thu 25/09/2025

Theatre Reviews

Edinburgh Fringe 2021: Screen 9

David Kettle

The popcorn on offer as you enter the Pleasance’s performing space at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre quickly fills the air with its rich, sugary scent. It’s a smell that sets the scene nicely for a show set in a cinema, but also an aroma that takes on increasingly heavy, cloying, sickly – and inescapable – connotations as Screen 9 progresses.

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2021: Still

David Kettle

Ageing Mick wakes up on Portobello beach with two gold rings in his pocket, and embarks on the bender to end all benders in order to work out what or who they’re for. Young Gilly has a poorly pug named Mr Immanuel Kant, but can’t face having it put down. Gaynor has suffered from fibromyalgia for decades, but must put it aside if she’s to see her newborn granddaughter.

Read more...

Cinderella, Gillian Lynne Theatre review - a spectacular show that hits and misses

Gary Naylor

Belleville has lost its Prince Charming and, when his statue is graffitied, it loses its long held title as the most beautiful town, too. Its people fear the impact on their livelihoods and soon identify the gobby, gothy girl as the culprit – they go after Cinderella with actual pitchforks!

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2021: Fear of Roses / Myra's Story

David Kettle

Fear of Roses Assembly Roxy ★★

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2021: Doppler

David Kettle

There’s always a tricky balance to be struck with site-specific theatre. What’s more important: the show itself, or its unusual setting? And to what extent does its location enrich or even impact on the essence of the text?

Read more...

2:22 A Ghost Story, Noël Coward Theatre review - unconvincing, sporadically amusing genre play

Gary Naylor

Danny Robins tells us what we’re in for with his title, so we’re warned. And it’s not long before we get the “things that go bump in the night”, the creaking floorboards, the “I know this sounds crazy, but…” because they’re the essential components of the genre. Reviewing a ghost story and complaining about that stuff really isn’t on – like critiquing a pantomime for its audience participation. 

Read more...

Edinburgh Fringe 2021: Tunnels / Dandelion

David Kettle

Tunnels Army @ The Fringe ★★

Read more...

Constellations, Vaudeville Theatre review - multiple casts continue to shine

Ismene Brown

This week is peak time to test out Nick Payne’s hypothesis of life as a series of accidents, narrow squeaks and near misses. While the Perseids are doing their August explosive thing, go home after the show and look in the night sky with a lover, and see whether both of you see the same shooting star – what are the chances?

Read more...

Paradise, National Theatre review - war, woe, and a glimmer of hope

Laura De Lisle

Philoctetes, Odysseus, Neoptolemus: the men’s names in Sophocles’ Philoctetes are all unnecessarily long and weighed down by expectations.

Read more...

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe review - foot-stompingly good fun

Laura De Lisle

The best version of Twelfth Night I’ve seen is not called Twelfth Night. For sheer knockabout entertainment, nothing beats the 2006 film She’s the Man. But Sean Holmes’ production for the Globe’s summer season, brimming with song and physical comedy, comes a worthy second.

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...

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,...

Kohout, Spence, Braun, Manchester Camerata, Huth, RNCM, Manc...

The Royal Northern College of Music was in celebratory mood last night for the opening of its new season, in a joint promotion with Manchester...

Album: Night Tapes - portals//polarities

“Helix” is the ninth track on portals//polarities. With this dramatic, acid house-leaning slab of shoegazing-infused...