thu 19/06/2025

Theatre Reviews

Tao of Glass, Royal Exchange, Manchester review - brilliant, enchanting tales fascinate

Robert Beale

Who would have thought that a one-narrator show, mainly about projects that never got off the ground, would turn out to be such a satisfying evening’s entertainment?

Read more...

Whitewash, Soho Theatre review - a wild-at-heart linguistic joy-ride

Rachel Halliburton

This witty street-smart play about a white-skinned boy born to a mixed-race mother deploys its narrative with the dexterity of a dance.

Read more...

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, London Palladium review - bright, brash, largely irresistible

Matt Wolf

Cheeky and broad and (for the most part) as entertaining as seems humanly possible, this embryonic entry from the collaborative pen of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber is back at its onetime London home, the Palladium. It's a production far surpassing any of the various London and Broadway Joseph...

Read more...

The Fountainhead, The Lowry, Salford review – marathon in Mancland

Robert Beale

Ivo van Hove’s reputation precedes his work as a rumble of thunder goes before a storm.

Read more...

Peter Gynt, National Theatre review - towering protagonist, middle-way production

David Nice

Like Hamlet and both parts of Goethe's Faust, with which it shares the highest peak of poetic drama, Ibsen's Peer Gynt is very long, timeless...

Read more...

Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Harold Pinter Theatre review - smart stagecraft, skimpy script

Matt Wolf

Better than the 2001 film but likely to disappoint devotees of the book, Captain Corelli's Mandolin onstage works best as a reminder of the identifiable stagecraft of its director, Melly Still.

Read more...

Jellyfish, National Theatre review - Ben Weatherill's play hits the right notes

Saskia Baron

The intense relationship between a single parent and a single child is ramped up to its highest level when it involves a mother whose daughter has learning disabilities.

Read more...

Jesus Christ Superstar, Barbican review - Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical lives again

Marianka Swain

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1970 musical had a heavenly resurrection at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre three years ago, with an encore run the following summer.

Read more...

Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Royal Court review - memes, memories and meanings

aleks Sierz

Few theatres have done as much to promote new young talent as the Royal Court; few theatres have done as much to stage plays about the pains and pleasures of the digital world; few venues have tackled the themes of race and gender in contemporary society more effectively.

Read more...

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13-3/4, Ambassadors Theatre review - needs a chill pill

Matt Wolf

Time hasn't necessarily been kind to this slow-aborning West End transfer of a show first seen (and lauded) in its 2015 debut in Leicester and then again two years later for a summer run at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

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... ...
The Midnight Bell, Sadler's Wells review - a first repr...

Rarely has a revival given a firmer thumbs-up for the future of dance-theatre. Yet Matthew Bourne’s latest show, first aired at the tail-end of...

Album: HAIM - I Quit

Haim’s profile just grows and grows. Since their last album, youngest sibling Alana’s starring role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s whimsical Seventies...

Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 1 review - dance to the music of...

This year’s Aldeburgh Festival – the 76th – takes as its motto a line from Shelley‘s Prometheus Unbound. The poet speaks of despair “...

Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review - a top night with a char...

If you walked into a bar in the US, say in one of the southern states, and Bonnie Raitt and her band were playing, you’d have the best night of...

Hidden Door Festival 2025 review - the transformative Edinbu...

"When I was your age, I worked in a corrugated cardboard factory!" is a phrase my father was fond of telling me as a teenager, presumably in an...

Edward Burra, Tate Britain review - watercolour made mainstr...

It’s unusual to leave an exhibition liking an artist’s work less than when you went in, but...

Joyceana around Bloomsday, Dublin review - flawless adaptati...

It amuses me that Dubliners dress up in Edwardian finery on 16 June. After all, this was the date in 1904 when James Joyce first walked out with...

Stereophonic, Duke of York's Theatre review - rich slic...

The tag “the most Tony-nominated play of all time” may mean less to London theatregoers than it does to New Yorkers, but Stereophonic,...