Theatre Reviews
Raya, Hampstead Downstairs review - a richly fraught reunionWednesday, 23 June 2021
Thirty years on, Alex and Jason meet at a university reunion and cab it back to Jason’s old student house where Alex is thinking “probably…” and Jason is thinking “probably not…” - each, it turns out, with good reason. We look on as the clumsy fumblings of youth get replaced with the anxious fumblings of middle age, two temporal spaces coming together in one room. Read more... |
Happy Days, Riverside Studios review - memory, madness and melancholyFriday, 18 June 2021
Just when you thought you couldn’t take any more one- or two-handers, online or in the theatre, along comes the supreme masterpiece to jolt you out of any fatigue. Every line counts as Winnie, buried up to her waist and then up to her neck, determines that words will never fail her. And what poetry there is in even the most banal observation, the endless repetition. Read more... |
After Life, National Theatre review - thanks for the memoriesMonday, 14 June 2021
Limbo, in Jack Thorne’s latest play, is a room lined ceiling-high with drawers, a sort of morgue rebooted as a vast filing system. Read more... |
The Death of a Black Man, Hampstead Theatre review - blistering theatre with an unflinching visionSaturday, 05 June 2021
This blistering, fearless play about an 18-year-old black entrepreneur on the King’s Road raises a myriad of uncomfortable questions that resonate profoundly with the Black Lives Matter debate. Read more... |
Four Quartets, Theatre Royal Bath review - Ralph Fiennes gives a compelling performanceFriday, 04 June 2021
For 75 captivating minutes, Ralph Fiennes digs deep into TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, the poet’s interlinked reflections on time, faith and the quest for spiritual enlightenment – in what is the first solo adaptation of Eliot’s work for the stage, a co-production between Theatre Royal Bath and the Royal & Derngate,... Read more... |
Walden, Harold Pinter Theatre review – where’s the emotion?Monday, 31 May 2021
There’s something definitely inspiring about producer Sonia Friedman’s decision to reopen one of her prime West End venues with a season, called RE:EMERGE, of three new plays. Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe review - a blast of colour from our post-vaccine futureSaturday, 29 May 2021
A little less than two years after Sean Holmes’s kick-ass Latin American carnival-style A Midsummer Night’s Dream erupted at the side of the Thames, it has returned to a very different world. Read more... |
Harm, Bush Theatre review – isolation, infatuation and intensityMonday, 24 May 2021
After months of watching theatre on screens large, medium and tiny, I definitely feel great about going to see a live show again. Of course, it’s not the usual theatre experience, you know, the one with crowds milling around the bar, people breathing down your neck and elbowing you while you’re watching, but at least it’s three-dimensional. Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Creation Theatre online review - game version falls between stoolsMonday, 17 May 2021
There is a promising production struggling to get out of this muddled concept. Creation Theatre (here partnered with Watford Palace) is well known for innovative, site-specific pieces, one of which –The Tempest – was adapted for the screen, including interactive elements, last year. Read more... |
Being Mr Wickham, Original Theatre Company online review - an uncontroversial apologiaTuesday, 04 May 2021
It wasn’t Jane Austen’s subtlest move, naming her roguish soldier George Wickham. As countless GCSE English teachers have patiently read in generations of essays, his surname sounds a lot like "wicked" – and wicked he is... Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘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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