FringeReview UK
Years: 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
FringeReview UK 2022
As Ken Tynan once said of another debut, I don’t think I could love someone who doesn’t love this play.
Howard Brenton touching eighty is at the height of his powers. Tom Littler has assembled a pitch-perfect cast, reuniting two from his outstanding All’s Well. This too.
An object lesson in comic timing; a steep cut above the ‘real’ whodunnits we’re likely to see this year or next.
An excellent revival and the best chance to see this remarkable thriller-cum-farce-cum-meditation.
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy
Turns the bleakness of six young men into a celebration of – for now – coming through
A wonderful score and musicians, above all Bea Segura’s titanic act of shrivelling, make this a must-see.
Rarely has a Cordelia and Fool scaled such equal terms with such a Lear, rendering a kind of infinity.
No simple swapping of heirs and originals, but a dream of the future by Seacole, or equally present dreams raking the past. Do see this.
This isn’t the most revelatory Much Ado, but the most consummate and complete for a while.
A real play bursting out of its hour-plus length; with complex interaction, uncertain journeys, each character developing a crisis of isolation only resolved by sisterhood
Danny Webb gives the performance of his life. Ralph Fiennes is coiled majesty. Two-and-a-half hours of such material have rarely been so thrilling.
Lucy Kirkwood prophesies what’s in store with savage fury, and no-one’s exempt, least of all her.
There’s many reasons to see Williams’ finest play. To realise our potential it’s not enough to have dreams, but for someone to show us what those dreams could be.
Highlights the truth of its bleak laughter. Humane Strindberg. Now there’s a thing.
It’s not just gender-swerving but role-swerving that threatens sexual and social order. Surprises light up even the last fade.
There’s no finer dramatisation of India’s internal conflicts. Shubham Saraf’s Gandhi-killer Godse stands out in this thrilling ensemble and storms it too.
Simply put: go see this if you’ve any feeling for postwar drama. It’s theatre on the rack and do we need it!
The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Such exquisite works find their time; speak to it again and again and again.
A reading of Adrian Schiller’s Shylock as probing as other great productions of the past decade; and of Sophie Melville’s nearly-rounded, brittle Portia.
Pamela Carter’s schoolboys embody human connectedness, warmth, a final camaraderie before the chill of history. Unmissable.
So what could a Sussex-based sci-fi tale of 1913 by Conan Doyle – a space-borne poison belt of gas that hits the earth – possibly have to do with the week of the greatest temperatures known in the UK?
Perfectly freighted; each character pitched with just enough choice to make us wonder what life, not Stephen Beresford will do with them. Outstanding.
A joyous production, that without its gimmicky close, could certainly furnish a way in for many
Pitch-perfect and compelling. Sometimes knowing your prison walls too much can drive you mad.
Two Billion Beats was bursting with promise before. Now it delivers with a visceral yes.
Ibsen’s elusive masterpiece is so rarely performed seeing it is an imperative. Played with such authority as here, in Norwegian and English, it’s not a luxury but a must-see.
