Theatre Reviews
Quarter Life Crisis, Bridge Theatre review – slender and superficialMonday, 12 October 2020![]()
Success smells sweet. The Bridge Theatre’s pioneering season of one-person plays continues with sell-out performances of David Hare’s Beat the Devil and Fuel’s production of Inua Ellams’s An Evening with an Immigrant, with both having their runs extended. Read more... |
Hermione Lee: Tom Stoppard, A Life review - the last word on a theatrical wordsmithWednesday, 07 October 2020![]()
"The older he got, the less he cared about self-concealment," or so it is said of Sir Tom Stoppard, somewhere deep into the 865 pages of Tom Stoppard: A Life, Hermione Lee's capacious (to put it mildly) biography of the British theatre's leading wordsmith. Read more... |
Nights in the Garden of Spain & Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet, Bridge Theatre review - potent mix of pain and comedySunday, 04 October 2020![]()
Stillness works like a stealth bomb in Nights in the Garden of Spain, in which Tamsin Greig further confirms her status as one of this country's finest actresses. Read more... |
Playing Sandwiches & A Lady of Letters, Bridge Theatre review - the darkness dazzles, twice overThursday, 01 October 2020![]()
"Getting dark," or so comments Irene Ruddock (a pitch-perfect Imelda Staunton) in passing midway through A Lady of Letters, and, boy, ain't that the truth? Both this monologue, and the one that precedes it (Playing Sandwiches, featuring the mighty Lucian Msamati), find Alan Bennett in fearlessly penetrating, ever-darkening mode. Read more... |
Sunnymead Court, Tristan Bates Theatre review - a lovely lockdown romanceSaturday, 26 September 2020![]()
The first words of Sunnymead Court, a new play at the Tristan Bates Theatre, are ominous. “We are transitioning from human experiences to digital experiences.” Oof. Thankfully, this isn’t another gloomy lockdown drama about the evils of Zoom quizzes – it’s the story of an unlikely romance between two women who live metres from each other, but have never spoken. Read more... |
An Evening with an Immigrant, Bridge Theatre review – poetic and engagingFriday, 25 September 2020![]()
When the history of British theatre’s response to COVID-19 comes to be written, the names of two men will feature prominently: Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr. Read more... |
The Cheeky Chappie, The Warren Outdoors review - entertaining drama about risqué comic Max MillerWednesday, 23 September 2020
It’s fitting that there’s another run of Dave Simpson’s terrific play about Brighton’s favourite son, Max Miller (aka The Cheeky Chappie), at this delightful pop-up on the seafront he knew and loved so well. Read more... |
The Shrine & Bed Among the Lentils, Bridge Theatre review - loneliness shared, with wit and melancholySaturday, 12 September 2020![]()
Monologues and duets rule the stage right now. We can only dream of the day when theatre steps up to the classical music scene’s boldness and manages to have more performers gathered together, albeit suitably distanced (not so easy when the drama needs physical contact, though there are plenty of plays that don’t). Read more... |
The Outside Dog & The Hand of God, Bridge Theatre review - gems of frustration and disquietFriday, 11 September 2020![]()
For some of us, it doesn’t take a lockdown to imprison us in our own hellish little world. Since his first series of dramatic monologues, broadcast on the BBC in 1988, Alan Bennett has taken a scalpel to the mindsets of those who have battled life’s disappointments and disillusionments by creating their own, often equally destructive, realities. Read more... |
Rose, Hope Mill Theatre online review - a performer at her peakThursday, 10 September 2020![]()
Solo plays and performances are, of necessity, the theatrical currency of the moment, whether across an entire season at the Bridge Theatre or last week at the Old Vic in the too briefly glimpsed Three Kings, starring a rarely-better Andrew Scott. 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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