mon 11/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Fun Home, Young Vic review - a simply sublime musical memoir

Marianka Swain

It seems only too fitting that David Lan’s luminous reign at the Young Vic should draw to a close with this bold, creatively thrilling international import.

Read more...

One for Sorrow, Royal Court review - imploding family drama

aleks Sierz

It’s the stuff of nightmares. There’s a massive explosion, the sound of smashing glass, falling debris and police sirens. Gunshots. Panic in the streets. It could be the November 2015 Paris terror attacks, in which the Bataclan venue was the scene of a massacre, except this time it’s happening in London. Yes, the stuff of nightmares.

Read more...

The Town Hall Affair, The Wooster Group, Barbican review - electric anarchy

Rachel Halliburton

Iconoclasm, orgasms, and rampant rhetoric are all on irrepressible display in The Wooster Group’s recreation of the 1971 Manhattan debate that pitted Norman Mailer against some of the leading feminists of the day.

Read more...

Finishing the Picture, Finborough Theatre review - projections in a realm of mirrors

Katherine Waters

In the early 20th century, Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov spliced together images of people looking at things with a bowl of soup, a woman on a divan and an open casket. Each object represented a different emotional state – hunger, desire and grief – but each subject “looking” at the object was the exact same image, repeated. The cast-down eyes implied to be considering nourishment were the exact same eyes that appeared to stare in utter loss at death.

Read more...

Kiss Me, Kate, Opera North, London Coliseum review - Cole Porter delivered in true company style

David Nice

First palpable hit of the evening: a full orchestra in the pit under hyper-alert Opera North stalwart James Holmes, saxophones deliciously rampant. Second hit: they've got the miking of the voices right (very rare in West End shows). Third: the first ensemble number, "Another opening, another show", sends spirits soaring.

Read more...

Julius Caesar, BBC Four review - electrifying TV launch of all-women Shakespeare trilogy

David Nice

Who would have thought, when Phyllida Lloyd's Donmar Julius Caesar opened to justified fanfare, that two more Shakespeare masterpieces would be sustained no less powerfully within the women's-prison context over the following years?

Read more...

English, Festival of Voice, Wales Millennium Centre review – lost in language

Owen Richards

Despite the Welsh repute for singing, the Festival of Voice in Cardiff has always been more than just music.

Read more...

Notes From the Field, Royal Court review - sobering report from the frontline of race

Rachel Halliburton

Anna Deavere Smith contains multitudes. As the solo performance artist recounts the testimonies she has selected from the more than 250 people she interviewed for this portrait of inequality and the criminal justice system in America, it is as if each person she has talked to possesses her.

Read more...

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Donmar Warehouse review - Lia Williams makes an iconic role her own

Matt Wolf

Lia Williams can be said to have been in her prime ever since the double-whammy several decades ago when she appeared onstage in fairly quick succession in Oleanna and then the original, and unsurpassable, production of Skylight.

Read more...

Machinal, Almeida Theatre review - descending into darkness

Matt Wolf

The American playwright/journalist Sophie Treadwell's 1928 expressionist drama crops up every so often in order to allow a director to leave his or her signature upon it, so the first thing to be said about Natalie Abrahami's...

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... ...
BBC Proms: Akhmetshina, LPO, Gardner review - liquid luxurie...

Water surged through this Prom from first spray to last drop....

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer, Edinburgh Interna...

Fresh from their triumph at the Proms, the Budapest Festival Orchestra arrived at the Edinburgh International Festival with a programme that...

Tom at the Farm, Edinburgh Fringe 2025 review - desire and d...

As shockingly beautiful as it is horrifyingly brutal, actor Armando Babaioff’s deeply Brazilian adaptation of thriller Tom at the Farm...

MARS, Irish National Opera review - silly space oddity with...

The craft heads to Mars, the music remains below on earth. Which is partly intentional: composer Jennifer Walshe tells us she listened to “synth...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Desiree Burch / Andy Parsons

Desiree Burch, Monkey Barrel ★★★★

Desiree Burch is a bundle of energy as...

Album: Rise Against - Ricochet

Ricochet is Chicago punk veterans Rise Against’s 10th album and,...

Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review...

With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across...

Eight Postcards from Utopia review - ads from the era when 1...

If you saw it blind, with no information about its origins, Eight Postcards from Utopia might look like 70 minutes of outtakes...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Final Solution - Just Like Gold

The booklet coming with Just Like Gold - Live At The Matrix frequently refers to the band as “The Solution.” It will be...