Genre: Theatre
Review: The Comeuppance
Might prove the most lasting American drama about. emerging to a different world.
Review: Muswell Hill
Cook and team have shown commendable disregard for comfortable options, sharing a rediscovery.
Review: The Valley of Fear
Blackeyed have kept their telling as lean as Holmes’ hawk-like face, and it pounces. If you admire 221b at all, see it this week.
Review: Dream of a Ridiculous Man
A definitive telling of that rarest thing, an uplifting Dostoevsky tale. It’s unlikely to be rendered better than this.
Review: The Motive and the Cue
An extraordinary production. Thorne’s vision is capped by a riveting performance by Gatiss, who glows with the still, sad music of Gielgud’s humanity.
Review: Macbeth
It’s a phenomenal feat and even if you know Macbeth, it’s still a must-see for how a quintessence can be dusted off.
Review: In and Out of Chekhov’s Shorts
Outstanding. After this, there’s no other way to tell Chekhov dramatically that he’s not already nailed down in a play himself. Chekhov would have loved it.
Review: The Human Body
The work’s best at its quietest, where intimacy doesn’t need shouting. It’s still an intriguing development, as Kirkwood, as in her magnificent The Welkin, interrogates the condescensions of history.
Review: Hangmen
Assured, idiomatic performances. And Martin McDonagh’s distinction resonates in a manner peculiar to him alone. A must-see for anyone in Sussex.
Review: Cluedo 2
The last ten minutes in particular are the silliest stuff: which is why it works. Soon more of the show will tighten and we’ll see that quality retro-fit.
Review: London Zoo
A masterly play in the making. It goes where very few dare, and in an environment we think we know. Very highly recommended.
Review: The Lighthouse
An enthusiastic and personal attempt to take the issues around mental ill health and produce the idea that all shall be all right in the end, as it was.
Review: Hide and Seek
An absorbing two-hander with as unexpected an ending as Lauren Gunderson’s I and You
Review: Sister Act
In short, a fabulous example of British talent, now endangered, bringing quadruple threat to a magnificent production. Not all such mainstream shows on tour even approach outstanding, but this truly is.
Review: Casserole
One of the finest small-scale plays to come out of Arcola’s Studio 2 recently. Do see this.
Review: Rika’s Rooms
Emma Wilkinson Wright manages the narrative as an odyssey punctuated by screams. It’s a pretty phenomenal performance and the actor is so wholly immersed in Rika you know you’re in the presence of something remarkable.
Review: Good-Bye
Wholly absorbing, wholly other, it’s a gem of the Coronet’s dedication to world theatre.
Review: Bette and Joan
Outstanding performances, an outstanding set too. As one director said, this production’s more compelling than the original 2011-12 seen touring at Brighton in 2012. The very intimacy of the space, with pitch-perfect acting, makes this an even finer vehicle for the play.
Review: Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening
This is as fresh as an AI paint set, and far more transgressive than the original. The fizziest, most outrageous assault on common decency since – I’ll leave it to the gibbons. A must-see.
Review: The Duchess of Malfi
There’s so much to admire here that it’s a happy duty to urge you to see it, if you can, any way you can.
Review: Stitches
The end’s both poignant and visionary. A show to remember long after the Bear’s imagined batteries run down.
Review: Escaped Alone
A masterclass in character, disturbing ecological revelations and banal and important commentaries on life.
Review: Vanya
This is the greatest one-man performance I’ve seen, said a Chekhov-immersed director of 45 years’ experience next to me. Yes.
Review: Dear Octopus
Two hours 45 starts slowly but you feel Smith’s arc move with its casual, supremely naturalist conversation to moments where time stands still. Outstanding revival.
Review: Sleeping Beauty
If you care for ballet and you’re not in Covent Garden every month, see this.
Review: ACT Playwriting Course
Mark Burgess and his students should feel immensely satisfied. And of course the students themselves divinely dissatisfied as they develop their craft.
Review: Turning the Screw
This six-hander is a 90-minute announcement of a major talent. An almost flawless play.
Review: King Lear
This smouldering production – fast-talking or timeless - fully engages with the play. It makes almost perfect sense: and two families’ DNA ring true as rarely before.
Review: Oliver!
You’re not going to see anything this special in most (if any) revivals, however luxury-cast. In stripping-back, then regrowing a complete ensemble with even lesser songs, this is the most complete Oliver! we’re likely to see.
Review: Just For One Day
Despite history’s caveats, O’Farrell’s core message isn’t about white saviours or pop stars but how ordinary people unite to change things.
Review: Till the Stars Come Down
Even this early, it’s safe to predict we’ll look back at the end of 2024 and proclaim it as one of the year’s finest.
Review: Othello
With institutional racism and trauma compounded in a feedback loop, this Othello’s a timely, and timeless broadside on everything toxic we inhale and expel as venom.
Review: Ragnarök
A triumphant technical achievement with a story to tell of an end to our world, followed by a new beginning
Review: For Entertainment Purposes Only
Philip Ayckbourn’s songs are the heart of this collection. It’d be thrilling to see a full musical here; and staged in London. Enthusiastically recommended, there’s gems, with more of Ayckbourn’s elegiac sensibility than I’ve ever seen. More of this please.
Review: A Chat With Adonai
Jacob Kay and Helen Baird are both exemplary and funny – there’s explosions of laughter. At 40 minutes there’s much matter hurled at the speed of dark. See it if you can, and check out the other Bitesize plays at Riverside.
Review: The Beautiful Future is Coming
Beautiful Future engages throughout though the near future is where it beats quickest. Flora Wilson Brown’s play makes you wonder what life, not just the playwright, might do with her characters. Urgently recommended.
Review: The EU Killed My Dad
Do see this, preferably alongside its sometime co-runner The Beautiful Future is Coming. A dizzying theatrical gem.
Review: Afterglow
It’s conquered both sides of the pond. Stunning, heartwarming, heartbreaking. We need this.
Review: Taking Care of Baby
Exemplary performances and production: with Charly Sommers outstanding as a woman hollowed out by everyone she knows. An auspicious full-length debut for Neil Hadley.
Review: Leaves of Glass
This is possibly Ridley’s masterpiece. Always exercised by the spectral presence of something just out of eyeshot, he never lets that intrude. Scorching and necessary, Leaves of Glass delves into family toxicity, ceaselessly dragging us back into the past.
Review: Cowbois
Cranford’s gone Wild West, via the Court and RSC. Cowbois is of course daft. But it’s magnificent in its silliness, contains wonderful – and truthful – moments. Deadly serious can have you rolling in the aisles and still jump up for the revolution.
Review: Boy In Da Korma
A necessary, engaging, original variation on finding your voice: and a theatrical coup. Acting, writing, directing, video, lighting and tech support, indeed singing are first class. A gem.
Review: Don’t Destroy Me
This brilliantly nervous, unresolved play of at least seven lives seeking balance is an astonishing feat, uniquely chronicling the lives of refugees only three months after Osborne’s equally rent-infused Look Back in Anger: and with the same unsettling refusal to closure. A must-see.
Review: The Good John Proctor
A valuable corrective to anticipate both real events and Arthur Miller’s take on Abigail Williams
Review: And Then There Were None
This is the finest Christie production I can remember. If you’re not a Christie fan, do see this anyway: it’s far more than a whodunnit.
Review: 1979
Political history told in Mamet-fast satire, imagined conversations and accurate stats. What could be more thrilling? 82 minutes later you won’t ask why this three-hander is like curing New Year’s hangover with Red Bull, ice, something illegal and a vodka chaser.
Review: Cinderella
Traditional panto, with a new version of a classic that ends with that familiar feeling.
Review: Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol
Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol triumphs as easily the best junior take on this classic I’ve ever seen.
Review: Rika’s Rooms
Emma Wilkinson Wright manages the narrative as an odyssey punctuated by screams. It’s already a phenomenal performance and the actor is so wholly immersed in Rika you know you’re in the presence of something remarkable
Review: Protest Song
Tim Price’s magnificent one-man play reminds us – yells at us - how much we’re all connected, and unless we stand together, how much we lose.
Review: Cold War
Cold War ends with a draining-out of hope in Anya Chalotra and Luke Thallon; a desolate beauty the cast certainly earn.
Review: Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz
Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz is neither complex or fiendishly plotted. But it’s very witty, linguistically inventive and light-hearted: so its downside is highlighted.
Review: Tom’s Midnight Garden
An absolutely first-rate ensemble and they tell the story with all the wide-eyed wonder of a real enchantment, beyond Christmas, beyond, perhaps time. A gem.
Review: The Heart Sellers
The Huntington’s performance of ‘The Heart Sellers’ is worth seeing if only for the combination of these incredible talents, but it is luckily also a beautiful story of finding a common humanity in the most unlikely place, and the perfect play for this holiday season.
Review: The House of Bernarda Alba
Adaptor Alice Birch takes the House apart like Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture. Harriet Walter is magnificent: staring out like a jailor, patrolling. Hainsworth remains hypnotic and terrible, joyously sexual and headlong as her Juliet in self-destruction.
Review: Refilwe
At just 45 minutes, a delightfully adapted fairy-tale, adapted in its turn. Bisola Aalbi’s rewrite is a lively, timely take on a silent culture war to make people of all ages think again.
Review: The Silence and the Noise
It’s understated, there’s no howl here no explosive projections about what this half-life must be like. The fade here though is like a quiet cheer, as something might be salvaged as terrible things are left behind. Do see it.
Review: Clyde’s
Clyde’s follows Sweat, also seen at the Donmar in 2018, which won Lynn Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize. A play of redemption, indeed love. Outstanding.
Review: Ikaria
Ikaria’s an essential play and marks Philippa Lawford – already at 25 with her own theatre company of six years and as director – a voice unafraid to use - and kern - direct experience; and create riveting theatre.
Review: Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime
This compact one hour 45 show must run again. The most inventive, best-written and possibly best-sung panto in Town.
Review: Ghosts
Tom Hill-Gibbins emphasises the original’s shock in conversational prose-style too. Stripped to a straight-through 100 minutes is hurtles like the Greek tragedy with reveals it essentially is.
Review: Oh What a Lovely War
Musically directed by Ellie Verkerk the six-strong cast play instruments throughout. They’re a phenomenal team, singing beautifully a capella or in solo. With six young actors mostly fresh out of drama school absolutely at the top of their first game, we’re treated to acting both hungry to prove and yet touched by the world they’ve entered. This is an outstanding production.
Review: She Stoops to Conquer
Tom Littler’s team reveal rare mettle and sincerity in a classic that can take some (if not all) updating. The 1930s must prove the very limits of belief in such class confusion, but this triumphs with the snap of a cracker, or (as here) the smash of Wedgwood. Outstanding.
Review: Twelve Angry Men
This is more than a first-rate revival. In this production it’s a must-see one, the definition of a superbly-made, timeless play.
Review: Thief
A searing solo performance of the life of a man struggling to survive in the worst of circumstances.
Review: The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare told in flashes of lightning maybe, but with the thunder of laughter and a ghost of wrongs rumbling long after the lights go down. A gem of distillation, dispatch and truth. If you can, go.
Review: The Good Dad (A Love Story), The Mitfords
Now a superb double-bill, and makes a compelling case for these two shows to be yoked together, with their intertwining of family, sisterhood, abuse and terrible consequences.
Review: Men Talking
The end, as it inevitably must be, is a way of recollecting emotion with emotion. An inspiring act of witness, before others, and beyond ourselves.
Review: Mates in Chelsea
Mates in Chelsea is definitely worth seeing, and apart from adaptations surely the best thing this writer’s produced in a decade. Royal Court Theatre
Review: The Book of Will
The Hub Theatre Company’s version of this play makes magic with seemingly little in they way of set and props, but through Bryn Boice’s direction, a sparse stage becomes bustling London.
Review: You Have the Right to Remain Dead
A solid evening of entertainment fit for the whole family.
Review: Phantasmagoria
There seem enough potential endings to make what happens neither predictable, nor entirely obvious. A first-rate cast with enough residual fascination in the characters they create to wonder at what life, and not just Deepika Arwind, might do to them. The terror is existential and we should ask what it might do to us.
