wed 29/01/2025

Theatre Reviews

Toast, Lawrence Batley Theatre online review - pungent adaptation of Nigel Slater's autobiography

Rachel Halliburton

I knew what a Howard Hodgkin painting would look like before I ever saw one because of Nigel Slater. There’s a recipe in one of his very early books, Real Cooking, for “A creamy, colourful, fragrant chicken curry” which he candidly admits is “seriously unauthentic”, with ingredients that will leave some purists “really pissed-off”.

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Birdsong, The Original Theatre Company online review – a gutsy experiment

Laura De Lisle

Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks’ best-selling First World War novel, has been adapted quite a few times in its twenty-seven years.

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Hamilton, Disney+ review - puts us all in the room where it happened

Marianka Swain

The movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights was meant to hit cinemas this summer, but, in response to Covid-19, has been put back to 2021.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream, National Theatre At Home review – a mad delight

Laura De Lisle

Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filmed for NT Live at the Bridge Theatre last summer, is – as it gleefully acknowledges – completely bonkers. But it doesn’t start out that way.

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The Last Five Years, The Other Palace Digital review - socially distanced heartbreak

Marianka Swain

A musical featuring two people who are physically separated? Jason Robert Brown’s work is a shutdown natural – as this new digital theatre version demonstrates.

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Small Island, National Theatre At Home review – big-hearted story hits every beat

Laura De Lisle

A British-Jamaican man is confused. It's the Second World War, and he signed up for the RAF on the understanding that he would serve as a pilot overseas. But instead he's ended up as ground crew in a grey Lincolnshire village. "You are overseas, aren't you?" sneers his sergeant.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe online review - a seasonal treat

Heather Neill

What could be better for a lockdown summer night "out" than a virtual visit to Shakespeare's Globe? Simultaneously in a theatre and the open air, we can share the visible enjoyment of hundreds of others, the very opposite of self-isolation and social distancing.

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The Madness of George III, National Theatre at Home review – a powerful, elegant depiction

Rachel Halliburton

It has been the fate of George III – who on many levels was a visionary and accomplished monarch – to go down in history as a comic figure, most famed for losing first America and then his mind.

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Reasons To Be Cheerful, Graeae review - raunchy working-class nostalgia

aleks Sierz

If any musical can live up to this title in these troubled times, it must be this show from Graeae, a theatre company whose mission is to champion the work of Deaf and disabled artists.

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Coriolanus, National Theatre at Home review – gritty 21st century update

Rachel Halliburton

An arrogant leader contemptuous of his people. Could there be a more perfect timing for Josie Rourke’s taut, visceral production of Coriolanus?

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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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