fri 17/01/2025

theatre reviews, news & interviews

Oliver!, Gielgud Theatre review - Lionel Bart's 1960 masterpiece is Bourne again

Helen Hawkins

Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes Oliver!, Lionel Bart’s masterly musical. Is its grim tale of workhouses, pickpockets and domestic violence an awkward fit with today’s values? 

The Maids, Jermyn Street Theatre review - new broom sweeps clean in fierce revival

Gary Naylor

There are two main reasons to revive classics. The first is that they are really good; the second is that they have something to say about how the world is changing, perhaps more accurately, how our perception of it is changing. Both are true of Annie Kershaw’s slick, sexy, shocking production of Martin Crimp's translation, up close and personal, at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Titanique, Criterion Theatre review - musical...

Gary Naylor

This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in New York, but crossing The Atlantic can be perilous for any production, so, docked now at the...

Best of 2024: Theatre

Matt Wolf

It's the images that linger in the mind as I think back on a bustling theatre year just gone. Sure, the year fielded excellent productions (and some...

Twelfth Night, Royal Shakespeare Theatre review...

Gary Naylor

It is not just Twelfth Night, it’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will in The Folio, a signpost of the choices the inhabitants, old and new, of...

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You Me Bum Bum Train, secret location review - a joyful multiverse of anarchic creativity

Rachel Halliburton

This latest incarnation of the show is a wild, spinning ride through different forms of reality

The Tempest, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane review - Sigourney Weaver's impassive Prospero inhabits an atmospheric, desolate world

Heather Neill

Magic is minimised in Jamie Lloyd's pared-back version

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Donmar Warehouse review - a blazingly original musical flashes into the West End

Gary Naylor

War and Peace - but not as you know it

The Invention of Love, Hampstead Theatre review - beautiful wit, awkward staging

Aleks Sierz

Tom Stoppard’s evocation of Victorian golden age Oxford stars Simon Russell Beale

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, New Adventures, Sadler's Wells review - 30 years on, as bold and brilliant as ever

Helen Hawkins

A masterly reinvention has become a classic itself

The Little Foxes, Young Vic review - timeshifted production blurs the play's focus

Helen Hawkins

Lillian Hellman’s family feud set in 1900 Alabama doesn’t survive a confused updating

The Legends of Them, Royal Court review - reaching out for serenity

Aleks Sierz

Gig theatre piece about the pain and redemption of a pioneer reggae artist

The Producers, Menier Chocolate Factory review - liberating taboo-busting fun for grown-ups

Helen Hawkins

Director Patrick Marber does Mel Brooks's musical proud

A Midsummer Night's Dream, RSC, Barbican review - visually ravishing with an undercurrent of violence

Rachel Halliburton

This psychedelic mashup conveys a sci-fi-style alternate reality

The Devil Wears Prada, Dominion Theatre review - efficient but rarely inspired

Matt Wolf

Relaunch of Elton John musical needs further tinkering still

Hansel and Gretel, Shakespeare's Globe review - too saccharine a retelling for our times

Gary Naylor

Songs and sweeties, but insufficient sourness and sadism for fans of fairytales

The Importance of Being Earnest, National Theatre review - no shortage of acid-tipped delight

Rachel Halliburton

Oscar Wilde speaks just as strongly to the 21st century as he did to his own

Twelfth Night, Orange Tree Theatre review - perfectly pitched sad and merry musical mayhem

Heather Neill

Shakespeare's comedy of identity confusion benefits from a 1940s setting

The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Other Palace - all Greek to me

Gary Naylor

Myths and monsters make for a curiously bland and bloodless musical

Expendable, Royal Court review - intensely felt family drama

Aleks Sierz

New play about a paedophile ring foregrounds the voices of British-Pakistani women

The Purists, Kiln Theatre review - warm, witty, thoughtful and un-woke

Helen Hawkins

Dan McCabe's play about ageing hiphop stars makes a winning European debut

The Dead, ANU, Landmark Productions, MoLI Dublin review - vital life, love and death in perfect equilibrium

David Nice

Joyce’s great short story fully realised for ‘invited guests’ by a perfect ensemble

All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Shakespeare at his least likeable

Gary Naylor

New production lands on shaky ground in 2024

Wicked review - overly busy if beautifully sung cliffhanger

Matt Wolf

Musical theatre behemoth becomes an outsized film - and this is just part one

King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a three-pointer

Gary Naylor

LeBron James comes and goes, and comes back again to the Cavs

A Christmas Carol, Old Vic review - tidings of discomfort and noise

Aleks Sierz

This venue’s annual festive classic is joyous, but its writing is frankly patronising

[title of show], Southwark Playhouse review - two guys and two girls write about writing, delightfully

Gary Naylor

Revival of New York show lifts the spirits

ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime

Sarah Kent

Despite anticipating disaster, this mesmerising voyage is full of hope

Wolves on Road, Bush Theatre review - exciting dialogue, but flawed plotting

Aleks Sierz

New play about young black men and cryptocurrency is sadly predictable

Footnote: a brief history of British theatre

London theatre is the oldest and most famous theatreland in the world, with more than 100 theatres offering shows ranging from new plays in the subsidised venues such as the National Theatre and Royal Court to mass popular hits such as The Lion King in the West End and influential experimental crucibles like the Bush and Almeida theatres. There's much cross-fertilisation with Broadway, with London productions transferring to New York, and leading Hollywood film actors coming to the West End to star in live theatre. In regional British theatre, the creative energy of theatres like Alan Ayckbourn's Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, the Bristol Old Vic and the Sheffield theatre hub add to the richness of the landscape, while the many town theatres host circling tours of popular farces, crime theatre and musicals.

lion_kingThe first permanent theatre, the Red Lion, was built in Queen Elizabeth I's time, in 1576 in Shoreditch; Shakespeare spent 20 years in London with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, mainly performing at The Theatre, also in Shoreditch. A century later under the merry Charles II the first "West End" theatre was built on what is now Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and Restoration theatre evolved with a strong injection of political wit from Irish playwrights Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Catering for more populist tastes, Sadler's Wells theatre went up in 1765, and a lively mix of drama, comedy and working-class music-hall ensued. But by the mid-19th century London theatre was deplored for its low taste, its burlesque productions unfavourably contrasted with the aristocratic French theatre. Calls for a national theatre to do justice to Shakespeare resulted in the first "Shakespeare Memorial" theatre built in Stratford in 1879.

The Forties and Fifties saw a golden age of classic theatre, with Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud starring in world-acclaimed productions in the Old Vic company, and new British plays by Harold Pinter, John Osborne, Beckett and others erupting at the English Stage Company in the Royal Court. This momentum led in 1961 to the establishing of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, and in 1963 the launch of the National Theatre at The Old Vic, led by Olivier. In the late Sixties Britain broke the American stranglehold on large-scale modern musicals when Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice launched their brilliant careers with first Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and then Jesus Christ Superstar in 1970, and never looked back. The British modern original musical tradition led on to Les Misérables, The Lion King and most recently Matilda.

The Arts Desk brings you the fastest overnight reviews and ticket booking links for last night's openings, as well as the most thoughtful close-up interviews with major creative figures, actors and playwrights. Our critics include Matt Wolf, Aleks Sierz, Alexandra Coghlan, Veronica Lee, Sam Marlowe, Hilary Whitney and James Woodall.

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