sat 20/04/2024

Theatre Reviews

Rebecca, Charing Cross Theatre review - troubled show about a troubled house nonetheless diverts

Gary Naylor

There are times when it’s best to know as little as possible before taking one’s seat for a show – this new production of Rebecca would be a perfect such example.

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Operation Epsilon, Southwark Playhouse review - alternative Oppenheimer

aleks Sierz

Must science always be dominated by politics? This question is most urgent when the stakes are high – climate change or nuclear weapons. And it is grimly true that the fact that audiences are still interested in the race for the atom bomb between the Allies and Nazi Germany in the 1940s says something about our current anxieties about Russia, North Korea and Iran.

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It's Headed Straight Towards Us, Park Theatre review - indigestible mix of fact and fiction

Helen Hawkins

An impressive performance by Samuel West as one of two warring hams stuck on-set in a trailer over a not-so-dormant volcano in Iceland, endlessly waiting to shoot their scene and go home, tended by a young runner whose woke values soon clash with their antediluvian ones...

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The White Factory, Marylebone Theatre review - what price dignity in hell?

Ismene Brown

This powerful play’s immediate backstory, with Moscow sentencing its author to eight years’ jail and its director going into forced exile, is not its immediate theme – and all the better for it, for how can anyone yet make any authentic dramatic reflection on Putin’s war on Ukraine?

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Pygmalion, Old Vic review - zappy wit and emotional intelligence

David Nice

Many of us have perhaps grown too accustomed to the friendly face of My Fair Lady. George Bernard Shaw’s very original play is sharper, less sentimental yet ultimately more profoundly human. Its wit and wisdom zip along in Richard Jones’s symmetrical, perfectly calibrated production, with three astonishing performances and two climactic scenes, one in each half, which respectively make you (me) cry with laughter and bring a tear to the eye at choice moments.

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anthropology, Hampstead Theatre review - AI thriller runs out of code

Demetrios Matheou

With more than 20 plays under her belt, San-Francisco based Lauren Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in the US. But she’s chosen London to premier her very topical new thriller

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The Little Big Things, @sohoplace review - real-life story movingly realised onstage

Paul Vale

It's rare that a new musical or play opens in the West End with as much positive word-of-mouth as The Little Big Things. Social media has been ablaze over the last few weeks, with critics and bloggers sneaking into previews and authoritative big names hailing a new hit long before the official press night.

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The Old Man and the Pool, Wyndham's Theatre - Mike Birbiglia makes a big splash

Helen Hawkins

Few comedians are such good company that you never want them to stop. The young Billy Connolly was one such; affable American Mike Birbiglia is another. 

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The Father and the Assassin, National Theatre review - Gandhi's killer given an outstanding star turn

Jane Edwardes

From the moment that the blood-stained Nathuram Godse rises out of the floor of the National Theatre's Olivier stage and demands ‘What are you staring at?

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That Face, Orange Tree Theatre review - in-yer-face family drama

aleks Sierz

Playwright Polly Stenham MBE had a meteoric rise with this play, her award-winning 2007 debut which she wrote aged 19 and whose original Royal Court cast featured Lyndsay Duncan and Matt Smith, and earned a much-lauded West End transfer.

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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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