Review: Hakawatis Women of the Arabian Nights
Original, bawdy, exploratory, seductive and elegaic in equal measure. A Faberge egg, continually hatching.
Genre: New Writing
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: 12:37
The Finborough produces marvels, though this one, without losing its dazzling, tight DNA, deserves the widest possible transfer.
Review: Henry V
Bracing, fresh, wholly re-thought in every line, emerging with gleaming power, menace and wit. And I defy anyone not to smile at this new take on Shakespeare’s downbeat ending.
Review: David Copperfield
A paean to live theatre; soaring seasonal spirit, struck with tenderness, joy, sorrow, plangent affirmation.
Review: Dinner With Groucho
McGuinness produces one of his finest works wrought from the sawdust of others and rendered it the burst of stars that irradiate the end.
Review: Sarah
An unnerving testing of that space between naturalism and hallucination, redemption and blank unknowing, studded with a language that flies off the page.
Review: Here
A major talent with a distinct voice, and the consummate assurance to express it with stamp and precision
Review: The Lavender Hill Mob
Certainly enjoyable and the second act shows what it might be. There’s not a moment’s longeurs
Review: Not One of These People
Worth 95 minutes of anyone’s time, you come out heavier with the weight of where you’ve been.
Review: The Seagull
A Seagull for the initiated, a meditation rather than the play itself, it’s still a truthful distillation, wholly sincere, actors uniformly excellent
Review: Cher A New Musical
See it here first before you feel compelled to travel to pay West End prices.
Review: Jews. In Their Own Words.
It’s Jonathan Freedland’s and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s brilliance to bring off-kilter, casual devastation to the stage; in raw unsettlings that for many keep the suitcase packed.
Review: Dracula
Robert Hamilton’s novel stage version of Dracula should be published and used widely
Review: Silence
More of a scattering of earth, ashes and love than simply groundbreaking. But caveats aside, groundbreaking it is.
Review: I, Joan
The title role goes to Isobel Thom, making their professional debut: the greatest I’ve ever seen.
Review: Breathless
A pitch perfect drama with crafted bittersweet comedy which explores the challenges of navigating life whilst not coping with a mental health disorder.
Review: A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain
A powerful story with mythical qualities about life in the hostile environment
Review: Born Under a Bad Sign
A brilliant exploration of what hope can do when you follow a team that’s not one of the big two…
Review: Swell
A fascinating drama based around the effects of impending environmental catastrophe rather than the science of it.
Review: S.O.E.
Well balanced and effective theatrical homage to the bravest and most selfless act that could be imagined.
Review: Look no hands
A fascinating tale, a great bike and a glimpse into an unusual manifestation of PTSD
Review: A Wilde Life
Oscar Wilde is in a bar in Paris and wants to talk about himself - what could possibly go wrong?
Review: The Girl Who Was Very Good At Lying
An outstanding powerful, imaginative and funny exploration of the stories we tell to escape who we are and where we are.
Review: Cicely and David
An intriguing glimpse into the friendship that started the modern hospice movement (and is a fund raiser for the Hospices of Hope - Ukraine Appeal)
Review: Palimpsest
A very creative and funny show about going on a date and finding yourself in a show.
Review: About Money
A fantastic dramatic performance of a very difficult topic performed in an exceptionally authentic manner
Review: Decision – An Irish Dance Play
Joyous, poignant and inventive fusion of theatre and Irish dance.
Review: Earwig
A fast-paced elegant exploration of female emancipation in the 1920’s world of entomology (things with wings that sting!)
Review: Ghislaine/Gabler
A spell binding multi layered exploration of privilege, entitlement, and the desire to control…
Review: Tinted
A drama about blurred lines of consent as a young visually impaired woman negotiates sex and relationships.
Review: One of Two
Wry, poetic and just plain angry - a comedy drama from a young Scot about him, his twin and why life has treated them differently.
Review: Around the World with Nellie Bly
An intrepid 19th century traveller in the hands of a first class 20th century story teller. A perfect reminder than adventures aren’t just for boys!
Review: The Last Return
A highly entertaining ensemble performance that is a masterclass in characterisation and comedic timing
Review: Triple Bypass: Three Ten Minute Plays About Living for Death and Dying for Life
Three great wee plays performed with a degree of skill
Review: Truth’s a Dog that must to Kennel
'Stand up meets metaverse' - Bravo, Tim Crouch, the Fool we need to interpret our sad, new world.
Review: The Kettling
Highly effective piece of youth theatre drama ostensibly covering climate change but including a whole lot more
Review: Boris the Third
A lighthearted telling of Boris Johnson’s less than successful acting career. Slapstick abounds!
Review: Jesus, Jane, Mother & Me
A Brilliant Fringe Acting Debut in a Scintillating and Ultimately Shocking Play.
Review: Move Fast and Break Things
Intriguing impactful story, characters and fascinating video and puppetry!
Review: All Of Us
As Ken Tynan once said of another debut, I don’t think I could love someone who doesn’t love this play.
Review: The Poison Belt
So what could a Sussex-based sci-fi tale of 1913 by Conan Doyle – a space-borne poison belt of gas that hits the earth – possibly have to do with the week of the greatest temperatures known in the UK?
Review: Shake the City
A real play bursting out of its hour-plus length; with complex interaction, uncertain journeys, each character developing a crisis of isolation only resolved by sisterhood
Review: That Is Not Who I Am
Lucy Kirkwood prophesies what’s in store with savage fury, and no-one’s exempt, least of all her.
Review: The Southbury Child
Perfectly freighted; each character pitched with just enough choice to make us wonder what life, not Stephen Beresford will do with them. Outstanding.
Review: Cluedo
An object lesson in comic timing; a steep cut above the ‘real’ whodunnits we’re likely to see this year or next.
Review: Cancelling Socrates
Howard Brenton touching eighty is at the height of his powers. Tom Littler has assembled a pitch-perfect cast, reuniting two from his outstanding All’s Well. This too.
Review: The Father and the Assassin
There’s no finer dramatisation of India’s internal conflicts. Shubham Saraf’s Gandhi-killer Godse stands out in this thrilling ensemble and storms it too.
Review: The Last
Chittenden’s done a great service not only to Mary Shelley’s novel, but to the way we imagine. And Amy Kidd’s exemplary.
Review: Straight Line Crazy
Danny Webb gives the performance of his life. Ralph Fiennes is coiled majesty. Two-and-a-half hours of such material have rarely been so thrilling.
Review: Underdogs
The latest play by Brian Mitchell (Lord God, Ministry of Biscuits) and Joseph Nixon (The Shark is Broken)
Review: Marys Seacole
No simple swapping of heirs and originals, but a dream of the future by Seacole, or equally present dreams raking the past. Do see this.
Review: Moral Panic
A film censor navigates turbulent times in his work and at home - a comic one-hander with some horror thrown in.
Review: Accidental Birth of an Anarchist
A thoroughly absorbing play whose polemical agency is none the less tempered by the people it’s refracted through.
Review: Cocky and the Tardigrades
Bonkers brilliance. Cocky couldn’t have been premiered with two more stunning actors, and the author’s flawless stepping-in remains remarkable.
Review: Spirit of Woodstock 2 – The Sequel
There’s no greater writer/performer working in Brighton, or Sussex, and Spirit of Woodstock Parts I and 2 is Jonathan Brown’s most dazzling show to date.
Review: For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy
Turns the bleakness of six young men into a celebration of – for now – coming through
Review: The Paradis Files
Not so much an event as a concentration of Errollyn Wallen’s genius celebrating the life of blind composer Maria Theresia van Paradis, in Graeae’s world-class production
Review: Ghost Boy: a playwright’s progress
If you want a single account of the heady days of 1960s-70s British theatre, this has to be it
