Theatre Reviews
Rhinoceros, Almeida Theatre review - joyously absurd and absurdly joyfulSaturday, 05 April 2025
Is the theatre of the absurd dead? In today’s world, when cruel and crazy events happen almost daily, the idea that you can satirize daily life by exaggerating its latent irrationalities seems redundant. For this reason, perhaps, revivals of plays by Eugène Ionesco have been rather infrequent in recent years. Read more... |
The Importance of Being Oscar, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Wilde, still burning brightThursday, 03 April 2025
It’s a greater accolade than a Nobel Prize for Literature – one’s very own adjective. There’s a select few: Shakespearean; Dickensian and Pinteresque. Add to that list, Wildean. 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 friend you have – enjoyed Hamilton, likes a bit of Sondheim, seen a couple of operas – do send them. Read more... |
Apex Predator, Hampstead Theatre review - poor writing turns horror into sillinessWednesday, 02 April 2025
Motherhood is a high stress job. Ask any woman and they will tell you the same: sleepless nights, feeding problems and worry. Lots of worry. Lots and lots. Writer John Donnelly, who has also experienced the stresses of parenthood, devotes his new play, Apex Predator, to turning this everyday event into a vampire story. Read more... |
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Musical, Theatre Royal Bath review - not a screaming successSaturday, 29 March 2025
In Italy, they did it differently. Their pulp fiction tales of suburban transgression appeared between yellow covers on new stands and spawned the influential Giallo movies of the Sixties and Seventies, gory exercises in an offbeat, highly stylised film language – cult movies indeed. Read more... |
Wilko: Love and Death and Rock'n'Roll, Southwark Playhouse review - charismatic reincarnation of a rock legendFriday, 28 March 2025
Resurrecting the origins of old rock stars is becoming quite the thing, After cinema’s Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Bob Dylan and upcoming Bruce Springsteen films, theatreland has staged Tina, A Night with Janis Joplin and MJ, and the Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon is touring again soon. Read more... |
Playhouse Creatures, Orange Tree Theatre review - jokes, shiny costumes and quarrels, but little dramaThursday, 27 March 2025
Creatives – or creatures? In the 1660s, women – having been banned from working as actors in previously more puritanical decades – finally arrived on the stage in London theatres. Although they were sometimes scorned as “playhouse creatures”, often condemned as monsters and whores, they were also seen as demi-goddesses, capable of enchanting their audiences. Read more... |
Dear England, National Theatre review - extra time for stirring soccer classicWednesday, 19 March 2025
With qualifying about to begin for the soccer World Cup, and England sporting a brand new manager, it’s fitting that James Graham’s Olivier-winning celebration of the previous boss returns to the National. Read more... |
Weather Girl, Soho Theatre review - the apocalypse as surreal black comedyFriday, 14 March 2025
Can Francesca Moody do it again? Fleabag’s producer has brought Weather Girl to London, after a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, mirroring the path taken by Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s creation. But the new show is a much tougher assault on modern mores. Read more... |
Clueless: The Musical, Trafalgar Studios review - a perfectly manicured updateFriday, 14 March 2025
Before there was Barbie: The Movie, before there was Legally Blonde, there was Clueless, the Valley Girl movie that measured out life in designer handbags at the same time as signalling the grit behind the glitter. Read more... |
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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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