fri 18/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

Beat the Devil, Bridge Theatre review – Ralph Fiennes delivers an arresting account of Covid-19

Rachel Halliburton

For a riveting, cathartic – and often surprisingly humorous – 50 minutes Ralph Fiennes paces the stage at the Bridge Theatre to deliver an account of Covid-19 that is as political as it is personal.

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Declan, Traverse Theatre online review - compressed and compelling

Matt Wolf

In normal times, Edinburgh Festival audiences would now be packing into the city’s invaluable Traverse Theatre, home to some of the most vibrant new writing in the country.

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A Little Night Music, Opera Holland Park review - wasn't it bliss?

Matt Wolf

A lot of rain and untold bliss: those were the takeaways from Saturday night’s alfresco Opera Holland Park concert performance of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s eternally glorious 1973 musical, A Little Night Music.

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Alice, A Virtual Theme Park review – down the technological rabbit hole

Laura De Lisle

I have a confession to make: I don’t like Alice in Wonderland. I know, I know, a lot of people disagree. I do appreciate its place in the cultural pantheon – I just find all the caterpillars and tea parties and pointless riddles really, really dull.

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Fanny and Stella, Garden Theatre review - a saucy slice of queer history

Sam Marlowe

In a purgatorial summer, this boisterous, camp and chaotically charming musical is a tonic. It’s a winning combination of slick and slapdash, performed before a masked, socially distanced audience in a hastily repurposed beer garden behind the Eagle pub in Vauxhall.

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Blindness, Donmar Warehouse review - a beautifully haunting parable

aleks Sierz

Wowee! Twenty weeks after the last time I set foot in a theatre, I was able to visit a venue once more. Hello again Donmar! It’s great to see you again. Not for a show featuring live performers, who are currently banned, but for a theatre experience in the guise of an art installation, which is allowed.

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Imagine... My Name is Kwame, BBC One review - interesting but incomplete

Matt Wolf

Filmed, as one would, well, imagine, prior to lockdown, Imagine .... My Name is Kwame hearkens to what now seems a bygone era of full and buzzy playhouses and adventurous theatre-making that was about the live experience and not some facsimile online.

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Scrounger, Finborough Theatre online review – autobiography meets meta-theatre

aleks Sierz

During the current pandemic, stories about isolation have a particular resonance. Feelings of claustrophobia, loneliness and frustration slide off the stage and echo in our subconscious – yes, this is us alright.

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The Merchant of Venice, BBC iPlayer review – a parable on the limits of tolerance

Laura De Lisle

Ah, 2015. Those halcyon days of packed theatres. Thank God the RSC had the presence of mind to film Polly Findlay’s production of The Merchant of Venice, now streaming on BBC iPlayer.

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Songs for a New World, The Other Palace Digital review - chimes with our extraordinary 'moment'

Marianka Swain

We’ve already had The Last Five Years in lockdown; now, we get a digital production of American composer Jason Robert Brown’s earliest work.

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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.


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