FringeReview UK

Years: 2024  2023  2022  2021  2020  2019  2018  2017  2016  2015  

Genre Filter:


FringeReview UK 2024

1979

Political history told in Mamet-fast satire, imagined conversations and accurate stats. What could be more thrilling? 82 minutes later you won’t ask why this three-hander is like curing New Year’s hangover with Red Bull, ice, something illegal and a vodka chaser.


23.5 Hours

A worthy successor to Never Not Once, almost from the other side of the glass, it makes Crim one of the most visible and exciting of US dramatists.


555: Verlaine en prison

an insightful work into Verlaine's life


A Chat With Adonai

Jacob Kay and Helen Baird are both exemplary and funny – there’s explosions of laughter. At 40 minutes there’s much matter hurled at the speed of dark. See it if you can, and check out the other Bitesize plays at Riverside.


After Sex

Deservedly hugely popular. With uber-smart dialogue, Dromgoole ensures that under the brittle wrap, there’s an ache and overriding desire for connection.


Afterglow

It’s conquered both sides of the pond. Stunning, heartwarming, heartbreaking. We need this.


Alas! Poor Yorick

Almost a play in three acts...but strangely, rivetingly not. Ridiculusmus put the shovel into Shakespeare.


Algorithms

A bisexual Fleabag for 2024? It’s more than that


All’s Well That Ends Well

Don’t go expecting searing insights, but do go for a crack ensemble who will surely turn many to Shakespeare. An endearing and uplifting enterprise.


All’s Well That Ends Well

Ruby Bentall’s Helen enters near the top of the list.


Alma Mater

Kendall Feaver’s very integrity might not satisfy those who enjoy outcomes dispelled in light. But that’s the point.


Autumn

This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet


Ballet Shoes

A paean to wonder and possibility, dreaming to some purpose. Like other winter growths, this should prove a hardy perennial, evergreen as the book.


Banging Denmark

This production’s 100 minutes are so absorbing you’re not quite sure if the time’s stopped, or just your preconceptions. Stunning, a must see.


BBC Prom 23 Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances, Busoni: Piano Concerto

The London Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner bring an electrifying, percussive justice to both. One to replay on BBC Sounds.


BBC Prom 24 Purcell The Fairy Queen, Les Arts Florissants/Agnew at the Royal Albert Hall, August 6th 2024

A musically riveting, dramatically rather episodic production where the dancers and singers make the best of it


BBC Prom 49 Czech Phil/Hrusa Dvorak Cello Concerto, Suk Symphony No. 2 in c Op 27 Asrael

Hrusa elicits playing of astonishing fire from the Czech Philharmonic. Here, they’re out to convince us Suk’s Azrael is one of the great universal symphonies. And they do. Outstanding.


BBC Prom 5 Schoenberg and Zemlinsky

A magnificent evening and one to replay on BBC Sounds.


BBC Prom 68 Britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream Garsington Opera

A triumphant revival, it’s still the most elusive of Britten’s major operas, easy to enjoy, still hard to fathom the melodic root of.


Before After

A pristine, heartwarming Valentine of a musical, it fully deserves its revival


Beryl Cook: A Private View

A further triumph in Kara Wilson’s groundbreaking fusion of words and paint.


Bette and Joan

Outstanding performances, an outstanding set too. As one director said, this production’s more compelling than the original 2011-12 seen touring at Brighton in 2012. The very intimacy of the space, with pitch-perfect acting, makes this an even finer vehicle for the play.


Bindweed

Laura Hanna is outstanding in a play that ought to establish itself and playwright Martha Loader; and should enjoy a much longer run.


Blonde Poison

An outstanding production.


Blood On Your Hands

A potentially terrific play


Boy In Da Korma

A necessary, engaging, original variation on finding your voice: and a theatrical coup. Acting, writing, directing, video, lighting and tech support, indeed singing are first class. A gem.


Boys From the Blackstuff

More a prophesy than history in this stunning production.


Boys on the Verge of Tears

It’s an exciting, fragile world Sam Grabiner’s promised us in the future.


Brace Brace

A sizzling must-see.


Burnt-Up Love

One of the very finest three-handers I’ve seen for a long time, Burnt-Up Love refuses to judge and nor will anyone left reeling after seeing this. Stunning.


Captain Amazing

Simon Stephens commented “If I could get all your numbers I would ring you all up individually and urge you to see Captain Amazing.” That can’t be improved on. It’s a must-see.


Casserole

One of the finest small-scale plays to come out of Arcola’s Studio 2 recently. Do see this.


Cassie and the Lights

The plaudits are right. Sibling love aches with devastation. The sheer riotous fun of this production is exhilarating, and this might be its last outing for some time. Do see it.


Cold Water

Still in her twenties but vastly experienced, it’s going to be exciting to see where Lawford breaks out to next.


Coriolanus

Certainly a Coriolanus blazing with extrinsic relevance, it brings clarity to a play that can seem an unmitigated grey


Cowbois

Cranford’s gone Wild West, via the Court and RSC. Cowbois is of course daft. But it’s magnificent in its silliness, contains wonderful – and truthful – moments. Deadly serious can have you rolling in the aisles and still jump up for the revolution.


Cutting the Tightrope: The Divorce of Politics from Art

An essential, raging and ranging collection of works flashing with humour and teeth, flecked with harrowing stories and above all love for a humanity the establishment wishes us to other and consign to tragedy. A must-see.


Dear Octopus

Two hours 45 starts slowly but you feel Smith’s arc move with its casual, supremely naturalist conversation to moments where time stands still. Outstanding revival.


Don’t Destroy Me

This brilliantly nervous, unresolved play of at least seven lives seeking balance is an astonishing feat, uniquely chronicling the lives of refugees only three months after Osborne’s equally rent-infused Look Back in Anger: and with the same unsettling refusal to closure. A must-see.


Dream of a Ridiculous Man

A definitive telling of that rarest thing, an uplifting Dostoevsky tale. It’s unlikely to be rendered better than this.


Dugsi Dayz

Thrillingly promising, and ground-breaking work.


ECHO

Ultimately, the most telling line ”We are all immigrants across time” defines what remains an extraordinary experience


Eurydice

Stella Powell-Jones coaxes provisional miracles from her cast and space. The medium’s playful, even fun. The message though is bleak; and love is still in the letting go.


F**king Men

A must-see.


Fire Embers Ash

The Night Witches ride !


Foam

Scorching script, outstanding acting, particularly by Richards, a must-see.


Frozen

Frozen is far more than a thriller: it’s an interrogation into the limits of what evil-doing is, what redemption and some capacity to forgive might be, and its consequences: and above all it ends in a thaw cracking like a Russian spring.


G

Exactly what the Royal Court is for.


Giant

Giant is both a magisterial debut and a landmark work for braving a terrain littered with - as Tom says - "booby traps... And surprise surprise - boom."


Gigi & Dar

Compelling and unanswerable, it’s more humane than recent history in several parts of the world allow. Setting it in 2016, Josh Azouz knows history itself has been overtaken. Highly recommended.


Good-Bye

Wholly absorbing, wholly other, it’s a gem of the Coronet’s dedication to world theatre.


Greenhouse Festival LAMDA Festival New Directors in association with Orange Tree

Every one of these productions could enjoy a run at the Orange Tree: they’re exciting and accomplished.


Guards at the Taj

Guards at the Taj continues to fascinate.


Happy Days

I’ve never seen a Winnie more ordinary, one without those strange transcendental inflections. Catherine Humphreys isn’t flat: she rises to anguish, though it’s one of realism. I’m still not quite sure what’s been removed. But I’m very glad I’ve seen it.


Heart’s Desire/L’Amore Del Cuore

Anyone admiring Churchill, ferocious comedy or excited by a rare UK foray into Italian theatre must see this.


Here in America

A must-see.


Hide and Seek

An absorbing two-hander with as unexpected an ending as Lauren Gunderson’s I and You


In and Out of Chekhov’s Shorts

Outstanding. After this, there’s no other way to tell Chekhov dramatically that he’s not already nailed down in a play himself. Chekhov would have loved it.


Jab

Highly recommended, it’s also essential.


Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret

Who could object to its urgency, or its starry messenger? A gem.


Just For One Day

Despite history’s caveats, O’Farrell’s core message isn’t about white saviours or pop stars but how ordinary people unite to change things.


Kafka

It’s Klaff’s improvisatory edge, founded on absolute technique and clear-headed text, that finds an exit where none was signposted. Magnificent.


King Lear

This smouldering production – fast-talking or timeless - fully engages with the play. It makes almost perfect sense: and two families’ DNA ring true as rarely before.


Kunstler

An outstanding production persuading us such a self-narrating show can enthral as well as inform. A hidden gem.


Land of the Free

Absorbing and outstanding theatre.


Laughing Boy

Stephen Unwin directs his own play as a sweep of storytelling, laughter and devastation.


Le Nozze di Figaro

The audience enjoyed the performance.


Leaves of Glass

This is possibly Ridley’s masterpiece. Always exercised by the spectral presence of something just out of eyeshot, he never lets that intrude. Scorching and necessary, Leaves of Glass delves into family toxicity, ceaselessly dragging us back into the past.


Lie Low

An outstanding production.


Life With Oscar

Nick Cohen’s exceptional powers as writer and performer are mesmerising


London Tide

It compels, and nothing in its three hours 15 seems superfluous.


London Zoo

A masterly play in the making. It goes where very few dare, and in an environment we think we know. Very highly recommended.


Love in Action

This production alters not just our perspective on Nagasaki, but in a switchback of Russian, Japanese, even American cultures is something of a fission. Noda’s metaphor blazes with spectacle and irony. A must-see.


Machinal

This triumphant revival by Ustinov Studios and the Old Vic might finally encourage exploration. You must see this.


Meet Me at Dawn

An aching, unflinching look at what we might face. Yet few seek to live through such a pact as bestowed here. A Greek gift. Unmissable in the south east.


Mnemonic

Mnemonic is treasurable, eloquent, a rare passport. It remembers what hope, connectedness and peace smelt like. It’s worth remembering that.


Much Ado About Nothing

A triumph of tone, of textual intercourse and tight-reined spirits. Beatrice’s star is dancing. It’ll stay fresh as the feelgood Shakespeare this summer.


Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime

A sure-fire miniature epic, spanning history and damn lies. Sublimely written and with a superb cast both seasoned and fresh, the finest concentration of panto this season.


Northanger Abbey

We should fall in love right here. A joyous must-see.


Nye

Through the choreographic sweep, Price crafts a necessary, traditional warning. It’s more than enough. A must-see.


Nye

Through the choreographic sweep, Price crafts a necessary, traditional warning. It’s more than enough. A must-see with perhaps the finest last line since Good.


Oliver!

There’s not a moment in this two-hours-40 where you’re not at the edge of your seat. The best musical revival this year. Don’t wait till it transfers to the West End.


Othello

With institutional racism and trauma compounded in a feedback loop, this Othello’s a timely, and timeless broadside on everything toxic we inhale and expel as venom.


Phoney

Two university students running a phone sex business for a testosterone fun.


Plantation A

The performers did a stellar job


Pride and Prejudice

An unalloyed delight, compressing the story but revealing things even those who know the novel will take back to it.


Princess Essex

The more we see of such uplifting, uproarious, yet probing works the better.


Richard III

In a female-led cast led by the eponymous Richard III (Michelle Terry) it’s striking that the trio of cursing women is this production’s highlight


Rika’s Rooms

Emma Wilkinson Wright manages the narrative as an odyssey punctuated by screams. It’s a pretty phenomenal performance and the actor is so wholly immersed in Rika you know you’re in the presence of something remarkable.


Rock, Paper, Scissors

A joyous revival. Though working in TV production, Hayden’s writing is too good, too well-shaped not to develop in theatre instead.


Ruari Conaghan Lies Where It Falls

Ruari Conaghan has nowhere to hide in every sense. He exudes the charismatic of 100 watts cosplaying a glowing 40, then hits you between the eyes


Sanctuary

Christine Rose as dramatist is a name we’ll be hearing, with luck, very soon.


Sappho

A bit of theatrical democracy invoking pre-democracy crafts an exquisite irony for a rainy afternoon. Do see it.


Sara Farrington A Trojan Woman

An acclaimed pocket tragedy which yet carries Euripides’ weight in Farrington’s framing, it more than touches the heart: it snatches it and hands it back as a sad and angry consolation.


Shakespeare in Love

The mystery’s in the ensemble, the production, its bewitching leads. It’s a mighty reckoning in a little room.


Sniff

Riveting.


Some Demon

A superbly uncomfortable edge-of-seat revelation. Groundbreaking, it’s also definitive on something we often see far too dimly.


Stitches

The end’s both poignant and visionary. A show to remember long after the Bear’s imagined batteries run down.


Storming!

Stands alone, a wholly original twist to a growing alarm-bell of ethics.


Stranger Than the Moon

Essential for anyone interested in Brecht or 20th century drama, it’s far more: starkly entrancing, then engrossing over 110 minutes.


Suite in Three Keys

A once-in-a-generation masterpiece of revival. This is what we’ve been missing.


Surrender

The writing will snare you, Phoebe Ladenburg will hold you, and you’ll lean over the fourth wall.


Sutura Gayle The Legends of Them

A portable world everyone should hear. Stunning.


Testmatch

A superbly witty interrogation of identity, abuses many histories deep, asking questions it sets up in not too sober a fashion. Testmatch is a lightning-conductor.


The Beautiful Future is Coming

Beautiful Future engages throughout though the near future is where it beats quickest. Flora Wilson Brown’s play makes you wonder what life, not just the playwright, might do with her characters. Urgently recommended.


The Beckett Trilogy

It’s reading Beckett in flashes of lightning and laughter. Conor Lovett stuns in this cut-down stand-up Beckett-novels-for-beginners-and-enders three-hour whistlestop. A tour de force as well as a tour de farce of Beckett’s genius.


The Bible in Early Modern Drama: Robert Owen The History of Purgatory

Dr Will Tosh leads a discussion The Bible in Early Modern Drama. Absorbing.


The Bleeding Tree

A blood-dark gem.


The Bounds

As it stands, this is a play with greatness seeded in it.


The Caretaker

Three remarkable performances edge The Caretaker to new ground. Justin Audibert’s directorial debut at Chichester proves both thrilling and prescient.


The Cat and the Canary

An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.


The Cherry Orchard

In this production, it’s Chekhov who shines.


The Children’s Inquiry

Worth two-and-a-half hours of anyone’s time.


The Comedy of Errors

The most intelligent Comedy of Errors I’ve seen since the NT production of 2012 and truer to the play’s temper.


The Comeuppance

Might prove the most lasting American drama about. emerging to a different world.


The Constituent

This extremely fine play is even more prescient than Penhall and Warchus intended, with an earlier election. The Constituent though, will survive it till August.


The Duchess of Malfi

There’s so much to admire here that it’s a happy duty to urge you to see it, if you can, any way you can.


The English Moor

Richard Brome’s 1637 The English Moor marks a new departure for Read Not Dead. You might say with this play it’s Read to be Dead.


The EU Killed My Dad

Do see this, preferably alongside its sometime co-runner The Beautiful Future is Coming. A dizzying theatrical gem.


The Fabulist

a feel good show


The Girl in the Green Jumper

A first-rate production, with West-End values. A must-see.


The Good John Proctor

A valuable corrective to anticipate both real events and Arthur Miller’s take on Abigail Williams


The Grapes of Wrath

Absorbing and essential, Grapes of Wrath is here as complete as you could wish.


The Hills of California

For nearly any other playwright, this would count as something of a masterpiece.


The Hot Wing King

Hall, following Nottage in particular, emerges as one of the most exciting US dramatists.


The House Party

A thrilling must-see.


The Human Body

The work’s best at its quietest, where intimacy doesn’t need shouting. It’s still an intriguing development, as Kirkwood, as in her magnificent The Welkin, interrogates the condescensions of history.


The Lonely Londoners

An outstanding production.


The Marilyn Conspiracy

A first-rate revival of a first-rate conundrum.


The Motive and the Cue

An extraordinary production. Thorne’s vision is capped by a riveting performance by Gatiss, who glows with the still, sad music of Gielgud’s humanity.


The Other Boleyn Girl

Mike Poulton’s text gleams and snaps. Lucy Bailey’s production of it thrills and occasionally overwhelms, dazzling in its maze of missteps. A must-see.


The Other Place

Zeldin has wrought something more precious than a version. A must-see.


The Promise

With a first-rate cast and team it’s a groundbreaking work.


The Promise

Clare Burt’s Wilkinson, racking asthmatically across the play, is indelible, crowning the evening in an arc of sacrifice, Essential theatre-going, an education.


The Pursuit of Joy

A playful, slight but absolutely authentic slice of travel living.


The Real Thing

The Real Thing is infinitely more stimulating than many popular comedies, and though it doesn’t quite ache as it should, James McArdle bestrides this production like a hopeful monster who’s got lucky.


The Silver Cord

A darkly thrilling masterpiece, given what might be its finest UK revival. All are outstanding and Alix Dunmore, and certainly Sophie Ward, should be up for some glittering prizes.


The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

This desperate elegy of betrayal, straight from Le Carré’s own hurt, will haunt you with the truth of its despair.


The Tailor of Inverness

A gem of a piece, that only brightens.


The Trumpeter

Verging on expressionism it’s extraordinary.


The Ungodly

The Ungodly which playwright Joanna Carrick also directs is different, and special. No wonder it transfers to Off-Broadway next spring. An outstanding piece of theatre.


The Unlikely Secret Agent

How it ends I urge you to discover in this sizzling paean to humanity.


The Valley of Fear

Blackeyed have kept their telling as lean as Holmes’ hawk-like face, and it pounces. If you admire 221b at all, see it this week.


The Voice of the Turtle

An exquisitely-faceted gem.


The Wild Duck

This production carries one truth that refreshes: strip all the directors’ concepts and editing, and for once truth will set Ibsen, and ourselves as free as it imprisons its characters. Outstanding.


The Years

This production reminds us it’s often the least theatrical, least tractable works that break boundaries, glow with an authority that changes the order of things.


Till the Stars Come Down

Even this early, it’s safe to predict we’ll look back at the end of 2024 and proclaim it as one of the year’s finest.


Trinity Laban Spring Opera Scenes

Showcasing students from the Trinity Laban Opera course


Turning the Screw

This six-hander is a 90-minute announcement of a major talent. An almost flawless play.


Twelfth Night

Tom Littler again brings an intimate, wintry music to middle Shakespeare: it’s his unique gift. Never sour, never sweet without salt, and with very few reservations, a definitive close-up Twelfth Night.


Two Rounds

Though without theatrical surprise, Two Rounds is a superbly-acted, deeply satisfying work exploring the limits of choices. How these women go second rounds with the same DNA to see if they can manage anything better, or just differently. Absorbing.


Uncle Vanya

Hilarious, devastating, outstanding.


Utoya

Compelling, and an important UK premiere.


Vanya

This is the greatest one-man performance I’ve seen, said a Chekhov-immersed director of 45 years’ experience next to me. Yes.


Where we meet

get a participant ticket


Women Who Blow on Knots

As fine a realisation as anyone could manage. The immediacy, cries, reveals are inherently theatrical and precious. A must-see.


Your Lie In April

This is surely a breakthrough musical on perennial themes. The discovery is not-yet-graduated Mia Kobayashi who proves overnight stars are still being made.


{Title of Show}

Delicious, certainly, truly witty and fast-moving, never indulgent about self-indulgence, this is a sure-fired soufflé