tue 20/05/2025

Theatre Reviews

A Christmas Carol, Old Vic review - tidings of discomfort and noise

aleks Sierz

This Dickens classic is an annual treat, or a Christmas trial – depending on your point of view. At the Old Vic, it was adapted by Jack Thorne in 2017, and like the holly and the ivy has been a hardy perennial ever since. Here Scrooge has been played by stars such as Rhys Ifans, Paterson Joseph, Stephen Mangan and Christopher Eccleston. This time it’s the turn of John Simm.

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[title of show], Southwark Playhouse review - two guys and two girls write about writing, delightfully

Gary Naylor

Not just a backstage musical, a backroom musical!

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ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime

Sarah Kent

Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.

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Wolves on Road, Bush Theatre review - exciting dialogue, but flawed plotting

aleks Sierz

Cryptocurrency is like the myth of El Dorado – a promised land made of fool’s gold. Despite its liberatory potential, it frequently attracts sharks or, as the title of Beru Tessema’s new play indicates, hungry wolves that gobble up defenceless sheep.

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Burnt Up Love, Finborough Theatre review - scorching new play

Gary Naylor

Mac is in prison for a long stretch. He is calm, contemplative almost, understands how to do his time and has only one rule – nobody, cellmate or guard, can touch the photo of his daughter, then three years old, attached to his wall. Though he is a man who gets through the days with few problems, he solves them through violence.

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L’Addition, BAC review - top billing for physical comedy duo

aleks Sierz

Can experimental theatre survive the decades? This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Forced Entertainment theatre company, whose mission is summarised (by themselves) as “tearing up the rulebook”.

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Barcelona, Duke of York's Theatre review - Lily Collins migrates from France to Spain

Matt Wolf

The Catalan capital has given its name to a famous number in the Stephen Sondheim musical, Company. And here it is lending geographical specificity to the second two-hander, following the far-superior Camp Siegfried, from American writer Bess Wohl to reach London in recent years.

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Guards at the Taj, Orange Tree Theatre review - miniature marvel with rich resonances

Helen Hawkins

It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls an “aeroplat”. As he might slide off it in transit, for good measure he gives it a belt to tie him down. It would be a “seat belt”, he suggests triumphantly.

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The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical fun, but what about the issues?

aleks Sierz

Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost”. Almost. Yes, that's good. We are in 1970s south-east London, and this immediately introduces, despite its tentative tone, the protagonist as a young man trying to define his identity.

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How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review - mummy issues drive autobiographical dramedy

Gary Naylor

It is unsurprising to learn in the post-show Q&A that each audience receives Jonathan Maitland’s new play based on his 2006 memoir differently. My house laughed a lot (me especially) but some see the tragic overwhelming the comic, and the laughs dry up. When it comes to humour, as is the case with mothers, it’s each to their own.

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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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