Theatre Reviews
Death of England: Face to Face, National Theatre at Home review - anti-racist trilogy ends with a bangTuesday, 23 November 2021
One of the absolute highpoints of new writing in the past couple of years has been the Death of England trilogy. Written by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer, these three brilliant monologues have not only explored vital questions of race and racism, identity and belonging, but have also provided a record of theatre-going before, during and after the pandemic lockdown. Read more... |
Little Women The Musical, Park Theatre review - broad brush comedy redeemed by a talented castMonday, 22 November 2021
Louisa May Alcott did not think she could write a successful book for girls. After her publisher suggested this might be the right way to deploy her talents, she declared to a friend, “I could not write a girls’ story knowing little about any but my own sisters and always preferring boys”. Read more... |
The Wife of Willesden, Kiln Theatre review - a saucy ode to BrentFriday, 19 November 2021
Zadie Smith might not be the only writer who can rhyme "tandem" with "galdem", but she’s the only one who can do it in an adaptation of Chaucer. In The Wife of Willesden, her debut play, a modern version of one of the Canterbury Tales, Smith’s talent for mixing high and low is at full power. Read more... |
Rare Earth Mettle, Royal Court review - one long unsatisfying slogFriday, 19 November 2021
Why are we indifferent to anti-Semitism? In the past few weeks the Royal Court, a proud citadel of wokeness, has been embroiled in an appalling case of prejudice by allowing a character, who is a really bad billionaire, in Al Smith’s new play, Rare Earth Mettle, to be called Hershel Fink. Stereotype, or what? Read more... |
Straight White Men, Southwark Playhouse review - an exciting Korean-American playwright arrives in the UKThursday, 18 November 2021
The Korean-American writer Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, currently enjoying its UK debut at Southwark Playhouse, is presented within a frame that cleverly and radically alters what’s inside it. Read more... |
A Merchant of Venice, Playground Theatre review - Shylock supreme in a pared-down productionThursday, 18 November 2021
What’s in an article? Director Bill Alexander has titled his new production A Merchant of Venice, leaving us to ponder the implications that arise from his avoidance of the standard “the”? Is it a hint towards generality, broadening the focus of Shakespeare’s story of the treatment of a single character, Shylock, within his community, towards something more representative? Read more... |
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Charing Cross Theatre review - Tony-winning play checks out ChekhovWednesday, 17 November 2021
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike has taken eight years to reach the London stage, which is surprisingly long for the Tony Award winner for Best Play of 2013: the pandemic, unsurprisingly, didn't help. Read more... |
little scratch, Hampstead Downstairs review - a maverick director surpasses herselfMonday, 15 November 2021
Katie Mitchell’s desire to bust the boundaries of theatre has taken a brilliant turn. Over her long and distinguished career as a director she has been tirelessly inventive, injecting stylised movement into Greek tragedy, projecting film onto giant screens of the actors onstage, slicing a set into three time zones. Read more... |
Footfalls & Rockaby, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Beckett up close and personalSaturday, 13 November 2021
Like all great art, Samuel Beckett's works find a way to speak to you as an individual, stretching from page to stage and on, on, on into our psyches. This happens not through sentimental manipulation or cheap sensationalism, but through the accrual of impressions, the gathering of memories, the painstaking construction of meaning. Read more... |
The Seven Pomegranate Seeds, Rose Theatre, Kingston review - misogynist Euripides stands correctedSaturday, 13 November 2021
The resurrection of female voices from ancient Greek myth is so common now that one might imagine a grand panjandrum behind the scenes had set down a long-range mission – rather as they do in the fashion industry – which makers and producers scurried to fulfil. 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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