Review: Tom’s Midnight Garden

An absolutely first-rate ensemble and they tell the story with all the wide-eyed wonder of a real enchantment, beyond Christmas, beyond, perhaps time. A gem.


Review: Refilwe

At just 45 minutes, a delightfully adapted fairy-tale, adapted in its turn. Bisola Aalbi’s rewrite is a lively, timely take on a silent culture war to make people of all ages think again.


Review: Bumble’s Big Adventure

A worthy attempt at addressing the environmental impact around us and trying to teach the youngest about the natural world.


Review: The Twits

An entertaining morning in the company of an enthusiastic Youth Theatre.


Review: The Sewage

Two brothers, a lost goldfish, and a world of grotesque creatures ...


Review: Mother Goose

This is more than panto: it’s an affirmation of something that panto here welcomes in, in our time uniquely invoking layers as only Elizabethan/Jacobean drama can.


Review: David Copperfield

A paean to live theatre; soaring seasonal spirit, struck with tenderness, joy, sorrow, plangent affirmation.


Review: Fruit Flies Like a Banana

No banana could fly as fast as these three virtuoso performers in this must see show as they combine virtuoso musicianship with acrobatics and dance


Review: Waiting For God

Sarah Mann and Nathan Ariss lead a fine company into a dash to eternity and back. With a memorable finale of two weddings and a funeral.


Review: Mary, Chris, Mars

Imaginative - and will appeal to families with an interest in space, astronauts and object/shadow puppetry.


Review: Dad’s Army

You feel you’ve been part of an invited audience at one of the original TV productions


Review: House of Shades

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


Review: Donald and Benoit

Whimsical, distracting and delightful – from cat’s pajamas to the dog’s claws, this is a real panacea to the absurdity of life.


Review: Granny Smith’s

A lovely entrée to the bilingualism of French and English delivered in mask by a woman who knows and who entertains.


Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Some actors give transcendent performances up there with London’s finest. Out in the slant air this will now prove magical.


Review: The Twits

A summer must-see to charge you up for the autumn, and taking on the real twits ahead.


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: Bag Lady

This could develop into something special. Thoroughly recommended as an industrial-strength ice-breaker.


Review: Beauty and the Beast

Nothing so convincing has been done with this legend. It deserves many revivals.


Review: The Sound of Music

Phenomenal singing all round. A more than solid recommendation for that alone.


Review: Cats

Easily the finest production we’ll get


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: Celeste’s Circus

A quant and lovely trip to the circus for little ones that take big ones along for the ride


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: Troll

Entertaining, meaningful storytelling with superb innovative shadow play!


Review: Islander: A New Musical

A haunting and highly evocative telling of the misty islands of Scotland told in an enchanting musical production.


Review: Grimm’s Tales

An exuberant Christmas production, and a miracle of compression, blocking, set-design and ensemble acting skills.


Review: Madagascar The Musical

Highly Recommended for monkeys and lemurs of all ages – quite apart from lions, zebras, hippos and giraffes.


Review: Private Peaceful

This is as good as a one-person show of this kind gets. Andy Daniel should be up there above his own rows of five-star ratings.


Review: Kaput

An engaging hour of brilliantly-constructed mime and slapstick performed by a loveable character who steals your heart while making you laugh.


Review: The Man Who Planted Trees

Charming, imaginative, entertaining storytelling and puppetry show, extremely well performed - thoughtful, moving story, with a noble message!


Review: Penguinpig

Charming, attractive, well thought out puppetry show set to lovely music, that will appeal to young children and accompanying grown ups!


Review: Animal Farm

A swift and telling production that’s quick-swerving on its feet with memorable vocal projection and physical acting that’s a delight and enticement. This outstanding outdoor version feels special.


Review: Woogie Boogie

Creative, imaginative, inventive and fun family show!


Review: Summer Holiday

Stunning Ray Quinn and ensemble work their bobby-socks off with notable support from Rob Wicks and his band. Give No. 9 a proper MOT and it’ll strike gold too.


Review: Arr We There Yet?

A Madcap Mashup of Circus and Storytelling with a Little Tango for Extra Spice


Review: Fauna

A must see show for anyone fascinated by movement, music and the human body.


Review: The Looker

A show about freedom. Funny, subversive, deeply philosophical - and beautiful.


Review: Bear North

Do come if you want charm, unpredictable choruses and weather. And where else can you see a dancing bear not even brushed backwards in the making of this show?


Review: The Jurassic Parks

A masterclass in storytelling using physical theatre, puppetry, song and dance, and audience interaction


Review: Random Selfies

This is sweet, fleet story-telling with just the right amount of pitch and yaw for anyone to take, without it becoming too dark or didactic. Ten-year-old Lola’s engaging, and in Natalia Hinds’ hands utterly believable, energetically inhabited with a sense of fun clearly relished by this revelatory actor.


Review: How To Be a Kid

More than an enchanting diversion Sarah McDonald’s play does ask just how quickly we need to grow up, even when we have.


Review: The Snowman

The most enduring British Christmas hits are melancholy, in stark contrast to say American. There’s a profound sadness in the magic. Its not a long work, perfectly proportioned for children. It’s still the ideal winter present, especially on a first trip to the theatre.


Review: The Messiah

Incestuous stars, passing of the ears, deep heat as a condition not an old muscle unguent. The dotty felicities of Patrick Barlow’s language in The Messiah directed by Rod Lewis are easily masked in the Norman Wisdom-like pratfalls of his hapless duo. Unless you add Mrs Flowers; and you should.


Review: Saint George and the Dragon

This is an unsettling, unsettled play. Creating its own world, it asks something of substance no-one else is quite doing – not even Rory Mullarkey previously in The Wolf From the Door. His adaptation of the Oresteia for the Globe has after all come between. It’ll be intriguing to see where this big-boned, big-themed dramatist will venture next.


Review: Fiddler on the Roof

Evans allows this musical theatre to breathe on his own big-hearted terms whilst allowing the bones to show, as it does with a breath-taking diminuendo that seems to raise and settle the dust of emigration as we watch. For sheer penetration, heart and balance it’s as definitive as we’re likely to see for many years.


Review: The Wedding Singer

This is an outstandingly-conceived show, generous to cast and audience alike, superbly choreographed and performed in what might seem challenging spaces. The last blast of summer’s breath: enjoy.


Review: Ingo’s War

Delightful and meaningful story - imaginative, creative, moving and extremely well done!


Review: Jason and the Argonauts

An impressive modern take on the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece with contemporary power and focus.


Review: Wonderland

The ingredients are there: it’s a magical idea, and just needs a quieter rationale and – to make it a great show - a few more memorable numbers. But if you care for musicals, see it for an outstanding clutch of performers and a dream of something perennial.


Review: Christopher Nibble.

"The Guinea pigs of Dandeville are munching the poor over-stretched dandelion population out of existence and heading for eco-disaster!!


Review: Cranford

A good evening out and if you’re in the area, more than recommendable. The overall production and costumes, abetted with strong pace, a good use of Coleman’s narratives and finally finally top-flight amateur performances by Jennifer Annetts, Aisling and Thomas Edie, and Charlotte Eastes, makes this a recommendable production, the most ambitious I’ve seen from these players.


Review: Seeing Stars

Here’s Tycho Brahe to lead us by his gold nose. You can never start star-gazing too young; this Rust and Stardust production is a dazzling place to start. Enchanting, informative and exhilarating in equal measure; Conlon and Sommers’ singing sets a magical seal on this star-breaking look at the universe.


Review: The Wizard of Oz

It beggars belief that on one tiny stage we can be subjected to so many scene stages so expertly handled, so many backdrops and scenery shifts, not to mention a cast of twenty-two who can all sing. This production is good enough for a larger professional stage. If you get a chance, ask for a ticket or return.


Review: Motherhood: (Un)speakable, (Un)spoken

Moments into this one-woman play, Joanna Rosenfeld - emerging in a poke of fingers from a cagoule of brown paper - over-voices herself giving witness to tens of verbatim experiences we hear. This tells us the baby’s a parasite, sucks all your nutrients, calcium from your teeth for instance, causes injury, often permanent, can kill. This is - literally - epic interior theatre.


Review: The Forest

An impeccable time in a magical forest where all is experienced by all who enter