Review: 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.
Genre: Adaptation
Review: The Last
Chittenden’s done a great service not only to Mary Shelley’s novel, but to the way we imagine. And Amy Kidd’s exemplary.
Review: Room
As a condensation and enactment of Woolf’s seminal text this can’t be improved on. The outstanding one-person show I’ve seen this Fringe.
Review: God of Carnage
Acting here is tighter than any version I’ve seen. This revival of a modern classic has to be the best of the Fringe so far.
Review: Beautiful
Outstanding, and outstandingly transferred as a tour that brings its stature with it.
Review: 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.
Review: Unsanctioned/Measure 2 Measure
You must see this intriguing, ingenious and superbly acted double bill.
Review: An Hour and a Half Late
Don’t miss this authentic, touching, devastatingly comic anatomy of a marriage as soufflé, supremely served by Rhys-Jones and Dee.
Review: THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL & MR HYDE
A highly charged reframing of the age-old mystery and horror of the pursuit of pleasure.
Review: The Da Vinci Code
Actually improves on Brown with theatrical humour and bold gestures; with a set that tells the story almost as much as the strong cast.
Review: The Cat and the Canary
If you’re a Classic Thriller Theatre Company fan, don’t hesitate. Though we can be grateful to Bill Kenwright for trying out these creaky creepies, a serious bit of thought ought to go in to just what genres they are first.
Review: Heathers
Sometimes the dark is light enough. Meanwhile enjoy an exceptional cast and talent you’ll long to see again in something finer.
Review: Dirty Dancing
There’s a fitting heart-warming climax to a dream of production. And a surprise to those who think they know the film.
Review: The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The standard story set up by a highly entertaining pair who deliver a very high standard of performance.
Review: The Twits
A summer must-see to charge you up for the autumn, and taking on the real twits ahead.
Review: Dracula
You should see this with some fine acting and a storyline making more sense of Dracula than Stoker does himself.
Review: Jeeves and Wooster Perfect Nonsense
A professional-standard production, and magnificent start to the 2020s.
Review: More Grimm Tales
A rollicking production with razored timing, musical cues and ad-libs worked in to half-second slots. A must-see.
Review: The Mahabharata
A dramatic sense of arrival the way the Odyssey here ended: a clash of even vaster ferocity, keening, treachery, humour, mischievousness, sacrifice and grief, joy and the agency of women.
Review: There’s a Ghost in My House
Stunning. Greet the nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.
Review: Icarus
After all the gods and their lack of choice, we come to the final instalment, the human dimension. Where we have one. A heartfelt, satisfying finish.
Review: Orpheus
A terrific reinvention, bringing gods and heroines up from the death of myth to an altered world.
Review: Love’s Poison
Whether as James Allen's play The Engagement, or as narrative, Love’s Poison should be seen or read by everyone.
Review: 15 Heroines: 15 Monologues Adapted from Ovid
Groundbreaking. The smallest producing theatre in the West End through lockdown has become the largest.
Review: Frankenstein
Imaginative, Exquisitely Haunting and Moving - Visual Storytelling at its best!
Review: Love Love Love
Epic eavesdropping casts that ultimate spell: reading ourselves by flashes of lightning.
Review: Beauty and the Beast
Nothing so convincing has been done with this legend. It deserves many revivals.
Review: Frankenstein (alternate version)
The acting scales cliff-edges of unreason. One remembers the scale of betrayal and loss of redemption. Benedict Cumberbatch here is Frankenstein, Jonny Lee Miller the Creature. The alternate version aired first is still available.
Review: A Separate Peace
Stoppard looks at society’s phantom limb ethic. Even when it’s gone it aches, and it aches to have someone opting out.
Review: Frankenstein
The acting scales cliff-edges of unreason. One remembers the scale of betrayal and loss of redemption
Review: Treasure Island
First-rate theatre. In Joshua James’ Ben Gunn and above all Pasy Ferran’s Jim, we see stars rising quicker than Arthur Darvill’s superb Silver can point them out.
Review: Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
A salutary reminder of how a great musical talent and collaboration started
Review: Three Sisters
This spectacular production beats with a fervour and purpose few adaptations achieve. Ellams has made Three Sisters new.
Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The three lead actors, divas and a superb cast give this production its beating pink heart.
Review: Hunger
An exemplary, scrupulous production so starkly contemporary, it makes Hunger contemporary forever
Review: #We Are Arrested
Peter Hamilton Dyer carries this celebration of the conscience to be fully human
Review: My Brilliant Friend Parts One and Two
Cusack and McCormack give the performances of their lives
Review: The Lady Vanishes
A first-class production. Crisply paced, beautifully detailed, this ensemble is flawless, the finest Bill Kenwright’s team have produced
Review: Frankenstein
There’s a clean sharp fusion between these two writers that heralds something special.
Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
It couldn’t be done any better and puts several touring shows to shame.
Review: I’ll take you to Mrs Cole
A wonderful family show, adapted from the book of the same name, and I guarantee you will be singing the theme song under your breath for days.
Review: The Mill on the Floss
Stunning. This consummate, flawless production is an event for BLT and Brighton
