tue 07/10/2025

Theatre Reviews

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...

The King and I, London Palladium review - classic musical reborn with modern sensibilities

Marianka Swain

Shall we dodge? (One, two, three) No, the brilliance of Bartlett Sher’s Tony-winning Lincoln Center revival – first on Broadway in 2015, now gracing the West End, with its original leads – is that it faces the problematic elements of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1951 musical head on.

Read more...

As You Like It, Shakespeare in the Squares review - an exuberant celebration of the Summer of Love

Rachel Halliburton

Gender-bending, confused identities, and hedonistic anarchy go together as naturally in summer Shakespeare as strawberries and cucumbers in Pimms, and in Tatty Hennessy’s exuberant alfresco version of As You Like It, touring to squares across the capital, the mix proves an appropriately heady combination.

Read more...

The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare's Globe review - a chilly tale for a time of austerity

alexandra Coghlan

“A sad tale’s best for winter,” Leontes’ young son Mamillius tells us. By that logic the current summer heatwave should be bringing us a Winter’s Tale overflowing with joy – the songs of Bohemia drowning out the shouted accusations and desperate howls of Sicilia. But that’s not what director Blanche McIntyre has in mind.

Read more...

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wilton's Music Hall review - a stereotype-smashing evening of pagan delights

Rachel Halliburton

The Faction’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a production in which women are more likely to kick ass than sleep with one – a muscular, mischievous take on the Bard’s most light-hearted play about forbidden love.

Read more...

Genesis Inc, Hampstead Theatre review - Harry Enfield in ungodly mess

aleks Sierz

We are now pretty familiar with the idea that human reproduction (making babies) has been turned into big business, and there have already been several good recent plays about desperate couples and surrogacy – Vivienne Franzmann’s Bodies and Satinder Chohan’s Made in India – so is there any more to be said about giving nature a helping hand?

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... ...
R:Evolution, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells re...

As the new season opens, confidence is high at ENB, just as it...

Trio da Kali, Milton Court review - Mali masters make the an...

Trio da Kali are griots, and their traditional role in...

theartsdesk Q&A: musician Warren Ellis recalls how jungl...

Warren Ellis is Nick Cave’s wild-maned Bad Seeds right-hand man and The Dirty Three’s frenzied violinist. Justin Kurzel’s Australian film subjects...

theartsdesk Q&A: Idris Elba on playing a US President fa...

Idris Elba has only just appeared as the British Prime Minister in the action comedy Heads of State (2025) – now he's...

Echo Vocal Ensemble, Latto, Union Chapel review - eclectic c...

Echo Vocal Ensemble have their genesis in Genesis. Sarah Latto’s group were initially formed by a cohort of the Genesis Sixteen young artists’...

Susanna, Opera North review - hybrid staging of a Handel ora...

Turning Handel oratorio into opera can be a rewarding enterprise. Charles Edwards’ presentation of Joshua, over 15 years ago, for...

Scott, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, RIAM, Dublin review...

One miracle of musical performance is that a work you’ve loved for years can be revealed as never before in an outstanding interpretation. That...

Pop Will Eat Itself's 'Delete Everything' is...

Pop Will Eat Itself deserve to be more celebrated. The ...