Theatre Reviews
A Strange Loop, Barbican review - Black queer musical with confusing concept but an excellent leadSaturday, 01 July 2023
If you are going to see A Strange Loop, the new American musical trailing a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize that has arrived at the Barbican, here’s a checklist of topics to make sure you are on top of first: intersectionality, Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, gospel plays, James Baldwin, the Chitlin’ Circuit, bell hooks, the back catalogue of Tyler Perry. Especially Tyler Perry. Read more... |
Theatre at Glastonbury Festival 2023 - so big and wild a hallucination, you're always left wanting moreThursday, 29 June 2023
And that’s it again for another year. Oh Glastonbury. A fever dream where the time of reality stops as you hop on a ride to a land of magic. Read more... |
Stumped, Hampstead Theatre review - Beckett and Pinter, waiting for DoggoWednesday, 28 June 2023
Much of cricket comprises waiting – you wait on the boundary to hear news of the toss, you wait your turn to bat, you heed the call of your batting partner to wait to see if a run is on, you wait for the rain to stop. A friend once told me that he played cricket in order to make the rest of his life seem more interesting. There is something in that observation that would appeal to both principals in this play for sure. Read more... |
Robin Hood. The Legend. Re-written, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - no bullseye for new take on familiar charactersMonday, 26 June 2023
After the pantos, the movies (epic, camp and animated) and the television series, is there anything new to be mined in the story of Robin Hood? Probably not, as this messy, misjudged show takes that hope and fires an arrow through its heart. Read more... |
The Pillowman, Duke of York’s Theatre review - starry but slackFriday, 23 June 2023
British theatre is getting a bit timid – is that right? Ahead of the opening of this revival of Martin McDonagh’s unforgettable 2003 masterpiece, The Pillowman, its director Matthew Dunster has spoken of the tendency of playwrights and theatres to self-censor nowadays for fear of giving offence. Everyone is getting a bit worried about being cancelled or trolled or attacked for unacceptable opinions. Read more... |
Mrs Doubtfire, Shaftesbury Theatre review - bold musical makeover of the hit comic filmFriday, 23 June 2023
The heart sinks (mine does, anyway) as the latest film-to-musical adaptation rolls into town, all with similar sound-worlds, exemplary hoofing and lively stagings. They are handy audience-bait, oven-ready stories. People go to see how the creative team are going to render the film’s main achievements, though not to be that surprised: the show must go on as it did before, with all the familiar tropes. Read more... |
Dear England, National Theatre review - filtering the national narrative through sportWednesday, 21 June 2023
"Is everything loss?" the great Oliver Ford Davies once asked on the National's Olivier stage, in the closing moment of David Hare's masterful Racing Demon. That question informs another masterful play, James Graham's Dear England, newly opened in the same space. Read more... |
School Girls, Lyric Hammersmith review - an African Mean Girls with added biteTuesday, 20 June 2023
The alternative title of Jocelyn Bioh’s 2017 play School Girls, The African Mean Girls Play, might indicate that it’s a super-bitchy account of high-school rivalries, here with a west African accent. Which it is. But it’s much more besides. Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Almeida Theatre review - muscular action interspersed with moments of telling stillnessMonday, 19 June 2023
Rebecca Frecknall’s Romeo and Juliet burns like ice, paring back and tightening the script so that love and death are constant bedfellows. She underscores her vision with a thrilling, furious physicality, interspersing explosive fight scenes with steely dance sequences heightened by Prokoviev’s immortal Montagues and Capulets. Read more... |
Happy Days, Landmark Productions, Cork Opera House - to the end of the earthMonday, 19 June 2023
Siobhán McSweeney is to be loved as a person for her speech when she received a BAFTA for Best Female Performance in a Comedy Programme earlier this year, bringing up the way Derry people had weathered the “indignities, ignorance and stupidity of your so-called leaders in Dublin, Stormont and Westminster” (typically, the BBC cut that bit). 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
Music Reissues Weekly: Jon Savage's The Secret Public -...
Jon Savage's The Secret Public How The LGBTQ+ Aesthetic Shaped Pop Culture 1955-1979 accompanies the titular author/...
Jerry’s Girls, Menier Chocolate Factory review - just a para...
Catchy even when the lyrics are at their cheesiest, the Jerry Herman Songbook serves up a string of memorable tunes: you’ll probably find that,...
Punt and Dennis, The Marlowe, Canterbury review - satire and...
Ten years after their last tour Steve Punt and High Dennis are back on the road with We Are Not a Robot. It comes after their long-...
Album: Jihye Lee Orchestra - Infinite Connections
Brooklyn-based composer and bandleader Jihye Lee’s story really does take quite some telling. Having been an indie pop singer in her native...
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review - just as mad without Max
In the way of Batman being overshadowed by his villains, in his last outing, Mad Max: Fury Road, the erstwhile hero of George Miller...
The Beach Boys, Disney+ review - heroes and villains and goo...
It was – let’s see – 63 years ago today that Brian Wilson taught the band to play. Fabled for their resplendent harmonies and ecstatic hymning of...
Album: Twenty One Pilots - Clancy
If there is one positive of the past decade, it must be the growing openness with...
Richard III, Shakespeare's Globe review - Michelle Terr...
There’s a fierce, dark energy to the Globe’s new Richard III that I don’t recall at that venue for a fair while. The drilled cast dances...
Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - celestial navigation throu...
Like his baggy white suit, pitched somewhere between Liberace and Colonel Sanders, Pavel Kolesnikov’s playing was spotless at the...