FringeReview UK

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

Genre Filter:


FringeReview UK 2024

Coriolanus

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


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.


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.


Hide and Seek

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


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.


Laughing Boy

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


Machinal

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


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.


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


Sanctuary

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


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 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 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 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 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 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.


Utoya

Compelling, and an important UK premiere.