Theatre Reviews
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... |
Money, Southwark Playhouse online review - ethical dilemmas for the Zoom generationMonday, 03 May 2021
To accept or not accept a donation: that’s certainly the burning political question of the moment. Read more... |
Tarantula, Southwark Playhouse online review – spine-tingling love and traumaMonday, 03 May 2021
I think I can safely say that polymath playwright Philip Ridley has had a good lockdown. Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, RSC, BBC Four review - post-war poise colours a solid productionMonday, 26 April 2021
It has been a hard coming for this RSC Winter’s Tale. Erica Whyman’s production was cancelled by the virus days before its premiere last spring, with plans to stage it in the autumn frustrated by the second lockdown. Read more... |
The Importance of Being Earnest online review - Oscar Wilde updated for the Nando's generationWednesday, 21 April 2021
Oscar Wilde's fabulous play satirised Victorian England and contained a shedload of quotable quips. Read more... |
A Splinter of Ice, Original Theatre Company online review - Graham Greene and Kim Philby are friends reunitedMonday, 19 April 2021
There’s such a genial feel to the pairing of Oliver Ford Davies and Stephen Boxer in Ben Brown’s new play that there are moments when we almost forget the weighty historical circumstances that lay behind the long-awaited encounter between two old friends, this evening of conversation and drinking,... 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
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
This special, available for a limited time only, acts as a sort of appetiser for the next leg of a mega tour that started in 2023, and still has...
Somewhat astoundingly, The Purple Bird is Will Oldham’s album number 21 using his Bonnie “Prince” Billy alias. A fine set of alt...
Anglo-Irish author Catherine Airey’s first novel, ...
VINYL OF THE MONTH
Buñuel Mansuetude (Skin Graft/Overdrive)
...
After a week of illness, heading out into the Sunday afternoon cold and rain was not something I was overjoyed to undertake. But in the event this...
If I’d listened to this blind, I would have absolutely no idea who it was by. This isn’t the voice I remember...
“A band you’re gonna like, whether you like it or not.” The proclamation in the press ads for the New York Dolls’ debut album acknowledged they...
Director Mel Gibson probably made Flight...
The camera is the ghost in Steven Soderbergh’s 35th feature, waiting in a vacant house for its buyers, ambitious Rebecca (Lucy Liu, ...