thu 29/05/2025

Theatre Reviews

Polar Bears, Donmar Warehouse

Veronica Lee Beautifully measured: Richard Coyle and Jodhi May in 'Polar Bears'

Mark Haddon is rather making a habit of writing about mental-health issues. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was about a boy with Asperger’s and his TV drama Coming Down the Mountain had a character with Down’s syndrome. He charts similar territory with Polar Bears, which also features a character with a mental-health disorder.

Read more...

Taking Steps, Orange Tree Theatre

Matt Wolf

One of the stranger facts of the theatre in recent years is the comparatively short shrift given to Alan Ayckbourn, who was once a seasonal mainstay. The upside of that same lessening of productions is that those Ayckbourn outings that do come along have for the most part been wonderfully welcome.

Read more...

Mrs Warren's Profession, Comedy Theatre

Veronica Lee

George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 play was deemed too scandalous for public performance in Britain and was banned by the Lord Chamberlain until 1925, and its New York premiere in 1905 caused such outrage that the cast were arrested. Its offence was that Shaw was writing about the world’s oldest profession, prostitution, and alluded to a possible incestuous coupling. His greatest crime, though, was the play’s attack on Victorian hypocrisy.

For prostitution, of course, could not exist with what...

Read more...

4.48 Psychosis, Barbican Theatre

aleks Sierz

Sarah Kane’s last play is the stuff of legend. Since its first production some 18 months after her suicide in 1999, it’s become a favourite with black-attired drama students, nostalgic in-yer-face drama buffs and mainstream theatres all over mainland Europe. But it is rarely performed in big spaces in this country – apparently because artistic directors feel it would empty their venues.

Read more...

The White Guard, National Theatre

Veronica Lee

It takes a particular talent to poke fun at the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, a conflict that cost millions of lives and led to one of the most brutal regimes in modern history. But Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, which he later turned into a play and is presented at the Lyttelton Theatre in a new version by Andrew Upton, does just that. It’s a big, rambling, sometimes confusing affair that dips into farce, but one that remains entirely gripping throughout its two hours and 40 minutes.

Read more...

The Gods Weep, RSC/Hampstead Theatre

william Ward

Why is it that Method-ist actors are pretty much expected to spend months manically researching the inner minutiae of their character, but a much-lauded playwright can get away without providing any serious insights into his main subject matter?

Read more...

Eigengrau, Bush Theatre

aleks Sierz

One of the most common genres of contemporary Brit drama is the "me and my mates" play – usually stories about flatsharing twentysomethings. Although, over the past decade, this type of drama has been somewhat overtaken by the return of the family play, you can still spot the genre in new writing venues all over the country.

Read more...

Random, Royal Court Theatre at Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre

aleks Sierz

It's common to feel a real sense of doom when you approach the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. But it’s not the dodgy hoodies that turn your legs to jelly, it’s the sheer ugliness of the architecture. Yes, aesthetically, this is urban hell. But it’s also the site of the Royal Court’s Local project, in which a rundown shop unit has been turned into a makeshift theatre.

Read more...

London Assurance, National Theatre

Veronica Lee

For the life of me I cannot understand why London Assurance is not performed more often. It’s a rollicking comedy, written in 1841 but which has a Restoration heart, with a cast list that includes a wideboy named Dazzle, a valet Cool, a servant Pert, a lawyer Meddle and - hold your sides - a horsey broad brandishing a whip named Lady Gay Spanker. Calm down, now.

Read more...

Love Never Dies, Adelphi Theatre

Matt Wolf

In movies and on TV we expect sequels and spin-offs and the perpetuation of a franchise whereby we follow Rocky, The Terminator, or whomever seemingly to the grave. But theatre has tended to take the high road: Chekhov never revealed whether the three sisters actually reached Moscow.

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: Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end...

The Flying Dutchman, Opera Holland Park review - into the st...

Thankfully, Julia Burbach’s version of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Holland Park doesn’t try to be one of those concept-laden...

The Frogs, Southwark Playhouse review - great songs save upd...

As a regular theatregoer, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no story too bizarre to work as a...

Album: Sally Shapiro - Ready to Live a Lie

Ready to Live a Lie is so sonically vaporous it almost isn’t there. While the album’s 11 tracks draw from continental European musical...

Il Trittico, Opéra de Paris review - reordered Puccini works...

So here in Paris, as at Salzburg in 2022, it’s no longer “Puccini’s Trittico” but “the Asmik Grigorian Trittico 3-1-2”. Which...

When the Light Breaks review - only lovers left alive

Grief takes unexpected turns over the course of a long Icelandic...

Marwood, Crabb, Wigmore Hall review - tangos, laments and an...

James Crabb is a musical magician, taking the ever-unfashionable accordion into new and unlikely places, through bespoke arrangements of a...