tue 07/10/2025

Theatre Reviews

Romeo and Juliet, Barbican review - plenty of action but not enough words

alexandra Coghlan

It’s clear from the start – from a Prologue that quickly dissolves familiar rhythms and words into a Babel of clamour and sound.

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White Teeth, Kiln Theatre review - tuneless hymn to Kilburn High Road

aleks Sierz

You can see why artistic director Indhu Rubasingham chose to stage this version of Zadie Smith's classic White Teeth as part of the Kiln's opening season.

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Still No Idea, Royal Court review - spiky, funny, and politically pointed

Matt Wolf

To the recent spate of shows that put their own narrative-building first, we can now add Still No Idea, with the addendum that this self-penned two-hander may be the funniest and fiercest of them all to date.

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ear for eye, Royal Court review - powerful and passionate anti-racism

aleks Sierz

Two countries; two histories. Being black in the US; being black in the UK. Compare and contrast. Which is exactly what debbie tucker green’s amazingly ambitious new epic, which straddles centuries and continents, succeeds in doing.

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Honour, Park Theatre review - an assault on complacency

Rachel Halliburton

Adultery seldom looks less adult than in the form of the mild-life crisis – that much-satirised condition in which desire is eclipsed by delusion, wisdom by foolishness, and sensible coats by leather jackets.

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I and You, Hampstead Theatre review - Young Adult drama packs emotional punch

Veronica Lee

Here's a good pub quiz question: after Shakespeare, who was the most performed playwright in America last year? Arthur Miller? Tennessee Williams? David Mamet? None of those.

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The Wild Duck, Almeida Theatre review - meta, merciless and altogether brilliant

Matt Wolf

Beware the smile that Edward Hogg wears like a shield in the opening scenes of The Wild Duck, the Ibsen play refashioned into the most scalding production in many a year by Robert Icke, here in career-surpassing form. Playing James Ekdal, the photographer previously known as Hjalmar, Hogg disarms you from the outset with a bonhomie just waiting to snap.

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A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Bridge Theatre review - black comedy falls flat

aleks Sierz

It's all in the title, isn't it? Martin McDonagh's surreal new play comes with a warning that not only screams its intentions, but echoes them through repetition. Okay, okay, I get it. This is going to be a dark story, a very very very dark story.

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Macbeth, RSC, Barbican review - Shakespeare's blood-boltered tragedy, tense but flawed

Heather Neill

It has been said before: Macbeth's reputation for bad luck has more to do with the difficulty of bringing off a successful production than the supernatural elements in the play.

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Wise Children, Old Vic review - Emma Rice in fun if not quite top-flight form

Matt Wolf

"What could possibly go wrong?" The question ends the first act of Wise Children, the debut venture from the new company birthed by a director, Emma Rice, who must have asked herself precisely that query at many points in recent years.

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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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