Review: Cosi Fan Tutte

Here’s a great chance to see up-close and classical some stars of tomorrow.


Review: War Horse

An astonishing spectacle that still moves and will forever craze the idiocy of war on the retina like an iced-over No-Man’s Land.


Review: Appropriate

NVT confirm this a masterpiece, something I’d not fully appreciated in the excellent 2019 Donmar production, which this excels. Outstanding


Review: Local

A firm Finborough recommendation.


Review: My Fair Lady

Kavanagh’s production is in every way outstanding, I’m not sure there’s been a finer – or at least more believable - My Fair Lady conceived and staged as here.


Review: Tender

With such terrific performances you root for this not-yet-couple right to the blackout.


Review: Happy Days

Company Teatro Meridional takes to the stage one of Samuel Beckett's masterpieces impeccably interpreted by actress Mónica Garnel


Review: Platónov

A daring five-hour-long mise en scène of a forgotten work by Anton Chekhov


Review: Ansioliticamente Falando

An autobiographical mise-en-scène of one's own anxieties projected onto Anton Chekhov's The Seagull which embraces the larger subject of mental health in Portuguese society.


Review: -320°F

If you’ve not seen a Noda production, see it. If you have, see it. It’s still the most intelligent spectacular I’ve seen in recent times.


Review: Wife to James Whelan

It should transfer, though nothing can beat this space for delivery. Outstanding, a must-see if ever there was one.


Review: Uncle Vanya

An absorbing Uncle Vanya: fleet, energised, sharply-etched.


Review: Archduke

High entertainment for the theatre’s blazing midsummer.


Review: Much Ado About Nothing

Not only lands in all the right places, it fizzes perhaps more than any Much Ado I’ve seen.


Review: Caterpillar

This is a richly freighted drama: all the issues around loss, abuse, displacement and ideation circle in two-hours-twenty with interval.


Review: 45 Years

Acting and often dialogue still compel in long bursts. It sets a seal on one of the swiftest slow-burn productions I’ve seen.


Review: Jane Eyre

Polly Teale has released the daemons, but Nettie Sheridan’s ensemble has delivered Jane Eyre’s feeling to a pitch remarkable even for BLT. With a twilight and sunny consummation at BOAT, it’s even more outstanding.


Review: Under the Shadow

Far richer than any ghost play haunting the tour circuit, it’s a blistering, scary must-see.


Review: Are You Watching?

Georgie Dettmer’s voice should be one of the leading dramatists of resistance. Yet more, Dettmer has already much to say about how to live now and next.


Review: Teeth ‘n’ Smiles

As Teeth ‘n’ Smiles ends, we’re left to feel the long withdrawing roar of the 1960s, and the bleaker horizons and disillusion Hare saw by 1975. A must-see.


Review: Atonement

A quintessence of Atonement, and perhaps the finest. An iridescent must-see.


Review: The P Word

A bold yet tender exploration of what it is to be gay, Asian and humane. You come out cheering. A must-see.


Review: Organised: Crime

Got things you need cleaned up on the QT? Angela's Angels - thorough and discrete


Review: Black Comedy

A taut, first-rate revival, though with a unique virtuosity


Review: Wrap Party

A lightning-quick comedy about invisible labour, ambition and class set in a catering van on a film set.


Review: Mother Courage and Her Children

Brecht’s ferocious message that those who seek profit from war are often its victims too is driven home in the weight of dropped bodies, and Michelle Terry’s outstanding performance.


Review: Operation Mincemeat

This is the finest new musical I’ve seen for many years. End of. The hype, the Oliviers and Tony call it right. See it.


Review: Quartet in Autumn

Absorbing, a must-see for anyone asking questions of where we begin our endings.


Review: The Dasslers

The Dasslers wields a potential beyond its current limitations – both in this brief production and in its current form. And Radford, clearly setting out his dramatic stall in history’s cross-currents, is a voice to watch.


Review: Wench

Standing ovations for this new behemoth of a piece, performed with complete control by the beautiful and intense Felix Le Freak.


Review: Chemistry

A breakthrough work about love on the roll of a pill. Outstanding.


Review: Foal

The Finborough have form with five-star solo shows. This is clearly another flued and sanded with the ferocity of pursuit. Outstanding.


Review: 7-7-7

A Ritual You Didn't Agree To. Evil has never been this funny. Or this close.


Review: Allegra

As an example of a Peter Quilter soufflé, this is the best of his I’ve come across; and Maureen Lipman gleams with a supreme gravity-defying performance. Irresistible.


Review: Teatro dei Gordi: Visite

As ever, the Coronet and its guests have scored something unique in the British theatre-world.


Review: Peaked

The perils of peaking too soon


Review: Derby Day

Murder shakes a Scottish community to its core


Review: Jane Eyre

Polly Teale has released the daemons, but Nettie Sheridan’s ensemble has delivered Jane Eyre’s feeling to a pitch remarkable even for BLT.


Review: Neddy Goes to Glasto

Corrina O’Beirne masters the demotic, the lyrical, the witty and metaphorical, all at once. A must-see.


Review: Ashes and Diamonds

Exceptionally humane, humanly absorbing. It’s always 11.15. Till it isn’t


Review: Flush

Timely, timeless and as real as a selfie you might wish you’d never taken when you look again. 80 minutes blink by, but you won’t miss it. Stunning.


Review: Kinder

Do see this aching, poignant and very funny rite of passages when it lands.


Review: Evangeline

First-rate Fringe music-theatre. Artistic content, particularly songs and verse, as well as direction and acting ensures this will clearly travel. Do see it.


Review: Escaped Alone

It mightn’t quite be the droll, dry Churchill we know, but it’s certainly one we should greet. Absorbing.


Review: Lock

Five plays, three actors and a lot of fun


Review: Magic

Brave, timeless, and troubled, Magic sometimes refuses to give up its secrets too. Absorbing.


Review: Fate Train

A play not just about Myth. Its about how we carry grief,how stories help us to survive it,and how art can turn something painful into something shared.


Review: Kohlhaas

How far would you go for justice? A gripping solo-performance and a story for our times.


Review: Control

Control - a mechanism for regulation


Review: Mind and Breathe

Brecht meets Beckett in this sharp combination of existential exploration and jet black humour


Review: The Final Episode

Two original twists, a fine, fresh writer/performer/director and something I certainly look forward to seeing developed.


Review: Uccelini

A rich, suggestive and above all probing work about how we live with our ghosts so we can live with each other.


Review: Two Halves of Guinness

As a gentle voyage around the frothy half of Guinness we know, and the dark we don’t, it deserves awards, and another tour.


Review: Carmen

A must-see for anyone compelled by ballet; something we’re not likely to see in Brighton for years.


Review: Between the River and the Sea

Recognizing humanity is a mingled yarn mightn’t sound revelatory. Nor what we want to take away. But it’s what we need.


Review: The Waves

A mostly outstanding – and theatrical - adaptation of an almost impossible-to-adapt novel.


Review: The Choir of Man

The Choir of Man brings us joy whilst bursting with talent. But it’s a timely reminder of what’s at stake.