fri 29/03/2024

Theatre Reviews

The Changeling, Southwark Playhouse review - wild ride proves too bumpy to land all its points

Gary Naylor

Writing about the upcoming 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Theatre in The Guardian recently, the usually reliable Michael Billington made a rare misstep.

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Death of England: Closing Time, National Theatre review - thrillingly and abundantly alive

aleks Sierz

It’s closing time somewhere in the East End. Nah, not the pub, but at a small local shop. Inside, Denise is banging around with some big pans, while Carly is packing up the flowers. Their business is coming to an end and they are about to hand over the keys to the next tenant.

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The Foreigners' Panto, BOLD Theatre review - no laughing matter

Veronica Lee

The starting point of this musical comedy – using a panto format to take a deep dive into the UK's immigration law – comes from such a good place that one feels a real heel for criticising it. But however much I wanted to like Shani Erez's ambitious work for BOLD Theatre, I really couldn't.

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Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh review - a maze of ideas

David Kettle

The title of Peter Arnott’s new play – a co-production with the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and now partway into a ten-day run at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre – might conjure a painterly image of contented friends and family in an idyllic rural setting.

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Flowers for Mrs Harris, Riverside Studios review - lovely, low-key musical finds a London berth

Paul Vale

Although based on the 1958 Paul Gallico novel Mrs 'Arris Goes To Paris, this musical adaptation arrived much later. With a book by Rachel Wagstaff and music and lyrics by Richard Taylor, Flowers for Mrs Harris premiered in Sheffield in 2016, directed by then artistic director Daniel Evans and starring Clare Burt (now appearing across town in Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends) as the eponymous Ada Harris.

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Othello, Riverside Studios review - three Iagos pitch Shakespeare's villain into the 21st century

Gary Naylor

Shakespeare gives Iago over 1000 lines to implant the jealous rage in Othello, so there’s plenty to of raw material to work with. The director Sinéad Rushe has had the idea to split these weaselly words between three actors, a device that seems so natural, so revealing, so obvious that one wonders why it hasn’t been done before (or, perhaps, more often).

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A Voyage Round My Father, Theatre Royal, Bath review - Rupert Everett excels in a play showing its age

Gary Naylor

Like theatre itself, the law finds its voice in stories, performance and spectacle. Any law student will, from that very first induction lecture, become suffused in a culture that is informed by and in turn informs theatre, some classes more like an evening at the Old Vic than an afternoon at the Old Bailey.

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Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, Gielgud Theatre review - exuberant gala of nonstop virtuosity

Helen Hawkins

The Sondheim gala show Old Friends is a must for fans of the master, naturally, but its quality would knock anybody who loves musical theatre for six. 

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Imposter 22, Royal Court Theatre review - ace on representation, less so on structure

Gary Naylor

The Royal Court’s collaboration with Access All Areas (AAA) may not be theatre’s first explicit embrace of the neurodiverse community on stage: Chickenshed has five decades of extraordinary inclusive work behind them and Jellyfish, starring Sarah Gordy at the National Theatre, was one of my highlights of 2019.

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Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical, Menier Chocolate Factory review - a tourist's view of a Sixties icon

Helen Hawkins

The Biba dresses are way too colourful, the shop’s interior about 10 times too bright… and did anybody really say ”happening threads” in 1965?

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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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