wed 26/06/2024

Theatre Reviews

Betty Blue Eyes, Union Theatre review - musical revival pigs out on nostalgia

Gary Naylor

People can’t find the food they want in the shops. Nobody has enough money. Public services are under pressure. And there’s a big Royal occasion to take our minds off things.

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Sea Creatures, Hampstead Theatre review - mysterious and allusive

aleks Sierz

Is it possible to successfully challenge naturalism in British theatre today? At a time when audiences crave feelgood dramas, uplifting musicals and classic well-made plays, there is very little room for experimental writing.

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A Little Life, Harold Pinter Theatre review - unrelenting trauma

aleks Sierz

Wow! James Norton naked! Wow! New play by Ivo van Hove. Wow! It’s four hours long. Wow! Wow! Wow! The much anticipated play of the year, an adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s 700-page bestselling novel of 2015, comes to the West End in a huge blaze of publicity.

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For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, Apollo Theatre review - a turbo-charged, game-changing piece of theatre

Helen Hawkins

For a show that comes with a trigger warning about the themes of racism, gang violence, toxic relationships, sexual abuse, child abuse, domestic violence and suicide it will tackle, For Black Boys… is unexpectedly joyful.

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Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Complicité, Barbican review - murder in the forest

mark Kidel

Complicité, the adventurous theatre company led today by Simon McBurney, one of its founders, is now 40. Over the last four decades, McBurney and his collaborators have changed the face of theatre.

Rooted in the training of Jacques Lecoq, along with Robert Lepage, Ariane Mnouchkine and others, they have created work that combines poetry and intelligence, illuminating the stage in a way that combines the inspiration of the best story-telling with the play of the imagination.

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Berlusconi, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - curious new musical satire

Gary Naylor

One wonders if Ricky Simmonds and Simon Vaughan pondered long over their debut musical’s title. Silvio might invite hubristic comparisons with Evita (another unlikely political leader), but Berlusconi feels a little Hamilton – too soon? They went with the surname of their anti-hero which appears a mite unwieldy on the playbill.

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Black Superhero, Royal Court review - ambitious, but messy

aleks Sierz

The act of idol worship is, at one and the same time, both distantly ancient and compellingly contemporary. Whether it is Superman, Wonder Woman or Black Panther, our love of the superhero is both an aspiration and an abnegation. Looking at a star, the fan sees both their own potential and feels their own inferiority.

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Dance of Death, National Theatre of Norway, Coronet Theatre review - straight for the jugular

David Nice

You don’t have to be Scandinavian to act out Strindberg’s fantastical extremes at the highest level, but I’ve not seen any British performers come close to what Norwegians are giving us right now at the Coronet Theatre. Expectations ran high following Pia Tjelta’s lacerating performance in Ibsen’s Little Eyolf in 2018 and her Ellida in The Lady from the Sea the following year, and here, as then, she and her colleagues are simply stunning.

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The Way Old Friends Do, Park Theatre review - sweet, but flimsy

aleks Sierz

Is it a good idea to work with your spouse? The Way Old Friends Do, a love letter to ABBA tribute bands – which premiered at the Birmingham Rep last month and now visits the Park Theatre in north London – is a joint venture by actor and first-time playwright Ian Hallard and Mark Gatiss, who is both his director and his husband.

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Marjorie Prime, Menier Chocolate Factory review - superbly acted chiller about a contemporary crisis

Helen Hawkins

Artificial intelligence has become an even hotter topic since Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime was first staged in Los Angeles in 2014, so it’s not surprising that the play’s handling of AI is being seen as its unique selling point. (It subsequently played Off Broadway and was made into a film.) 

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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.


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