sun 21/09/2025

Theatre Reviews

The Shrine & Bed Among the Lentils, Bridge Theatre review - loneliness shared, with wit and melancholy

David Nice

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).

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The Outside Dog & The Hand of God, Bridge Theatre review - gems of frustration and disquiet

Rachel Halliburton

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. 

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Rose, Hope Mill Theatre online review - a performer at her peak

Matt Wolf

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.

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C-o-n-t-a-c-t, Musidrama review - a beautifully bonkers promenade

Laura De Lisle

A woman sits on a bench. She’s got a song stuck in her head – she can’t remember how one of the lines ends, so it keeps going round and round. It mingles with birdsong, idle musings on whether birds look down on us (figuratively as well as literally), and worries about the strange pain in her chest. The woman’s name is Sarah (Laura White), and she’s not speaking out loud. Luckily, all of us audience members can hear what she’s thinking.

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Three Kings, Old Vic: In Camera review - Andrew Scott vividly evokes generational pain

Marianka Swain

The world premiere of Stephen Beresford’s new hourlong play, livestreamed to home audiences in four performances as part of the Old Vic’s In Camera series, was postponed a couple of times due to Andrew Scott undergoing minor surgery.

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Sleepless, Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre review - love from afar in this amiable musical

Marianka Swain

Originally due to premiere back in March, Sleepless – a musical version of the winning 1993 movie Sleepless in Seattle – now acts as a test case for the return of fully staged but socially distanced indoor theatre, AKA Stage 4 of the Government’s “roadmap”.

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One Enchanted Evening, Glastonbury Abbey review - concert of West End show tunes

Veronica Lee

On a normal bank holiday weekend there would be festival events held in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey.

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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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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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