FringeReview UK

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FringeReview UK 2022

12:37

The Finborough produces marvels, though this one, without losing its dazzling, tight DNA, deserves the widest possible transfer.


A Doll’s House Part 2

The best Part 2 we can imagine.


All Of Us

As Ken Tynan once said of another debut, I don’t think I could love someone who doesn’t love this play.


Caesar and Cleopatra

It’s like being illumined from a trip-light.


Cancelling Socrates

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.


Cluedo

An object lesson in comic timing; a steep cut above the ‘real’ whodunnits we’re likely to see this year or next.


Communicating Doors

An excellent revival and the best chance to see this remarkable thriller-cum-farce-cum-meditation.


Dinner With Groucho

McGuinness produces one of his finest works wrought from the sawdust of others and rendered it the burst of stars that irradiate the end.


Dracula

Robert Hamilton’s novel stage version of Dracula should be published and used widely


Duck

An impressively finished play. Do see it.


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


From Here to Eternity

Grabs you from the towards the close of Act One and doesn’t let go: from here to curtain we’re in heart-stopping eternity.


Hakawatis Women of the Arabian Nights

Original, bawdy, exploratory, seductive and elegaic in equal measure. A Faberge egg, continually hatching.


Hamlet

A great Hamlet almost realised


Harry’s Christmas

Berkoff's festive offering


Henry V

The definitive Henry V of our time


Henry V

Bracing, fresh, wholly re-thought in every line, emerging with gleaming power, menace and wit. And I defy anyone not to smile at this new take on Shakespeare’s downbeat ending.


Henry VIII

A wonderful score and musicians, above all Bea Segura’s titanic act of shrivelling, make this a must-see.


Here

A major talent with a distinct voice, and the consummate assurance to express it with stamp and precision


House of Shades

There’ll be nothing more blazing or relevant on the London stage this year.


How It Is Part 2

Immersive, outstanding, unrepeatable and unimaginable anywhere else


I, Joan

The title role goes to Isobel Thom, making their professional debut: the greatest I’ve ever seen.


Jews. In Their Own Words.

It’s Jonathan Freedland’s and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s brilliance to bring off-kilter, casual devastation to the stage; in raw unsettlings that for many keep the suitcase packed.


Jitney

Some outstanding acting; necessary, a must-see


Julius Caesar

If you’re a habitual groundling, go before this production vanishes back on tour


King Lear

Rarely has a Cordelia and Fool scaled such equal terms with such a Lear, rendering a kind of infinity.


Love All

Another first-rank revival from JST, specialists in rediscoveries: a fitting end to Tom Littler’s tenure.


Marys Seacole

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.


Middle

Judging by the audience, its bleakness tells. Middle bears its own epiphany.


Much Ado About Nothing

The most convincing Much Ado for years


Much Ado About Nothing

This isn’t the most revelatory Much Ado, but the most consummate and complete for a while.


Not One of These People

Worth 95 minutes of anyone’s time, you come out heavier with the weight of where you’ve been.


Patriots

Putin’s our monster too. A must-see.


Prima Facie

if Comer doesn’t receive awards for this there’s no justice at all.


Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope

Ask yourself this. If there were no praise or blame – who would I be?


Sarah

An unnerving testing of that space between naturalism and hallucination, redemption and blank unknowing, studded with a language that flies off the page.


Shake the City

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


Silence

More of a scattering of earth, ashes and love than simply groundbreaking. But caveats aside, groundbreaking it is.


Something in the Air

An outstanding development in Gill’s oeuvre, and of permanent worth.


Storming!

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


Straight Line Crazy

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.


That Is Not Who I Am

Lucy Kirkwood prophesies what’s in store with savage fury, and no-one’s exempt, least of all her.


The 47th

A must-see.


The Anarchist

A firecracker of a first play. Expect Molotovs.


The Corn is Green

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.


The Crucible

A Crucible of searing relevance; by grounding it in its time, it scorches with clarity.


The Dance of Death

Highlights the truth of its bleak laughter. Humane Strindberg. Now there’s a thing.


The False Servant

It’s not just gender-swerving but role-swerving that threatens sexual and social order. Surprises light up even the last fade.


The Father and the Assassin

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.


The Homecoming

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 Lesson

Groundbreaking, superb, unmissable.


The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Such exquisite works find their time; speak to it again and again and again.


The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary!

An outstanding revival, full of fierce fun, pathos and a massive tragedy for Christmas, wrapped in red bon-bons.


The Merchant of Venice

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.


The Misfortune of the English

Pamela Carter’s schoolboys embody human connectedness, warmth, a final camaraderie before the chill of history. Unmissable.


The Poison Belt

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?


The Seagull

A Seagull for the initiated, a meditation rather than the play itself, it’s still a truthful distillation, wholly sincere, actors uniformly excellent


The Solid Life of Sugar Water

What theatre can do, how it can change us, how completely different it is from any other experience, has few examples that come close to this.


The Southbury Child

Perfectly freighted; each character pitched with just enough choice to make us wonder what life, not Stephen Beresford will do with them. Outstanding.


The Tempest

A joyous production, that without its gimmicky close, could certainly furnish a way in for many


The Trials

Groundbreaking


Tom Fool

Pitch-perfect and compelling. Sometimes knowing your prison walls too much can drive you mad.


Turpin

Catch this sharp-witted, reflective, ever-swirling drama from a master storyteller.


Two Billion Beats

Two Billion Beats was bursting with promise before. Now it delivers with a visceral yes.


two Palestinians go dogging

Packs a mighty question that can still knock you off balance.


When We Dead Awaken

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.


Yellowman

Phenomenal. It’s Aaron Anthony’s and Nadine Higgin’s phenomenal performances that own the Orange Tree’s stripped-back space, and fill it and Yellowman with complexity, heart and utter conviction