sun 17/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Pity, Royal Court review - whacked-out and wearing

Matt Wolf

The apocalypse arrives as a series of collegiate sketches in the aptly-named Pity, the Rory Mullarkey play that may well prompt sympathy for audiences who unwittingly find themselves in attendance.

Read more...

Allelujah!, Bridge Theatre review - hilarious but dark, darker, darkest

aleks Sierz

The NHS is us. For decades our national identity has been bandaged together with the idea, and reality, of a health service that is free at the point of delivery.

Read more...

A Monster Calls, Old Vic - wild, beautiful theatre that beguiles and bruises

Rachel Halliburton

A raw pagan vitality animates this extraordinary story about a teenage boy wrestling with tumultuous emotions in the face of his mother’s terminal illness.

Read more...

End of the Pier, Park Theatre review - thought-provoking play about comedy and race

Veronica Lee

Les Dennis was once a marquee name on Saturday night television as host of Family Fortunes, but since giving up the light entertainment lark he now plies his trade as an actor, and a very good one at that. If you've not seen it, give yourself a treat and watch his bang-on-the-nose performance as “Les Dennis”, a delusional, whinging has-been, in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's Extras.

Read more...

The Lehman Trilogy, National Theatre review - an acting tour de force

Matt Wolf

There's surprising and then there's The Lehman Trilogy, the National Theatre premiere in which a long-established director surprises his audience and, in the process, surpasses himself. The talent in question is Sam Mendes, who a quarter-century or more into his career has never delivered up the kind of sustained, smart, ceaselessly inventive minimalism on view here.

Read more...

Alkaline, Park Theatre review - faith, friendship and failure

aleks Sierz

Britain is rightly proud of its record on multiculturalism, but whenever cross-cultural couples are shown on film, television or the stage they are always represented as a problem. Not just as a normal way of life, but as something that is going wrong. I suppose that this is a valuable corrective to patting ourselves on the back about how tolerant a society we are, but do such correctives make a good play?

Read more...

As You Like It, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - love among the bucolic hippies

Heather Neill

It's been raining in Regent's Park. On a balmy summer evening during a prolonged dry spell – perfect for outdoor theatrics – it seems ironic to tempt fate by creating artificial downpours and thunderstorms.

Read more...

The Jungle, Playhouse Theatre review - new territory

Katherine Waters

"I am dead," declares Okot before recounting the horrors he survived to reach Calais. Each time, he says, "I died." How many times can you die before you are truly dead?

Read more...

The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Noel Coward Theatre review - Aidan Turner makes a magnetic West End debut

Matt Wolf

Aidan Turner may not reveal those famously bronzed pecs that have made TV's Poldark box office catnip in his West End debut.

Read more...

Imperium, Gielgud Theatre review - eventful, very eventful, Roman epic

aleks Sierz

History repeats itself. This much we know. In the 1980s, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, the big new thing was “event theatre”, huge shows that amazed audiences because of their epic qualities and marathon slog. A good example is David Edgar’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, an eight-and-a-half hour adaptation of the Dickens novel.

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... ...
Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...

Frang, Romaniw, Liverman, LSO, Pappano, Edinburgh Internatio...

Right from the bracing brass fanfare that began this Sea Symphony, you know exactly where you were: right in the midst of the deck, with...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Ordinary Decent Criminal / In...

Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Emmanuel Sonubi / Joz Norris

Emmanuel Sonubi, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Dinosaur Pile-Up - I've Felt Better

The history of popular music is littered with bands who...

Alien: Earth, Disney+ review - was this interstellar journey...

Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie from 1979 was an all-time sci-fi/horror classic, and even an endless stream of sequels and spin-offs...

Unmoored review - atmospheric Swedish noir set on Exmoor

“When have you ever gone off alone?” scoffs Magnus (Thomas W Gabrielsson) when his wife, Maria (Mirja Turestedt), expresses the wish to go to...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Kinder / Shunga Alert / Clean...

Kinder, Underbelly, Cowgate ★...