Review: Twelfth Night
With Michelle Terry as Viola, one of the most touching and truthful Twelfth Nights I’ve seen.
Genre: Live Music 0
Review: Romeo and Juliet
A fleet, brilliantly upending, wholly relevant take on the Verona-ready toxicity feeding male violence and young depression
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: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Even more than 2019, a carnival riot of joy – with enough misdirection to evoke moonshine
Review: The Dream Train
Contemplative and beautiful to watch, 4 characters interact in juxtaposed realities underscored by Bach's Goldberg Variations
Review: Celebrating Okoe
A beautiful homage to a personal friend and teacher that is rich and deep in the rhythm of celebration.
Review: Elsa McTaggart : When The World Stood Still
Foot tapping tunes emerge from a surreal lockdown experience.
Review: The Twits
A summer must-see to charge you up for the autumn, and taking on the real twits ahead.
Review: The Merchant of Venice
This production needs a run. It’s potentially a great interpretation.
Review: Dracula
You should see this with some fine acting and a storyline making more sense of Dracula than Stoker does himself.
Review: Tom Lehrer
Another sovereign tribute. Stefan Bednarczyk brings Tom Lehrer swaggering out of retirement.
Review: and breathe…
Yomi Sode’s hybrid theatre is a compelling immersion of witness and poetry: we need more of it.
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: Bette: Bathhouse to Broadway!
One of the most musically satisfying, funny, filthy and inclusive tribute acts of its kind.
Review: Branching Out
Three very fine and one outstanding work, Scratches – the best kind of play on depression, self-harm, black holes. Because it’s screamingly funny and deeply connected to why we do theatre.
Review: Dazzling Divas
Issy Van Randwyck brings seven divas to life in this paean to tragic fulfilment.
Review: Chamberlain: Peace in Our Time
A light-filled small gem of a show, tuning into wireless crystals of a lost world.
Review: Vagabonds My Phil Lynott Odyssey
An original off-kilter approach to elegy, tribute and becoming yourself.
Review: Living Newspaper #6
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch what this does with the future
Review: Hymn
Its potency lies in a fine peeling apart by Adrian Lester and Danny Sapini, and the language that bridges it.
Review: The Official Dick Whittington – A Pantomime for 2020
It’s a joyous confection out of thin lockdown.
Review: The New Tomorrow
There’s a generosity here, a big hug. Theatre itself affirms the value of life to those who might yet shape it for the better.
Review: Troilus and Cressida
We’re privileged to see this rarely-performed work moulded by OFS. A play for our times.
Review: Amadeus
In the most spectacular production imaginable, Lucian Msamati’s supremely crafted lead sets off the quicksilver of his rival Adam Gillen.
Review: Les Blancs
A superb realization of Lorraine Hansberry's unfinished masterpiece - a classic of Ibsenite proportions
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
This surely is the greatest Dream since Peter Brook’s landmark 1970 production.
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor
One of the two most cogent, most fun Merry Wives of recent years.
Review: Coriolanus
A Coriolanus memorable for politics sinewed with personal forces: an active interrogation of democracy. And in Josie Rourke’s production Tom Hiddleston’s someone riven by intimations of his true self
Review: The Sound of Music
Phenomenal singing all round. A more than solid recommendation for that alone.
Review: The Two Noble Kinsmen
We’re looking at a bright Book of Hours. Barrie Rutter’s done it profound service, adding a warmth and agency that opens up this pageant. This is hopefully just the first of many such he’ll bring to the Globe.
Review: Barber Shop Chronicles
Barber Shop Chronicles is a breath-taking revelation for those of us who had small inkling of a world in miniature.
Review: Antony and Cleopatra
Supremely worth it to see a pair so famous weighing equal in their own balance, perhaps for the first time.
Review: Andrew Lloyd-Webber 50th Birthday Live from the Royal Albert Hall, 1998
The great discovery was the multi-roling Marcus Lovett, sexy and lethal, able to attack several roles and convince you he was born for them, even into them.
Review: Romeo and Juliet
Completeness is just one reason to cherish this clean-driven clear-headed production
Review: Twelfth Night
Tamsin Greig’s extremes as Malvolia mark the first intimations of the terrible and define this production. The ground’s shifted.
Review: The Winter’s Tale
Far more than a curate’s egg, this production reveals things we’ve never seen
Review: The Phantom of the Opera
The Albert Hall’s sovereign production, unlikely to be surpassed particularly with the special encore.
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: Wonderland
Outstanding. Surely the definitive study of the dignity of physical labour, and breaking of its amity.
Review: Women Beware Women
A stylish, timely production which redefines how we experience Middleton.
Review: Quartet
Like The French Lieutenant’s Woman, there are now two endings to Quartet. You must see this if you know the film only, or care about music, ageing, friendship and achingly lost love.
Review: Lance Mok Piano Recital
Confirms Mok confirms he’s a pianist bristling with oblique lyricism and spiky character – an ideal late 19th century-20th century interpreter.
Review: The Taming of the Shrew
See it and you’ll never think of the Shrew without this groundbreaking stab at the dreams of men.
Review: Simon Watterton Piano Recital
Another pianist to welcome back before he gets snapped up, even in this climate. Superb.
Review: Sam Brown A John Dowland Lute Recital
A climactic Fantasia lifts the atmosphere of this recital to something quite apt. A superb debut.
Review: Blood Brothers
The blend of definitive and new cast members in a recent classic has overwhelming impact: as story, as lyric fable, as terrible moral for these distracted times.
Review: You Stupid Darkness!
Bleakly funny, with flickers of tragedy, to make you see how redemptive kindness is
Review: Sirius Chau and Irena Radic Flute and Piano Recital
A terrific journey. We need more of this.
Review: Roots
An Edinburgh International Festival, HOME Manchester, Spoleto Festival USA & Theatre de la Ville Paris co-production
Review: Yaqi Yao, Violin and Cheung Man Lok Piano Recital
A memorable debut, with welcome original repertoire
Review: Three Sisters
This spectacular production beats with a fervour and purpose few adaptations achieve. Ellams has made Three Sisters new.
Review: Swive
A Hilliard rather than Holbein, it’s the velocity of Elizabeth’s survival that enthrals
Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The three lead actors, divas and a superb cast give this production its beating pink heart.
Review: František Brikcius Solo Cello Recital
A superb recital with unique material, played with distinctive authority.
Review: Caroline Colingridge and Margaret Grimsdell Flute and Piano Recital
A truly exploratory programme, with not one standard in it.
Review: Alan Parmenter and Howard Blake Violin and Piano Recital
Howard Blake playing his own compositions beyond The Snowman, made this treasurable
Review: Sussex Musicians Concert
Singers set a few benchmarks and piansit Kevin Allen in particular ferociously adventuring to fresh sonorities
Review: As You Like It
For Lucy Phelps and Sophie Khan Levy above all, this is a joyful As You Like It.
Review: A Letter to a Friend in Gaza
Amos Gitai’s curating hope from the ruins, impelling the audience to construct a narrative.
