Review: Pussycat in Memory of Darkness
Neda Nezhdana’s play is a world: not simply a map of pain and war footage. Both essential and in the mesmerising Kristin Millward’s and Polly Creed’s hands, with this team, it’s almost a compulsory visit.
Genre: Political
Review: Sound of the Underground
It’ll remain one of the break-out, breakthrough, certainly ground-breaking shows this year.
Review: Bus Regulation: The Musical
Fine community agitprop that makes a compelling case for joined up thinking. And roller skating. And public transport.
Review: Farragut North
The finest UK production of this play, certainly the best drama in Brighton this month.
Review: In the Net
See In the Net for its ambition, its occasionally gorgeous language, Offie-worthy lighting and in Carlie Diamond, an actor to greet and watch, making I predict one of the most assured debuts of the coming year.
Review: Watch on the Rhine
Hellman’s uneasy drama, reaching out to our own quandaries, has answers that stay news. A must-see.
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: An Inspector Calls
Still an outstanding production we might take for granted, Stephen Daldry has overhauled it, and crafted new touches of comedy and music-hall exaggeration.
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: The Doctor
A triumph for all concerned. Juliet Stevenson even gains in stature. Robert Icke’s revival could hardly go better than this.
Review: Ian Lynam:Autistic Licence
Verbal and visual funny man from autism's front line (and with blue hair)
Review: About Money
A fantastic dramatic performance of a very difficult topic performed in an exceptionally authentic manner
Review: A Political Breakfast
An amusing hour in the company of three fixers giving us humorous solutions to the pressing issues of the day.
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: Julius Caesar
If you’re a habitual groundling, go before this production vanishes back on tour
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: 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: 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: 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: Anne Boleyn
If it’s drama you’re after in Brighton Fringe, this is one of the two or three essential stops. Thrilling, authoritative, with Greene the jewel in a sparkling ensemble.
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: Two Billion Beats
Two Billion Beats was bursting with promise before. Now it delivers with a visceral yes.
Review: A Splinter of Ice
Absorbing. With such an acting masterclass the play’s a bewitchingly-voiced fugue on the limits of belief and betrayal.
Review: Rice
Do see this work of understated virtuosity, rich in character, substance, a shape-shifting singularity.
Review: Walden
Amy Berryman’s Walden is a remarkable play where the earth itself’s at the cross-planet, and travellers in space have inner and outer choices.
Review: On Arriving
On Arriving takes sixty minutes it seems we’ve been immersed in a Greek Tragedy of ninety. See it.
Review: Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons
Think Nick Payne’s Constellations meets Zamyatin’s We. If you love new theatre, worth queuing for returns.
Review: The Vertical Hour
The definitive Fringe revival of a mainstream play this year. Absorbing, baggy, intimate. See it.
Review: Living Newspaper #7
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch a group of young dramatists take on the future
Review: Living Newspaper #6
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch what this does with the future
Review: Living Newspaper #5
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch.
Review: We are the lions Mr. Manager
A great revisiting of the 70’s in an agit prop retelling two hander, of a time past but a prejudice still present
Review: Contemporary political ethics (or, how to cheat)
A subtle and effective examination of democracy from out of the mouths of the naïve and academic
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: The Ruins of Empires
A fantastical run through the falls of Empires and how we, as subjects, can and should rise up and take the advantages back for the common good.
Review: The Madness of George III
This magnificent revival poses even more urgent questions. A twitch on the thread for all of us.
Review: Hysteria
An effective cabaret style run at the issues facing women in the 21st century with a popular theatrical style of the previous century which entertains is unsure of itself.
Review: #AIWW The Arrest of Ai WeiWei
Brenton powerfully concertinas a continent’s politics and one artist’s refraction of it. Wong is outstanding
Review: Far Away
Our greatest playwright since Beckett and Pinter. An outstanding revival. Hesitating?
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: #We Are Arrested
Peter Hamilton Dyer carries this celebration of the conscience to be fully human
Review: A Letter to a Friend in Gaza
Amos Gitai’s curating hope from the ruins, impelling the audience to construct a narrative.
Review: Dr Matt Winning: It’s the End of the World as We Know It
A storytelling lecture about climate change from Dr Matt Winning, one of the world’s funniest climate researchers.
Review: Westminster Hour Part 1 and Part 2
Labyrinthine plots with more twists and turns than the route map for Brexit.
Review: Jonny and the Baptists Love Edinburgh
Bonkers comedy and absurdist songs. And not political, of course.
Review: Like Me
A solo talk that investigates the effect that social media has had on our lives from the perspective of one
Review: Matt Forde: Brexit, pursued by a bear
A wickedly funny indictment of the state of the nation and the fools that have led us here
Review: Cardboard Citizens: Bystanders
Powerful real stories told with phenomenal theatrical flair that will have you thinking 'what would I do?'
Review: Deer Woman
A rightfully angry production that gives voice to a story that needs to be more widely heard
Review: Come Out From Among Them
A fascinating theatrical one man exploration of a phenomenon of politics that is the fundamentalist reason why Northern Irish politics continues to fascinate.
Review: Chagos 1971
A young and new company bring a true story to life of a time long forgotten in a truly interesting manner.
Review: White Girls
An innovative and original insight into volunteering in the jungle of Calais and how naivete turns through experience into knowledge; a journey we all benefit from.
Review: Mark Thomas : The Manifesto
Ludlow proving that it isn't short of eccentric ideas for its own Manifesto
Review: The Mayor’s Debate of Tranquility, Nebraska
A darkly wry commentary on decorum in American politics
Review: Where Are You Really From?
Quirky, creative, and thoroughly entertaining exploration of cultural identity
Review: Gone Edinburgh
Scottish folk music peppered with social justice themes and mischievous grins
