonning review - all aboard for some old-school comedy mishapsTuesday, 22 July 2025
Now 45 years in the past, its dazzling star gone a decade or so, The Long Good Friday is a monument of British cinema. Its extraordinary locations, caught just before London’s Docklands were transformed forever, speaks to a past world. But the... Read more... |
Poor Clare, Orange Tree Theatre review - saints cajole us sinnersFriday, 18 July 2025
What am I, a philosophical if not political Marxist whose hero is Antonio Gramsci, doing in Harvey Nichols buying Comme des Garçons linen jackets, Church brogues and Mulberry shades? It’s 1987 and I do wear it well though…Chiara Atik’s comedy... Read more... |
Till the Stars Come Down, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - a family hilariously and tragically at warMonday, 14 July 2025
The 2024 play at the National Theatre that put writer Beth Steel squarely centre-stage has now received a West End transfer. Its title taken from an Auden poem urging people to dance till they drop, it’s probably the most passionate show in that... Read more... |
Girl From The North Country, Old Vic review - Dylan's songs fail to lift the moodThursday, 10 July 2025
Well, I wasn’t expecting a Dylanesque take on "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" as an opening number and I was right. But The Zim, Nobel Prize ‘n all, has always favoured The Grim American Songbook over The Great American Songbook and writer/director... Read more... |
Run Sister Run, Arcola Theatre review - emphatic emotions, overwrought productionWednesday, 09 July 2025
Near the start of Chloë Moss’s latest play, Run Sister Run, one character tells his wife to “Calm your nerves”. A classic moment of emotional illiteracy perhaps, but given the heightened nature of the drama’s opening scene, it does also seem like an... Read more... |
Hercules, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - new Disney stage musical is no 'Lion King'Saturday, 28 June 2025
Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is terrible, the jokes are lame, the acting execrable and the set garish.” My eyes were saying, “These kids are loving it,... Read more... |
28 Years Later review - an unsentimental, undead educationSaturday, 21 June 2025
The 23 years since 28 Days Later and especially those since Danny Boyle’s soulful encapsulation of Britain’s best spirit at the 2012 Olympics have offered rich material for a franchise about deserted cities, rampaging viruses, hard quarantines and... Read more... |
Hamlet Hail to the Thief, RSC, Stratford review - Radiohead mark the Bard's cardSaturday, 14 June 2025
The safe transfer of power in post-war Western democracies was once a given. The homely Pickfords Removals van outside Number Ten, a crestfallen now ex-PM and family mooching about, for once trying not to be on camera, it's a tabloid front page... Read more... |
Lollipop review - a family torn apartSaturday, 14 June 2025
On leaving prison, Lollipop’s thirtyish single mum Molly discovers that reclaiming her kids from social care is akin to doing lengths in a shark-infested swimming pool teeming with naval mines. Thanks to Posy Sterling’s technically astounding... Read more... |
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