Review: The Mask Policy
Tianjiao Tan’s crafted a unique, witty take on an industry with little exposure as it were. A revelation.
Genre: Contemporary 0
Review: Nachtland
Janette Eddisford has scored with this outrageously provocative, troubling satire that flays the German soul and hangs up the skins, stretched.
Review: Here & Now
With young talent like this, no-one need worry just yet about British musical theatre. And that is the best reason to see this silly yet warm-hearted pre-Christmas cracker.
Review: Forbidden Places
Tom Stoppard dying the day before recalled Leopoldstraat to many. No-one expected this harrowing slant successor. No wonder the audience were on their feet. Outstanding.
Review: Kindling
Sarah Rickman and Ciara Pouncett have assembled a superb team. They need to revisit the script once or twice more and they’ll have a winner.
Review: This Little Earth
Jessica Norman is going to be a force. Watch out for her and see a powerful dramatic imagination at least hatch here.
Review: Wyld Woman: The Legend of Shy Girl
For Isabel Renner’s witty one-liners, production values and above all her own performance, this show ends up highly recommended.
Review: The Unbelievers
The Unbelievers confirms the Royal Court’s new phase can again splice the traditionally-crafted with the exploratory. A must-see.
Review: Women Only, Albert’s Bridge
Albert’s Bridge is a Stoppard rarity you’re unlikely to see again. And Women Only seems swiftly established as a tiny, semi-precious comic gem.
Review: Blue/Orange
Absorbing revival – and rethinking - of this still relevant 2000 play about abusing the already-abused in the name of psychiatry.
Review: 2:22 A Ghost Story
Sharp, satisfying in itself, above all hauntingly intelligent in its questions.
Review: Mistero Buffo
A thoroughly worthwhile revival, it still kicks and thrills in equal measure. Highly recommended.
Review: The Lightning Thief
There’s talents you’ll want to see and hear. And a stunning set whose production values spring surprises for the audience too. Highly recommended.
Review: Cow/Deer
Emphatically theatre worth doing, worth attending, worth fighting to clarify and worth being changed for.
Review: Benny Ainsworth Vermin
The most riveting two-hander you’ll see this year; it’s not for the faint-hearted. Writing, acting and burned-off minimal staging draw us into hell, and its epiphanies. Outstanding.
Review: Natasha Cottriall (God Save My) Northern Soul
Time will deepen the shadows and writer/actor Natasha Cottriall shows this in the very last moment
Review: Natasha Cotriall (God Save My) Northern Soul
Time will deepen the shadows and writer/actor Natasha Cotriall shows this in the very last moment.
Review: The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return
It’s hard not to love this exuberant 75-minute romp through Luton’s urban sprawl. It’s both exuberant and serious, warm and yet with a chill undercurrent of deprivation
Review: Deaf Republic
Its claustrophobia overwhelms and moves, whilst leaving Dead Centre room for yet another slant on Ilya Kaminsky’s imaginary.
Review: Ha
"leaves a lasting impression of skill, bravery, and thoughtful, disciplined theatrical craft"
Review: Seating Plan
Impressive performances by both Radford and Airey in this neat little two-hander.
Review: Perfect Dead Girls
Tight, taught and very funny exploration of being stuck where you don't want to be, and you're dead.
Review: ADHD? WTF is ADHD!
Emma Wilkinson-Wright is unnervingly close to the pulse of how real this is. A hidden gem.
Review: Peregrinus
Provocative, highly entertaining physical storytelling from Poland's KTO Theatre!
Review: Journey to the West
A truly solo show with one performer and one audience member that takes you on a flight and out of your comfort zone.
Review: La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu
An engaging play about the manipulation of public opinion to satisfy the taste for war of a tiny elite
Review: Blanc de Blanc
A poetic solo mime performance rich in visual symbolism, drawing us into the depths of an artist’s unconscious.
Review: Sean Daniels The White Chip
The most entertaining life-saver you’ll see, whether you need it or not.
Review: Ghost Stories
Pure scary, not horror. There’s reasons Ghost Stories is on its second tour out of the West End. Here’s a convenient (and reasonable) way to see why.
Review: Claire Dowie H to He (I’m Turning into a man) Finborough
A must-see for anyone who loves breakthrough: genre-defying, then genre-defining theatre.
Review: Claire Dowie See Primark and Die Finborough
There’s more than a touch of Ken (even more, Daisy) Campbell about the way Dowie structures her circular storytelling. Here it’s at its most consummate, most artful and repays re-reading to catch Dowie at your throat.
Review: Sarah Ruhl Eurydice
Sam Chittenden 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.
Review: Mario Banushi Taverna Miresia
Not even the world theatre powerhouse of the Coronet has hosted anything like this. Mario Banushi must be seen.
Review: Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens After The Act Royal Court Downstairs
Most of all this musical is necessary. With four outstanding multi-roling performers, a message both affirmative and defiant; and with a fierce joy that makes it a must-see.
Review: The Violet Hour
A contemplative investigation springboarded from a single line from T.S. Eliot's Wasteland that asks fundamental questions and is creative in all its response.
Review: Timberlake Wertenbaker Little Brother
bsorbs and remains indelible. Stella Powell-Jones is helming a quietly radical shift in Jermyn Street. And she’s taking the audience with her.
Review: Jonathan McLean Touching it Makes Baby Jesus Cry: The Musical
This can sing all the way to Edinburgh: just stopping off to be publicly burned, along with Jonathan McLean, in the Vatican itself.
Review: Samuel Rees and Gabriele Uboldi Lessons on Revolution
It’s intersectional, it’s personal, it’s interactive: all great reasons to see this play: unless you’re a board member of BP, or the government.
Review: Heisenberg
If flawed it’s a fascinating, intimate piece given new life and with luck a new performing tradition. The most compelling two-hander now playing.
Review: Tending
Essential theatre, essential witness and mandatory for anyone who wants to know how human we have to be, from beginning to end.
Review: All the Happy Things
It’s impossible to believe Sienna doesn’t believe Emily’s not part of this at some level, and by the end, you’ll think so too.
Review: Lula Mebrahtu I Am – OommoO
Everything you’ve heard is true. Lula Mebrahtu is memserising, and I Am – OommoO like its creator has vast potential.
Review: Double Act
Death & Co. The Laurel and Hardy of Suicide, the Little and Large of it Do see this timely, painfully funny, and absorbing new play.
Review: Dear England
With its nimbus of inevitability as national storytelling, it’s still groundbreaking.
Review: Jane Upton (the) Woman
A ground-breaking play, fully deserving of its London run. Catch it there.
Review: Macbeth
ETT’s gallimaufry stimulates, frustrates, occasionally fascinates. A more selective through-line would have revealed a mineral gleam, a new earth of tyranny.
Review: Peter James Picture You Dead
Twists are delicious. If you enjoy Peter James, or thrillers with a light touch, don’t hesitate. Solidly recommended.
Review: Teatro dei Gordi: Pandora
It begs questions: what couldn’t we do, if placed outside our own comfort station in life? Essential theatre. essential questions. A gem.
Review: Son of a Bitch
Anna Morris heightens tragedy and misogyny with gags, humour and farcical horror. Do catch this fleeting gem, running for just two more weeks before it touches down
Review: Khawla Ibraheem A Knock on the Roof
What and who can you choose is something more people are forced to decide as the century rolls. But Mariam’s plight is specific, ongoing, now far worse and essential viewing.
Review: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
An astonishing theatrical vision blended with a fascinating story that combines into an exceptional evening of theatre.
Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Brighton Theatre Group is a chocolate factory all on its own. Nothing in Wonka is as magical as the vision, reach and grasp of this company. It’s perhaps their finest production yet.
Review: Dan O’Brien The Voyage of the Carcass; Emily Jenkins Bobby & Amy
Dan O’Brien’s piece is for dedicated farceurs. By itself outstanding, it’s hoped by several Emily Jenkins’ Bobby & Amy have a postlude of its own, with this team and these two young actors pitched at this moment in their careers.
Review: The Gift
How far you’d go to pursue either vengeance or to resolve one, asks just such questions of how we choose to box up our lives. The Gift is for all of us.
Review: Mark Tournoff: A Word With the Bird
Mark Tournoff’s an engaging and modest MC. The talent he promotes remains and makes visits worthwhile.
Review: A Good House
A play deeper than the satire which propels it. And subtly layered enough to brush the epic. A stunning smack between the eyes and a must-see.
Review: Zinnie Harris, Douglas Hodge, Johnny McKnight 101 Dalmatians The Musical
A perennial tale in essence makes this a Christmas must and New Year resolution: for all of us under ten in the holidays.
Review: Goodbye Erdogan
A deeply engaging show about a small man overwhelmed by the seismic changes in modern Turkish society.
Review: Sam Holcroft Rules for Living
Season’s Greetings for robots. It interrogates a therapy many believe works. More than worth seeing in this first-class NVT cast and production.
Review: 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.
Review: 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
Review: {Title of Show}
Delicious, certainly, truly witty and fast-moving, never indulgent about self-indulgence, this is a sure-fired soufflé
Review: 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.
Review: 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.
Review: Autumn
This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet
Review: Alas! Poor Yorick
Almost a play in three acts...but strangely, rivetingly not. Ridiculusmus put the shovel into Shakespeare.
Review: 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.
Review: Dear Evan Hansen
In Ryan Kopel and Lauren Conroy two future stars are born within a first-rate cast led by the exquisitely moving Alice Fearns; and Kopel with such a range is someone whose next role will probably surprise even him. Two and half hours blaze by like a first date. Outstanding.
Review: 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.
