Theatre Reviews
Be More Chill, The Other Palace review - more exhausting than enlighteningMonday, 24 February 2020
This latest musical theatre exercise in “geek chic” has been an American phenomenon: a show propelled by social media that developed a rabid fan base taking it all the way to Broadway last year. Read more... |
A Number, Bridge Theatre review - a dream team dazzles anewFriday, 21 February 2020
There are any number of ways to perform A Number, Caryl Churchill’s bleak and beautiful play about a father and three of who knows how many of his genetically cloned sons. Since it first opened at the Royal Court in 2002, this hourlong two-hander has been staged in London with some regularity, as often as not with actual fathers and sons (Tim and Sam West, John and Lex Shrapnel). Read more... |
Pass Over, Kiln Theatre review - fierce critique of racist brutalityThursday, 20 February 2020
The Black Lives Matter movement is such an important international protest that it is odd how few contemporary plays even mention it. Since the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been around since 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman who shot African-American teenager Trayvon Martin in February 2012, there is little excuse. Read more... |
La Cage aux Folles [The Play], Park Theatre review - half-cock farceThursday, 20 February 2020
Not the musical then, worst luck. How timely it would have been to mark Jerry Herman's passing with a celebration of a great achievement. Just how brilliantly the pathos and panache of his score lift Jean Poiret's long-running 1970s farce about a gay couple and their St Tropez drag club having to "straighten up" for family values is only emphasised by this ultimately threadbare adaptation by Simon Callow.... Read more... |
Upstart Crow, Gielgud Theatre review - terrific Shakespeare spoofTuesday, 18 February 2020
What joy it is to welcome this offshoot of the television series to the West End stage – complete with several of that show's cast, plus a few new additions. Read more... |
The High Table, Bush Theatre review - party on in Lagos and LondonSaturday, 15 February 2020
Queer people of colour face a double discrimination: racism and homophobia. Against this sickness of negation and stupidity one of the best antidotes is a culture of celebration. And in this theatre can play its part. Read more... |
Leopoldstadt, Wyndham's Theatre review - Stoppard at once personal and accessibleFriday, 14 February 2020
It’s not uncommon for playwrights to begin their careers by writing what they know, to co-opt a frequently quoted precept about authorial inspiration. Read more... |
Far Away, Donmar Warehouse review - one for the devoteesThursday, 13 February 2020
Caryl Churchill, Britain's best living playwright, is enjoying a spate of high-profile revivals of her classic work. Last year, the National Theatre staged her Top Girls, and an upcoming production of A Number is coming soon to the Bridge Theatre. Read more... |
Nora: A Doll's House, Young Vic review - Ibsen diced, sliced and reinvented with poetic precisionWednesday, 12 February 2020
Ibsen's Nora slammed the door on her infantilising marriage in 1879 but the sound of it has continued to reverberate down the years. Read more... |
Collapsible, Bush Theatre review - a high-wire solo engagementTuesday, 11 February 2020
There’s such remarkable symbiosis between material and performance in Irish dramatist Margaret Perry’s Collapsible that you wonder how the hour-long monologue will fare in any future incarnation. 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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