wed 02/04/2025

Theatre Reviews

Uncle Vanya, St James Theatre

Marianka Swain

Purists may take issue with Anya Reiss’s incursion into the classics. Having already tackled The Seagull and Three Sisters, she’s now turned her dogged 21st-century gaze on Uncle Vanya. But Reiss’s adaptation, though fresh and punchy, is notable, in fact, for its amiable fidelity.

Read more...

Romeo and Juliet, Sherman Cymru, Cardiff

Elin Williams

When unveiling her first season at Sherman Cymru earlier this year, new artistic director Rachel O’Riordan gave voice to two ambitions: to generate new writing within Wales, and produce classic texts which specifically resonate with the audience. What better way to begin than with Shakespeare’s famous tale of star-crossed lovers?

Read more...

Peer Gynt, Théâtre National de Nice, Barbican Theatre

David Nice

Like Ibsen’s titanic character in search of a self, the Barbican’s theatre programme globetrots to find the richest and rarest. Yet it certainly doesn’t reach Peer Gynt's conclusion that home's best.

Read more...

The Distance, Orange Tree Theatre

aleks Sierz

Are there any real taboos left? I mean, there have been scores of plays about incest, about abuse and about paedophilia. Have all proverbial stones been turned over? According to Deborah Bruce, a director turned playwright, there is one situation that still troubles people, especially women: it is mothers who leave their children. Although this is a staple of women’s magazines, there have been few plays about the subject.

Read more...

Henry IV, Donmar Warehouse

alexandra Coghlan

It’s hard to believe that almost two years have passed since Phyllida Lloyd’s Julius Caesar at the Donmar Warehouse. Harriet Walter’s stricken face as the play ended is still burningly fresh in the memory as we return to the theatre for Henry IV – Part II of a planned trilogy of all-female Shakespeare plays.

Read more...

Notes from Underground, Print Room

Tom Birchenough

“I am spiteful! I am ill! You are not going to like this!” With these words Harry Lloyd opens his one-man show that adapts the Dostoevsky 1864 novella that is often hailed as the first work of literary existentialism. Lloyd is already on stage as the audience enter, darkly bearded, sitting in a dishevelled armchair on a floor created from stacked books beneath his bare feet, his haunted piercing eyes following viewers as they take their seats.

Read more...

Urinetown, Apollo Theatre

Matt Wolf

It's tempting with this show less to write a review per se than to simply pile on the puns, but that would be to piss on - sorry, I meant do a disservice to - both the musical that is Urinetown and to the exceptionally deft UK premiere that the Broadway sleeper hit from a dozen or more years ago is currently receiving at the hands of the director Jamie Lloyd.

Read more...

Warde Street, Park Theatre

Marianka Swain

The advantage of basing drama on real events, particularly emotive ones like the 2005 London bombings, is that they have inbuilt resonance; the disadvantage, all too apparent in 2013 play Warde Street, is that it can be challenging to articulate a revelatory view.

Read more...

Speed-the-Plow, Playhouse Theatre

Marianka Swain

To do Mamet’s work justice, you must be able to deliver dialogue with the speed, skill and breathtaking bravura confidence of Usain Bolt. In Lindsay Posner’s much-hyped but frustratingly sluggish revival at the Playhouse Theatre, only one of three cast members rises to that challenge – and it’s the one who’s generated by far the fewest column inches.

Read more...

Rachel, Finborough Theatre

Caroline Crampton

As a political act, the first performance of Angelina Weld Grimké’s Rachel in 1916 is exceptionally important. It was staged in Washington DC by the drama committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and was the first play by an African-American woman ever to be professionally produced (as well as one of the first to feature an all-black cast).

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...

Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excess

That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of...

Apex Predator, Hampstead Theatre review - poor writing turns...

Motherhood is a high stress job. Ask any woman and they will tell you the same: sleepless nights, feeding problems and worry. Lots of worry. Lots...

Album: Elton John and Brandi Carlile - Who Believes in Angel...

Spring may have sprung, but there’s little in life to truly raise the sprits, so this week’s release of Who Believes in Angels? ...

Balanchine: Three Signature Works, Royal Ballet review - exu...

Is the Royal Ballet a “Balanchine company”? The question was posed at a recent Insight evening to Patricia Neary, the tireless dancer...

theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on his apo...

Joshua Oppenheimer made his name directing two disturbing documentaries, The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014...

Howard Amos: Russia Starts Here review - East meets West, vi...

Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruin of Empire, the journalist Howard Amos’ first book, is a prescient and fascinating examination...

DVD/Blu-ray: The Substance

“I knew I wanted all the effects practical and made for real. The movie is about flesh and bones, about women’s bodies.”

Coralie Fargeat,...

A Working Man - Jason Statham deconstructs villains again

The typical Jason Statham movie character – muscular, resourceful, drily humorous – could probably carve an army into mincemeat using a few odds...

Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Paterson, Bridgewater Hall, Manc...

The BBC Philharmonic took its Saturday night audience on a journey into French sonic luxuriance – in reverse order of historical formation,...