sun 25/05/2025

Theatre Reviews

Unicorn, Garrick Theatre review - wordy and emotionless desire

aleks Sierz

Since when has new writing become so passionless? Mike Bartlett is one of the country’s premiere playwrights and his new play, Unicorn, is about radical sexuality and desire. It’s already made a big splash by being put straight on in the West End, yet the experience of watching it feels like a real turn off. It’s a masterclass of bad writing and unemotional acting.

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More Life, Royal Court review - posthuman tragedy fails to come alive

aleks Sierz

I always advocate in favour of more sci-fi plays, and over the past decade there have been a gratifying number of them. But one essential element of any futuristic fantasy must be its power to convince. And it is precisely this that is missing from Lauren Mooney and James Yeatman’s More Life, currently in the studio space of the Royal Court.

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Three Sisters, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Chekhov's anatomy lesson on the human condition

Gary Naylor

Russia.

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Churchill in Moscow, Orange Tree Theatre review - thought-provoking language and power games

aleks Sierz

Playwrights who work for decades often acquire a moniker. In the case of Howard Brenton, who began his career as a left-winger in the turbulent 1970s, the name is The History Man. Over the past decade, or so, he has written brilliantly about historical figures such as, among others, Anne Boleyn, Charles I, Lawrence of Arabia – and many more.

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The Years, Harold Pinter Theatre review - a bravura, joyous feat of storytelling

Demetrios Matheou

Annie Ernaux’s semi-autobiographical book Les Années charts a woman’s life across time and space, history and memory, through what the author describes as a collective consciousness. Perhaps the most satisfying thing about Eline Arbo’s superb adaptation is that it projects this idea through, fittingly, one of the most truly collective performances London has seen in years. 

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Elektra, Duke of York's Theatre review - Brie Larson's London stage debut is angry but inert

Matt Wolf

We live in tragic times given over to cataclysmic events that require outsized emotions in return. That may be one reason to account for the uptick, therefore, in Greek drama, which includes not one but two Oedipi, various adaptations of Antigone, and the arrival on the commercial West End of the obvious companion piece to Oedipus, namely Elektra – the K in the title perhaps nodding to a landscape in which people exist to kill. 

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Oedipus, Old Vic review - disappointing leads in a production of two halves

Helen Hawkins

The opening scene of the Old Vic’s Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes shut and rock-like. It belongs to the actor playing Oedipus, presumably, Rami Malek. This is as near to a close-up of the title character as we get.

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Second Best, Riverside Studios review - Asa Butterfield brings the magic

Gary Naylor

Your response to Barney Norris’s one-man play, based on David Foenkinos’s bestselling novel as translated by Megan Jones, probably depends on which of the Gens is yours. 

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Mrs President, Charing Cross Theatre review - Mary Todd Lincoln on her life alone

Gary Naylor

The phenomenal global success of Six began when two young writers decided to give voices to the wives of a powerful man, bringing them out of their silent tombs and energising them and, by extension, doing the same for the women of today.

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… Blackbird Hour, Bush Theatre review - an unrelentingly tough watch

aleks Sierz

In a world tainted with racism and homophobia, the Bush Theatre is something of a refuge from prejudice. As one of the most queer friendly venues in London, it’s no surprise that this theatre is now staging babirye bukilwa’s … Blackbird Hour, a play which explores the experiences of a black queer woman who finds herself on the edge.

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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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