fri 26/09/2025

Theatre Reviews

The Choir Of Man, Arts Theatre review - old school hits in an old school pub

Gary Naylor

Like a previous occupant of this venue, Six, The Choir Of Man started life as a quirky Edinburgh show and has gone on to be staged around the world to adoring audiences, tapping into a vibe that’s as much about participation as viewing, the show as much a gig as a musical....

Read more...

The Sugar House, Finborough Theatre review - appealing but uneven family drama

Mert Dilek

The complex history of capital punishment in Australia may not be familiar to many Londoners, but the Finborough Theatre turns out to be a good place to find one’s bearings around the subject.

Read more...

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Duke of York's Theatre review - pure theatrical magic

Laura De Lisle

This show has been a long time coming. Neil Gaiman had the first inklings of The Ocean at the End of the Lane when he was seven years old and living near a farm recorded in the Domesday Book. Several decades later, he wrote a short story for his wife, Amanda Palmer, “to tell her where I lived and who I was as a boy”, as he puts it in his programme notes.

Read more...

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of), Criterion Theatre review - bursting with wit, verve, and love

Laura De Lisle

“We haven’t started yet!” Hannah-Jarrett Scott, dressed in Doc Martens under a 19th-century shift, reassures us as she attempts to dislodge a yellow rubber glove from a chandelier in the middle of the set of Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of).

Read more...

Old Bridge, Bush Theatre review - powerful, poetic and profound

aleks Sierz

Is the Bosnian conflict of 1992–95 the war that Europe forgot? Maybe, although most fans of new writing for the British stage will remember its massacres as the inciting incident for Sarah Kane’s 1995 modern classic, Blasted. Certainly, this genocidal struggle in the heart of Europe not only etched its horror on everyone who heard about it, but also continues to inspire drama.

Read more...

'Night, Mother, Hampstead Theatre review - despair in sotto-voce

Tom Birchenough

‘Night, Mother remains a play of piercing pessimism, something that’s not necessarily the same as tragedy, though the two often run congruently. The inexorability of the development of Marsha Norman’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner certainly recalls the tragic arc of drama, but its sense of catharsis remains somehow limited.

Read more...

The Magician's Elephant, Royal Shakespeare Theatre review - family musical doesn't fully deliver

Gary Naylor

Trigger warnings have become commonplace in theatres these days, but few chill the blood like the description "a new musical" on a playbill.

Read more...

albatross., Playground Theatre review - interconnected intimacies

Mert Dilek

"You need to get better at communicating", says one character to another in Isley Lynn’s albatross. Indeed, the same advice would fare well with many of those in the Anglo-American Lynn’s new play, where miscommunication plagues a range of relationships and chance encounters

Read more...

A Place for We, Park Theatre review - perceptive, but rather flabby

aleks Sierz

I’ve lived in Brixton, south London, for about 40 years now, so any play that looks at the gentrification of the area is, for me, definitely a must.

Read more...

Vanara, Hackney Empire review - fine singing, but a plodding book and one-pitch score in this new musical

Gary Naylor

Two tribes, both alike in dignity in fair Vanara, trade goods and insults in a post-apocalyptic world in which fire is known to The Kogallisk but not to The Pana. When The Oroznah, a shaman respected by both feuding factions, foretells a long winter to come, The Pana must do all they can to steal the fire from The Kogallisk in order to survive the long nights.

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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Entertaining Mr Sloane, Young Vic review - funny, flawed but...

Playwright Joe Orton was a merry prankster. His main work – such as Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw...

Helleur-Simcock, Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester r...

Rachel Helleur-Simcock’s first appearance with the Hallé after appointment as leader of its cello section was auspicious – she became the soloist...

Tosca, Royal Opera review - Ailyn Pérez steps in as the most...

Forget Anna Netrebko, if you ever gave the Russian Scarpia’s former cultural ambassador much thought (theartsdesk wouldn’t). It should be...

iD-Reloaded, Cirque Éloize, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury revi...

It was the absence of performing animals that defined it in the 1980s, but contemporary...

Bacchae, National Theatre review - cheeky, uneven version of...

The word "after" can be elastic when a modern writer is inspired by a classic. Nima Taleghani here stretches it to breaking point, although, to be...

Album: Solar Eyes - Live Freaky! Die Freaky!

Solar Eyes are an indie dance two-piece from Birmingham’s Hall Green. With a sound that binds together psychedelic guitars, foot stomping beats...

Slow Horses, Series 5, Apple TV+ review - terror, trauma and...

Fifth time around, Slow Horses continues to show the rest of the field a clean pair of heels. Or hooves. The adventures of Jackson Lamb (...

The Harder They Come, Stratford East review - still packs a...

The impact of great art is physical as much as it is psychological. I recall the first time I saw Perry Henzell’s 1972 film,...