tue 19/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Ordinary Decent Criminal / Insiders

David Kettle

Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ★ 

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Kinder / Shunga Alert / Clean Your Plate!

David Kettle

Kinder, Underbelly, Cowgate ★ 

Drag artist Goody Prostate (yes, I know) receives a call from a local library. Garbed in lederhosen and sporting a preposterous German accent, she was expecting a brutal, no-prisoners-taking drag roast battle. Instead, she finds that she’s actually been booked to read to a bunch of kids.

Read more...

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC, Stratford review - not quite the intended gateway drug to Shakespeare

Gary Naylor

I have two guilty secrets about the theatre – okay, two I’m prepared to own up to right here, right now. I quite enjoy some jukebox musicals and I often prefer schools-oriented, pared back, slightly simplified Shakespeare to the full-scale Folio versions. There – I’ve outed myself!

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Horse of Jenin / Nowhere

David Kettle

The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ★ 

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Fit Prince / Undersigned

David Kettle

The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here)), Pleasance Courtyard

Read more...

Tom at the Farm, Edinburgh Fringe 2025 review - desire and disgust

David Kettle

As shockingly beautiful as it is horrifyingly brutal, actor Armando Babaioff’s deeply Brazilian adaptation of thriller Tom at the Farm leaves a rancid taste in the mouth and harrowing images seared on the retina. It’s a show to shock and provoke, but also to deeply disorientate, blurring the boundaries between pain and pleasure, desire and repulsion in a way that stays with you, whether you want it to or not.

Read more...

Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - jaw-dropping theatrical ambition

David Kettle

With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across Edinburgh’s festivals, there’s no shortage of arresting stagings, innovative visuals and powerful, memorable design. (Just take Cena Brasil Internacional’s shocking Tom at the Farm as one particularly epic, raw example.)

Read more...

Every Brilliant Thing, @sohoplace review - return of the comedy about suicide that lifts the spirits

Helen Hawkins

The Fringe piece Duncan Macmillan devised with Jonny Donahoe in 2014 has since been round the world and back, finally landing in the West End. It feels as freshly minted as ever.

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Beautiful Future is Coming / She's Behind You

David Kettle

The Beautiful Future is Coming, Traverse Theatre

Read more...

Good Night, Oscar, Barbican review - sad story of a Hollywood great's meltdown, with a dazzling turn by Sean Hayes

Helen Hawkins

Back in the day, when America’s late-night chat show hosts and their guests sat happily smoking as they shot the breeze for a growing audience, the most sought after guest was Oscar Levant. 

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... ...
BBC Proms: A Mass of Life, BBCSO, Elder review - a subtle gu...

For Delius – then a young man, visiting Norway in the late 1880s to walk in its mountains – his first encounter with Nietzsche’s Thus Spake...

Blu-ray: Who Wants to Kill Jessie?

"Crazy comedy" was a recognised subgenre in post-war Czech...

BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized...

There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans....

Gibby Haynes, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - ex-Butthole...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Cat Cohen / Lachlan Werner /...

Cat Cohen, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Adrian Sherwood - The Collapse of Everything

UK dub maestro and producer, Adrian Sherwood is hardly what...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...