tue 08/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

Death of a Salesman, Piccadilly Theatre review - galvanising reinvention of Arthur Miller's classic

Rachel Halliburton

It is 70 years since Willy Loman first paced a Broadway stage; 70 years since audiences were sucked into the vortex of a man trying to live America’s capitalist dream only to see his life crash and burn around him.

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God's Dice, Soho Theatre review - overlong and overblown

Veronica Lee

David Baddiel is a very fine comic, and over the past few years has become an acclaimed author of children's books. So I'm genuinely sad to say that his debut play at Soho Theatre really isn't very good.

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A Prayer for Wings, King's Head Theatre review - claustrophobic mother-daughter drama soars

David Nice

When Sean Mathias wrote A Prayer for Wings 35 years ago, the subject of young carers devoting their lives to parents with disabilities had just come as a revelation.

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Ghost Quartet, Boulevard Theatre review - a beguiling journey into the beyond

Marianka Swain

London’s latest new theatre opens with an appropriately otherworldly Halloween offering: American composer Dave Malloy’s teeming 2014 song cycle, which played at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016.

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As You Like It, Barbican review – uneven comedy lacks bite

Rachel Halliburton

Even the most ardent Bardophile has to admit that most of the time the Fool doesn’t shine in a Shakespeare production. Lamentable wordplay combined with philosophy limper than a dead capon means that with a few honourable exceptions, his interludes feel nasty, a tad brutish, and just not short enough.

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On Bear Ridge, Royal Court review - Rhys Ifans's tragicomic masterclass

aleks Sierz

Memory involves places, people, things and words, especially words.

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Botticelli in the Fire, Hampstead Theatre review - history mash-up burns bright

aleks Sierz

Botticelli is a household name, but who knows the true story behind his most famous painting? The painter's 1480s masterpiece, The Birth of Venus, is one of the most striking images of Renaissance Florence – and has achieved iconic status. Because it has been minutely dissected by generations of art historians, it takes a bold playwright to smash through the scholarship and give a memorably fresh, in not necessarily accurate, account of its commissioning.

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Little Baby Jesus, Orange Tree Theatre review - an early play thrillingly alive for now

Matt Wolf

Time has been not just kind but even crucial to Little Baby Jesus, the 2011 play from the multi-hyphenate talent Arinzé Kene, who since then has gone on become a major name on and offstage: the West End transfer of his self-penned Misty brought him dual Olivier nominations earlier this year as writer and actor, and he segued from that to playing the volatile s

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Vassa, Almeida Theatre review - delayed opening doesn't land

Matt Wolf

Even the mighty Almeida is allowed the occasional dud and it’s sure as hell got one at the moment with Vassa. Maxim Gorky’s 1910 play (rewritten in 1935) about a matriarch in extremis some years back proved a stonking West End star vehicle for Sheila Hancock.

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Lungs, Old Vic review - deluxe casting and slick delivery

Sam Marlowe

Playing our monarch and her husband in The Crown has made actors Claire Foy and Matt Smith into TV drama royalty, so reuniting the pair onstage guarantees a hot ticket.

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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.


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