Review: The Brightening Air
Redemption has long been a McPherson theme. Here, you have to dig as deep as that well, and bring in a lot of muck. Drinking it off isn’t always best-timed. Or by the right people. McPherson is haunted and haunter.
Genre: Drama
Review: Murder on the Orient Express
Even if you don’t like Christie it’s worth seeing not just for an exceptional – and exceptionally-acted – production, but for moral questions that now, as in 1934, need answers in the face of dictators.
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: The Inseparables
A transfixingly beautiful production, with often superb acting, especially from Lara Manela
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: The Beauty Queen of Leenane
This is stark theatre. Some will hate Martin McDonagh, and some already love him. I’d say you must see this, where it all started.
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: The Shark is Broken
Essential theatre for anyone who enjoys new plays with more wit than several comedies. A must-see.
Review: The Kelton Hill Fair
A mix of a brutal Brigadoon and the whimsy of the Wonderful World of Dissocia, this is a keen addition to the development of Scottish narrative.
Review: Dr Strangelove
Steve Coogan reigns supreme, and a cast like John Hopkins then Giles Terera are a gift to both Coogan and the show.
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: Playhouse Creatures
When Doll Common claims “Life’s like a storm. Don’t get in its way” one thinks of the stoicism of those in the eye of it, and their audience. A consummate revival.
Review: Men’s Business
A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.
Review: The Testament of Gideon Mack
A rollicking good ride, which holds onto the big questions while offering plenty of laughs along the way
Review: Jane Upton (the) Woman
A ground-breaking play, fully deserving of its London run. Catch it there.
Review: Perfect Arrangement
There’s never been a more urgent time for this gem of a work: a small hybrid classic that’s never been produced in the UK before. See it now.
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: Alterations
We must be grateful for this compelling revival, and wait for more from the National’s Black archive.
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: One Day When We Were Young
This grips anyone who can’t let first love go, anyone who stares homeward even now, wild with all regret. Unmissable.
Review: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
An astonishing theatrical vision blended with a fascinating story that combines into an exceptional evening of theatre.
Review: Chekhov Three Sisters
There’s a rapt self-communing in this production of Three Sisters. A must-see, it glows long after you’ve left it.
Review: Outlying Islands
A first rate-revival of a small classic. Do seek out this rare, dream-like play.
Review: The Last Laugh
This is a must-see. Never outstaying its welcome, you can leave this show after 85 minutes, but stay for that Q&A. I envy everyone the night I won’t be there for it.
Review: Birdsong
If you think on peace in these distracted times, love theatre, can absorb it at its most epic, then this will thrill and overwhelm you. A must-see.
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: We Will Hear The Angels
A hauntingly beautiful reflection on melancholy and the healing power of sad music
Review: Macbeth
A bold imagining of the Scottish play in a Scottish venue deep in the heart of theatricality.
Review: Macbeth
It’s still a phenomenal feat and even if you know Macbeth, it’s still a must-see for how a quintessence can be dusted off.
Review: Cymbeline
One of the most uneven of late plays, its heights have to be seen; and though there’s pitfalls, this absorbing production surmounts most. A feat.
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: Belly of the Beast
Belly of the Beast should be a set text in schools. And should definitely tour there.
Review: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Frecknall has re-thought and refreshed one of the great, and classically-framed American dramas. And made it classic.
Review: Helen Edmundson (adaptor) Anna Karenina
With Diane Robinson’s team there’s a vibrant retelling, superbly produced
Review: Goodbye Erdogan
A deeply engaging show about a small man overwhelmed by the seismic changes in modern Turkish society.
Review: Ballet Shoes
A paean to wonder and possibility, dreaming to some purpose. Like other winter growths, this should prove a hardy perennial, evergreen as the book.
Review: Shakespeare in Love
The mystery’s in the ensemble, the production, its bewitching leads. It’s a mighty reckoning in a little room.
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: Twelfth Night
Tom Littler again brings an intimate, wintry music to middle Shakespeare: it’s his unique gift. Never sour, never sweet without salt, and with very few reservations, a definitive close-up Twelfth Night.
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: 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: 1984
This is the fleetest most theatrical version I’ve seen for some time. Telegraphic in its conveying a nightmare world, it nevertheless does so by lightning strokes.
Review: The Welkin
The sheer acting catches fire: not a weak link. With their most ambitious production ID triumph. There’s nothing like them at full stretch.
Review: 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.
Review: Autumn
This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet
Review: 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.
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: Salomé
Dramatically this is the most creative response I’ve seen live. Here, a director’s reach should exceed their grasp, or what’s a production for.
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.
Review: Meet Me at Dawn
An aching, unflinching look at what we might face. Yet few seek to live through such a pact as bestowed here. A Greek gift. Unmissable in the south east.
Review: The Cat and the Canary
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
Review: Giant
Giant is both a magisterial debut and a landmark work for braving a terrain littered with - as Tom says - "booby traps... And surprise surprise - boom."
Review: Coriolanus
Certainly a Coriolanus blazing with extrinsic relevance, it brings clarity to a play that can seem an unmitigated grey
Review: Stoppard The Real Inspector Hound; Bartlett Contractions
As ever it’s a more worthwhile production than several professional ones we’re likely to see.
Review: Gareth Strachan Project M.E. The Rock Inn Pub
Strachan proves he can pull together serious talent who believe in his work. It’s a step up in all directions
Review: 23.5 Hours
A worthy successor to Never Not Once, almost from the other side of the glass, it makes Crim one of the most visible and exciting of US dramatists.
Review: Greenhouse Festival LAMDA Festival New Directors in association with Orange Tree
Every one of these productions could enjoy a run at the Orange Tree: they’re exciting and accomplished.
Review: The Comedy of Errors
The most intelligent Comedy of Errors I’ve seen since the NT production of 2012 and truer to the play’s temper.
Review: The Silver Cord
A darkly thrilling masterpiece, given what might be its finest UK revival. All are outstanding and Alix Dunmore, and certainly Sophie Ward, should be up for some glittering prizes.
Review: The Real Thing
The Real Thing is infinitely more stimulating than many popular comedies, and though it doesn’t quite ache as it should, James McArdle bestrides this production like a hopeful monster who’s got lucky.
Review: 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.
Review: The Unlikely Secret Agent
How it ends I urge you to discover in this sizzling paean to humanity.
Review: Shower Chair
We meet some people's deepest revelations through performance here, actors finding themselves becoming vulnerable through theatre, getting naked.
