Theatre Reviews
Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor, Finborough Theatre review - sultry yet staticMonday, 14 January 2019
Confessions first: I fell asleep mid-way through Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor, from too much time on trains and planes over the New Year. I was kindly allowed back for a second visit to the Finborough Theatre show, for a Sunday matinee, dosed with coffee and determined to concentrate fully. This was a good thing. Read more... |
Aspects of Love, Southwark Playhouse review - discourse keeps passion at bayFriday, 11 January 2019
“Love Changes Everything”, as immortalised by Michael Ball, is the most enduring feature of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Charles Hart’s 1989 musical – a moderate West End success, and a Broadway flop. Read more... |
Pinters Five and Six, Harold Pinter Theatre review - superlatively acted esotericaTuesday, 08 January 2019
The scintillating, commercially bold season of Pinter one-acts at the theatre bearing his name plays a particular blinder with Pinter Five (★★★★★), from which I emerged keen to engage with its mystery and breadth of feeling all over again. Read more... |
Best of 2018: TheatreSunday, 30 December 2018
Will pride of place amongst theatre productions every year go in perpetuity to the work of Stephen Sondheim? Read more... |
Sweat, Donmar Warehouse review - America at once fractured and fractiousThursday, 20 December 2018
A tremendous year for American theatre on the London stage is resoundingly capped by Sweat, the Lynn Nottage Pulitzer prize-winner that folds the personal and the political into a collective requiem for a riven country. Read more... |
The Tragedy of King Richard II, Almeida Theatre review - Simon Russell Beale leads revelatory interpretationWednesday, 19 December 2018
Joe Hill-Gibbins’ uncompromising production of The Tragedy of Richard II hurtles through Shakespeare’s original text, stripping and flaying it so it is revealed in a new shuddering light. Read more... |
Caroline, or Change, Playhouse Theatre review - Sharon D Clarke is superlativeWednesday, 19 December 2018
With the politics of hate alive and well both sides of the Atlantic, this seems a good time to revive Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's 2003 musical, which is set in Civil Rights-era Louisiana. Read more... |
The Box of Delights, Wilton's Music Hall review - captivating adaptation of John Masefield's darkly thrilling novelTuesday, 18 December 2018
If you’re looking for a Christmas with more pagan edge than saccharine cheer, where the wolves are howling and the mythological characters are steeped in the terror and mystery of winter’s long dark nights, then make haste to Wilton’s Music Hall. Read more... |
The Tell-Tale Heart, National Theatre review - bloody good fun as well as bloodyMonday, 17 December 2018
The Tell-Tale Heart may be the title of an 1843 short story by Edgar Allen Poe, but rest assured that Anthony Neilson's adaptation of it for the National contains this theatre maverick's signature... Read more... |
Aladdin, New Wimbledon Theatre review - enjoyable but underpoweredMonday, 17 December 2018
Paul Merton has a lot of strings to his bow – stand-up, improv artist, historian of silent-movie-era comedy, quiz-show panellist, to name a few – and now he adds pantomime dame to his CV. He has appeared in television pantos before, but this is his first live outing, as Widow Twankey in Aladdin. Read more... |
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