A hopelessly romantic modern musical that'll leave you beaming throughout, Two Strangers is all you could want from a feel-good evening of musical theatre.
The delightful wit with its dark undertow of Murial Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means is caught brilliantly in this adaptation by Gabriel Quigley, directed by Roxana Silbert.
Theatre in the round (well, square) at the Bush Theatre, The Cord is a powerful realist drama about the unshakeable bond of motherhood and the tests of being a new parent, written …
Standing ovations, once reserved to acknowledge only the highest calibre of performance, are now part of the theatre routine.
Stan’s Cafe Theatre, Birmingham, is rooted in the community, so it’s no surprise that they have taken the local story of Trevor Prince, a gospel guitarist and one of the first bl…
Iain Stirling's Relevant is undeniable proof of not only of his talent as a comedian and ability to entertain across generations, but also the level of his comedic reflexes, in…
What an extraordinary and charming play this is, courtesy of De Insomniis Theatre.
A brilliant gem, witty, gallus (cheeky) James V: KATHERINE by Rona Munro (a Raw Material and Capital Theatres Production) pulls no punches.
In the same way that, for many, Destiny’s Child is Beyonce, the Brontë Sisters is (are?) Charlotte (Jane Eyre).
Hanif Kureishi’s adaptation of his screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette was at the Liverpool Playhouse as part of its UK tour, courtesy of the Theatre Nation Partnerships conve…
It all starts off so nicely, but it’s not long before Nina Atesh’s drawing-room drama turns into a battleground of conflicts that resurrect the past, fight for the present and …
An one-man adaptation of the Fyodor Dostoevsky short story of the same name, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man comes to the Marylebone Theatre stage with all the pertinent of its day: …
To stage Les Misérables is a massive undertaking for any theatre company, but Director Ben Jeffreys has consummately risen to the challenge with a production of the School’s Edi…
Harry McDonald’s Foam, at the Finborough Theatre, is a chronological series of snapshots that capture events in the life of Nicky Crane (1958-1993).
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is a one-act Hungarian opera saturated in symbolism.
It’s refreshing to see a much-visited subject of bullying and homophobia in a world dominated by social media, given a fresh treatment that is both innovative and extraordinary, …
Celebrating the show’s first anniversary, Nicholas Hytner’s sensational, immersive production of Guys & Dolls continues at the Bridge Theatre with a new lineup of stars, th…
Cold Dark Matters is the story of a writer.
The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, has scored a major triumph in securing the services of Sir Trevor Nunn to direct his faithful adaptation of Uncle Vanya in a production that has …
Director Rachel Bagshaw has created a vibrant and vivid production of John Webster’s tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre that revels in the candlelight se…
Emma Rice is a genius - we know this from her stage adaptations of classic texts - but when it comes to a wholly original play written by Rice herself, how does she fare?The play i…
In a landscape often cluttered with musicals trying to emulate other modern successes, it is delightful to see a new musical carving its own visual and musical aesthetic in this 80…
Ryan Calais Cameron’s For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, is now in its fourth run and second West End transfer with a brand new cast, and it …
Rika’s Rooms is the second in the series of four works that form the Playground Theatre’s season of plays by Gail Louw and features Emma Wilkinson Wright in the eponymous solo …
Gail Louw's best-known work, Blonde Poison, forms part of a four-play season devoted to her work at the Playground Theatre.
London’s newest Pub Theatre has opened with a sublime production of Stephen Sondheim’s rarely-staged Marry Me A Little.
It’s rare to see an original musical open in the West End.
Eleanor Rhode’s new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the RSC is a child’s-eye Shakespeare; a tale told in either the boring black and white of adult discourse or a …
Unlike Marx's great work Capital, the one thing you cannot describe this boisterous comic Opera as, is boring.
Danny Sapani (Misfits, Killing Eve, Black Panther, the National Theatre’s Medea) is King Lear in this intricate, striking production directed by Yaël Farber.
It’s taken a hell of a time to get here, but finally, Hell has arrived in London’s West End.
We live in turbulent and deranged times.
For charisma, no other male dancer can beat Carlos Acosta, one of the greatest classical dancers of our times, still spell-binding at fifty.
As a title, there’s something intriguing about Dear Octopus, now playing the National Theatre’s Lyttelton stage.
You know you’re in for a wild night at the Arcola Theatre when one of the content warnings is ‘Mentions of necrophilia’.
Set in a secluded tower, this play is a queer adaptation of Alfred Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott, a poem detailing the life of said Lady, who is locked away, spending her days w…
Set in the summer of 1976, in the driest heatwave of the century, four sisters come back to their home in Blackpool as their mother teeters on the precipice between life and death.
Before digital TV made it a thing, “watching on catch-up” used to mean spending your Sunday afternoon in front of the EastEnders omnibus.
There is something gorgeously comforting about a show that within five minutes of beginning you know you can relax and enjoy, because even the things that are ad libbed and unscrip…
Has the National Theatre put the Lyttelton on Airbnb? In October, we had the city-break-length two-week run of Alexander Zeldin’s The Confessions (quite long enough, in my opinio…
Is there anyone who hasn’t seen at least one version of this story, a version filled with gore, elaborate story lines and ostentatious special effects? This production of Jekyll …
Before the titular, double-Grammy-awarded opening number begins, we are exposed to a soundscape of cheesy 80s commercials for domestic products that serve to highlight some of the …
How does one adapt Franz Kafka’s bizarre novel onto the stage? With distinctive style and relative simplicity, answers Frantic Assembly.
Is Cinders a male or a female? Audiences won’t know until the curtain rises on a particular night.
There’s a famous quote by Winston Churchill that says that Russia “is a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma”.
Many of us have experienced the horror of meeting our significant other’s parents for the first time.
Engelbert Humperdink’s biggest hit, packed with stuff that should not fit.
Mischief Theatre is back again with Peter Pan Goes Wrong, an effortlessly hilarious show where magic and mayhem coexist.
Looking out at you from the poster for the National Theatre’s latest version of Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Harriet Walter cuts an imperious figure.
The Homecoming, as with much of Harold Pinter’s work, is a timeless play, charged with machismo, pride and tension.
Hard Feelings is no ordinary stand-up hour, but then Iliza Shlesinger is no ordinary comedian.
Time travel as a sci-fi trope is fascinating and presents us with endless possibilities and frontiers.
The protagonist of Matthew Howell and Jack Michael Stacey’s new comedy farce almost says,“The name’s Blonde, Jane Blonde”.
The human brain doesn’t allow us to remember pain.
The traditional blacked-out auditorium that marks the start of a play at the Sam Wanamaker theatre is illuminated one candle at a time, until the six candelabra and four sconces br…
At first blush, it may seem a strange choice for a festive show but this latest incarnation is bang on the money.
Artistic Director Tom Littler, with Francesca Ellis, scores another inspired triumph with his production of Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.
This new version sees Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale transported to Scotland with a race against time covering the length of the land to vanquish the evil Snow Quee…
Thought provoking, touching and incredibly true-to-life, Dan Sareen’s Passing provides thoughtful insight into the cultural conflicts that can come with the biracial experience.
Pitched as “Pirates of the Caribbean meets Fishermen’s Friends”, this highly enjoyable production of Treasure Island at the Barn Theatre, Cirencester, turns out to be a swash…
Mayor, Cabinet Minister and stooge; not the CV of Boris Johnson, but just some of the jobs attempted by Sandy Surname, the protagonist of the uneven, but entertaining narrative ske…
A fatal car crash, generational genocide, and child mortality.
There are four strong performances in I’m Sorry Prime Minister I Can’t Quite Remember at the Cambridge Arts Theatre, written and directed by Jonathan Lynn, following the passin…
Agatha Christie called And Then There Were None the most difficult to write book of her career, but staging her play comes with challenges of its own.
The brief descriptor of Treason the Musical as “a historic tale of division, religious persecution, and brutality” reads like a modern-day newspaper headline.
The final days of a sixty-year marriage are turned into a domestic comedy in the latest offering from playwright Richard Bean, of One Man, Two Guvnors fame, in To Have and To Hold,…
After great success in London’s West End, Aladdin heads on a UK tour, enthralling all that come with tale of the street rat-turned-prince as charms the princess.
As comedy vehicles go, this is a Rolls Royce.
In October 2022, theatre impresario Nica Burns opened @sohoplace, the first new theatre to be built in London's West End for 50 years.
Writer Simon Stephens has taken Max Frisch’s 1953 Biedermann und die Brandstifter, variously translated as The Fireraisers or The Arsonists and given it a heightened absurdist in…
Touring the UK in Black History Month and into November is Philip Okwedy’s The Gods Are All Here, a one-man show about the performer's distant relationship with his parents a…
Memory is a strange thing.
Playwright Adam Taub says, “In the era of Google, Amazon and Meta, when our every move is monitored and recorded, there is no more relevant story than 1984”.
Nearly two decades after its West End debut, Wicked continues to provide a spectacular night out at the Apollo Victoria.
Written and directed by “l’auteur du naturalisme”, Alexander Zeldin, The Confessions feels like a too-small show on a too-big stage.
Making its London premier Maimuna Memon’s multi-award-winning Manic Street Creature is now showing at the Southwark Playhouse, Borough, following its barnstorming, sell-out world…
The contribution of Stephen Sondheim to musical theatre was commemorated in a one-off tribute show last year, following his death in 2021.
Winston Churchill’s famous expression, “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…” could accurately be applied to the subject of The Kaspar Hauser Experiment a…
Following their hugely successful run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year Box Tale Soup are now performing Casting the Runes, based on stories by M R James, at the Pleasance…
If you are partial to rather extraordinary pieces of theatre, that contain elements of many genres but cannot be pigeon-holed into any of them, then The Nag’s Head at the Park Th…
Carly Churchill looks upon Owners, now revived at Jermyn Street Theatre, as a watershed in her life.
Head to the Bridge House Theatre, Penge for an evening of delightful storytelling and charming performances in Alan Booty's two-hander, The Loaf.
The play’s excessively long title has a folktale ring to it and with only limited knowledge of Balkan history sounds like a work of comic fantasy.
There is nothing subtle about Gilbert and Sullivan’s satirical attack on the House of Lords in Iolanthe, which premiered in both London and New York on 25th November 1882; the fi…
Thirty years ago I stood on The Strand in a queue for eight hours intent on getting my hands on early tickets for the first production of Sunset Boulevard.
What would you do if you were offered god-like powers? That's the final dilemma faced by Mina in this adaptation of the Dracula story by Morna Pearson.
With horrific events occurring around the world, The White Factory at The Marylebone Theatre, written by Dmitry Glukhovsky’s and directed by Maxim Didenko comes as a poignant rem…
Taking on The Threepenny Opera can be a precarious business, as OVO demonstrate, without flinching from the challenge.
From time to time a play comes along that ticks every box and gives a surprise treatment to a contemporary topic.
It was a low turnout at the intimate Finborough Theatre for John McKay’s Dead Dad Dog, but we were all clearly in the mood for a fun night out.
The current transformation of the postage stamp stage of Barons Court Theatre, located in the cellar vaults of The Curtains Up pub, has been wrought by Designer Jane Linz Roberts, …
Billed as ‘documentary theatre’ Lessons on Revolution at the Hope Theatre is a fascinating excursion into performance and the creative process that challenges the traditional i…
Two lives come together in an unlikely match.
The extent to which you appreciate James Graham’s adaptation of Boys from the Blackstuff might depend partly on how well you know Alan Bleasdale’s original television series.
There is an intriguing opening to The Island at the Cervantes Theatre.
Described as a ‘one-woman show chronicling the life of Kate Kerrigan’ Am I Irish Yet? lays bare her problem as soon as she opens her mouth.
With a name like Showgirl, you’d expect a bit more oomph, but in fact Rachel Fairburn’s show is perhaps the exact opposite, and the low-energy slog begins and ends with little …
Religious fervour and football fanaticism have much in common, so it seems entirely appropriate that Patrick Marber’s changing-room drama, The Red Lion should open to the sound o…
The ever-flexible performance space at the Playground Theatre is once more transformed with great imagination, this time to accommodate the double bill of Rena Brannan’s Artefact…
After all the hype from it’s reception elsewhere in Europe combined with the legacy of the original film version, the intriguing yet simple plot and the clear characterisation in…