Review: This is a Gift

Reimagining the Midas myth from the perspective of his daughter.


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: Sheridan The Rivals

This company re-thinks Sheridan in his spirit: clear and steady as lead-crystal struck through with sun. The inventiveness of filleting the text to guy the fact of a five-strong cast is part of their distinction. It’s a must-see.


Review: Euripides Medea

This Medea deserves its fame. A must-see, though nearly sold-out.


Review: Duty

A fresh and urgent play, Duty should tour as a salutary reminder of how war impacts community, divides war-influenced majority from the few who see through war.


Review: Athena Stevens Diagnosis

Over 50 minutes, a compelling, unique and disturbing vision unravels: prophesying prophesy is invisible. That’s why as many as possible should see it.


Review: 1536

A stunning must-see debut.


Review: Jon Fosse Einkvan

An opaque, compelling gem from Det Norske Teatret and its director Horn; and the wonderful Coronet.


Review: Corrina O’Beirne With Ruby & I

Corrina O’Beirne ‘s a name to seek out in future and in Kempell and her cast and creatives, she’s found first-rate advocates. A must-see.


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.


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: 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: Rhinoceros

Don’t miss this. It’s provoking, wholly in spirit, with moments of great power.


Review: Kiln

An artful and abstract deep dive into familial grief


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: Men’s Business

A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.


Review: Flutter-Bye

Since this play and Allison Ferns have a lot of legs, it’ll be worth coming back to see it run.


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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: The Devil May Care

Do see this particularly for an outstanding performance from Burrows and an exceptionally fine one from Woodhouse. This adaptation remains an exhilarating reminder of what a difference a century makes.


Review: Tarantula

This stunning performance from Henley ought to garner awards.


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: Sara Farrington A Trojan Woman

An acclaimed pocket tragedy which yet carries Euripides’ weight in Farrington’s framing, it more than touches the heart: it snatches it and hands it back as a sad and angry consolation.


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: Stranger Than the Moon

Essential for anyone interested in Brecht or 20th century drama, it’s far more: starkly entrancing, then engrossing over 110 minutes.


Review: Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime

A sure-fire miniature epic, spanning history and damn lies. Sublimely written and with a superb cast both seasoned and fresh, the finest concentration of panto this season.


Review: {Title of Show}

Delicious, certainly, truly witty and fast-moving, never indulgent about self-indulgence, this is a sure-fired soufflé


Review: Mixie

A revelatory premiere, consummately realised by Lewis’s team.


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: The Other Place

Zeldin has wrought something more precious than a version. A must-see.


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 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: 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: 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: Princess Essex

The more we see of such uplifting, uproarious, yet probing works the better.


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: G

Exactly what the Royal Court is for.


Review: Shower Chair

We meet some people's deepest revelations through performance here, actors finding themselves becoming vulnerable through theatre, getting naked.


Review: Disco, Baby?

A musical with rhythm in its message


Review: Dummy in Diaspora

A challenging solo show which does manage to capture the confusion and the liberation of being yourself.


Review: Lies Where It Falls

A compelling and moving exploration of grief, trauma, and the long shadows cast by violence


Review: Worm Teeth

Engaging bonkers tale about a Worm who wants teeth


Review: SOS BRM

An engaging exploration of grief, loss and guilt


Review: You Deserve It

It is a play which is undeniably a laugh while attempting to highlight some of the realities of a life in the spotlight.