new writing
50 First Dates: The Musical, The Other Palace review - romcom turned musicalFriday, 26 September 2025
About halfway through this world premiere, I realised what was missing. Where is the sinister lift, where are the long corridors and, most of all, WHERE IS MR. MILCHICK? 50 First Dates: The Musical may indeed be the sunnier cousin of Severance, but... Read more... |
Reunion, Kiln Theatre review - a stormy night in every senseFriday, 19 September 2025
If you ever wanted to know what a mash up of Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson, stirred (and there’s a lot of stirring in this play) with a soupçon of Chekhov, Ibsen and Williams looks like, The Kiln has your answer.Mark O’Rowe’s feuding family... Read more... |
The Lady from the Sea, Bridge Theatre review - flashes of brillianceFriday, 19 September 2025
Like the lighting that crackles now and again to indicate an abrupt change of scene or mood, Simon Stone's version of The Lady from the Sea is illuminated by the sense of adventure and excitement one has come to expect from this singular artist.... Read more... |
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... |
Brixton Calling, Southwark Playhouse review - life-affirming entertainment, both then and nowTuesday, 29 July 2025
What a delight it is to see the director, the star, even the marketing manager these days FFS, get out of the way and let a really strong story stand on its own two feet. Like a late one at the Brixton Academy itself, this is a helluva night out.... 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... |
The Brightening Air, Old Vic review - Chekhov jostles Conor McPherson in writer-director's latestSaturday, 17 May 2025
It's one thing to be indebted to a playwright, as Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter have been at different times to Beckett, or Sondheim's latest musical is to Sartre. But Conor McPherson's The Brightening Air – the title itself is derived from Yeats... Read more... |
My Master Builder, Wyndham's Theatre review - Ewan McGregor headlines stillborn Ibsen riffThursday, 01 May 2025
It's both brave and bracing to welcome new voices to the West End, but sometimes one wonders if such exposure necessarily works to the benefit of those involved. And so it is with My Master Builder, American writer Lila Raicek's Ibsen-adjacent play... Read more... |
Ghosts, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre - turns out, they do fuck you upFriday, 18 April 2025
A single sofa is all we have on stage to attract our eye - the signifier of intimate family evenings, chummy breakfast TV and, more recently, Graham Norton’s bonhomie. Until you catch proper sight of the room’s walls that is, which are not, as you... Read more... |
All the Happy Things, Soho Theatre review - deep feelings, but little dramaWednesday, 16 April 2025
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. Or words to that effect. This quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost seems apt when thinking about the prevalence of mental health issues in current new writing for... Read more... |
Midnight Cowboy, Southwark Playhouse - new musical cannot escape the movie's long shadowSunday, 13 April 2025
It seems a bizarre idea. Take a pivotal film in American culture that reset the perception of The Great American Dream at this, obviously, pivotal moment in American culture in which The Great American Dream, for millions, is being literally swiped... Read more... |
Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excessWednesday, 02 April 2025
That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of Music on BBC 1 after the Queen’s Speech in 1978 – well, don’t send them to Charing Cross Theatre for this show. But that other... Read more... |
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