sat 11/01/2025

Theatre Reviews

Bull, Young Vic

aleks Sierz

Mike Bartlett is the most prolific and talented British playwright to emerge in the past decade. Not only has he created large-scale epics in a variety of styles — from the science-fiction fable Earthquakes in London to the Shakespearean King Charles III — but he has also delivered a series of short plays — My Child, Contractions and An Intervention — in which he hones down the story into sharp shards of powerful emotion.

Read more...

Liberian Girl, Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs

Caroline Crampton

When a play is preceded by a long list of content warnings, it’s hard not to let your judgement be coloured in advance. Sexual violence, strong language, strobe lighting, smoke effects, audience-actor interaction – we’re told in advance that Liberian Girl has them all. As such, the atmosphere as the audience arrives and people find a place to stand on the red sand-strewn set is tense.

Read more...

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Playhouse Theatre

Edward Seckerson

It’s true that there is something wildly, garishly, theatrical about Pedro Almodóvar’s films – none more so than this rampant farce – but it’s equally true that their sensibility is far removed from what the English might deem farce, and that their speed of delivery leaves not a millisecond to draw breath, let alone sing a song. So where does that leave Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the Musical? Lost in translation; twice over.

Read more...

Tree, Old Vic

Veronica Lee

There is a tree on stage. Not a real tree but a full-size fake one (made by Take 1 Scenic Services) that reaches the ceiling, with lots of branches and leaves. As the audience enters the Old Vic auditorium for this in-the-round production (first seen at Manchester Royal Exchange in 2013) they have to cross the stage, where performers Daniel Kitson and Tim Key are laying tape into various shapes on the floor, an act that will be explained much later in the evening.

Read more...

Donkey Heart, Trafalgar Studios

aleks Sierz

Can a country like Russia escape its history? In Moses Raine’s new play — transferring to the West End from the tiny Old Red Lion pub theatre where it was first seen in May 2014 — the answer seems to be no. Like Tena Stivicic’s 3 Winters at the National, the drama tells the story of a nation through the close study of three generations under one roof, in this case a small flat in contemporary Moscow.

Read more...

The Grand Tour, Finborough Theatre

Edward Seckerson

Everything about this little-known and largely forgotten show suggests epic, starting with the title: multiple locations, ambitious concept, big ideas. But like so much of Jerry Herman's work - and the received wisdom on it is invariably wide of the mark - The Grand Tour is a chamber piece at heart.

Read more...

Timber, Brighton Dome

Thomas H Green

Timber! would be best described as a folk-themed lumberjack circus show. Its creators, Cirque Alfonse, hail from rural Quebec, but often, as they indulge in jigs and reels, banjo and mandolin, amongst acrobatics and action, their antics recall the more familiar backwoods traditions of the Appalachians, their hillbilly US counterparts. However, the afternoon matinee where I caught the show was filled with families, lots of kids coming to the end of their Christmas break.

Read more...

Jack and the Beanstalk, Birmingham Hippodrome

Veronica Lee

Birmingham Hippodrome claims to stage the UK's biggest pantomime – a proud boast that highlights its productions' West End-level of investment. And this year's venture, Jack and the Beanstalk, is certainly glitzy and star-laden, while the sets and costumes are fabulous, and there's a 3D sequence as well as a live band, so the claim seems a fair one.

Read more...

Best of 2014: Theatre

Matt Wolf

That old canard about there being no good roles for women needed revising time and again in the theatre year just gone, so much so that end-of-year judging panels for the year's best faced far more competition among the female contenders than they did among the men (such supreme all-male ensembles as the My Night with Reg team notwithstanding).

Read more...

Widowers' Houses, Orange Tree Theatre

alexandra Coghlan

When the Orange Tree lost all its Arts Council funding earlier this year it was hard to get too outraged. An institution that has made a niche in giving the good folk of Richmond exactly the kind of wig-and-britches, RP theatre that they like is hardly an urgent cause. But this is a new era for the Orange Tree in many ways, not least the arrival of new artistic director Paul Miller.

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

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Album: Lambrini Girls - Who Let the Dogs Out

Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira are furious. Livid with the rapist...

Maria review - Pablo Larraín's haunting portrait of an...

As Bono once commented about Luciano Pavarotti, “the opera follows him off stage”. Legendary...

Titanique, Criterion Theatre review - musical parody sinks d...

This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in New York, but...

Album: Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear

Travel back in time to the mid 2000s and you would be hard pressed to escape "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand on the air waves. On the radio,...

Babygirl review - would-be steamy drama that only flirts wit...

Babygirl starts with the sound of sex, piped in over the credits. There's a lot of it on our screens at the moment, from ...

It's Raining Men review - frothy French comedy avoids d...

Iris (Laure Calamy) and her husband Stéphane (Vincent Elbaz) haven’t had sex for four years. Waiting at school for the parent-teacher conference (...

Album: Bridget Hayden and The Apparitions - Cold Blows The R...

The title Cold Blows The Rain encapsulates it. A mournful, unembellished female voice sings of loss. The musical backing is sparse....