Review: Rosetti’s Women
A lovely, dramatic presentation that covers the racy relationships, from the perspectives of three of his women, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Genre: Theatre 0
Review: Rapunzel
A tremendously enthusiastic summer panto slap bang in the tradition of getting them going, taking them on a journey and filling them full of good cheer.
Review: The Dream Train
Contemplative and beautiful to watch, 4 characters interact in juxtaposed realities underscored by Bach's Goldberg Variations
Review: Love in the Time of Lockdown
An acute observational review of love (and life) under lockdown
Review: The End of the Line
Do strangers see us as we are, rather than how we might wish to be seen?
Review: Femme Ta Bouche
A melodramatic revelation and epic journey of self-discovery that is prescient and worthy of a pedestal upon which to put itself.
Review: Plasters
Two actors in a relationship, both on and offstage, struggle to find meaning for themselves.
Review: Myra’s Story
One woman, many characters, several tragedies told with the earnestness of truth and the triumph of theatre.
Review: The Twits
A summer must-see to charge you up for the autumn, and taking on the real twits ahead.
Review: The Power of Silence
Memories, imagery, tender and searing recollections - it creeps up on you!
Review: The Merchant of Venice
This production needs a run. It’s potentially a great interpretation.
Review: Misfits
An important play, tackling the deadly serious with laughter that all too easily could lead to stark tragedy.
Review: Sweet William
Naturally enriched by living with Shakespeare Michael Pennington unearths local habitations and names for him.
Review: Evening Conversations/Life Laundry
Engrossing, it should provoke. Sudha Bhuchar absolves us by being bloody funny.
Review: Troy Story
Again the most educative stand-up and a thrilling presentation. Oh and bloody funny on war, male sexuality and the Bechdel Test.
Review: Dracula
You should see this with some fine acting and a storyline making more sense of Dracula than Stoker does himself.
Review: Tom Lehrer
Another sovereign tribute. Stefan Bednarczyk brings Tom Lehrer swaggering out of retirement.
Review: Jeeves and Wooster Perfect Nonsense
A professional-standard production, and magnificent start to the 2020s.
Review: On Arriving
On Arriving takes sixty minutes it seems we’ve been immersed in a Greek Tragedy of ninety. See it.
Review: The Mother Load
Three women, three pregnancies, three experiences, much laughter and revelation in a funny and engaging audio performance.
Review: Hindu Times
A religious text for our times, told in the language of the now with universal messages.
Review: and breathe…
Yomi Sode’s hybrid theatre is a compelling immersion of witness and poetry: we need more of it.
Review: Staircase
A first-rate revival of a play that with its ostensible shock-value in aspic, reveals subversions and a clever structure so unsettling we should all look in the mirror and wince.
Review: The Girl Who Was Very Good at Lying
Andrews vividly conveys what it is to be an undone thing, someone unravelling tales to live.
Review: More Grimm Tales
A rollicking production with razored timing, musical cues and ad-libs worked in to half-second slots. A must-see.
Review: Bette: Bathhouse to Broadway!
One of the most musically satisfying, funny, filthy and inclusive tribute acts of its kind.
Review: Deaf Ears: How I Learned To Hear
Friedman’s a spellbinding storyteller in the lives he’s immersed himself in listening to.
Review: Branching Out
Three very fine and one outstanding work, Scratches – the best kind of play on depression, self-harm, black holes. Because it’s screamingly funny and deeply connected to why we do theatre.
Review: Leaves
This haunting 45-minute tale is a superb small gem from Jermyn Street’s Footprints Festival.
Review: An Evening With Flanders and Swann
A sovereign tribute. If you know Flanders and Swann, you’ll know Bednarczyk.
Review: Pandora’s Jar/Honour Among Thebes
The most educative stand-up and a thrilling presentation. Oh and bloody funny on the tragedies.
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: Glenda and Rita Live at The Rialto
Alexander Joseph and Ro Robertson team return in triumph.
Review: Sitting Pretty
When you see this show return, it’ll be outstanding, and in the frame for awards.
Review: Romantics
As ever consummate, fine performances, and probing memorably into women Romantic poets
Review: Dazzling Divas
Issy Van Randwyck brings seven divas to life in this paean to tragic fulfilment.
Review: The Mahabharata
A dramatic sense of arrival the way the Odyssey here ended: a clash of even vaster ferocity, keening, treachery, humour, mischievousness, sacrifice and grief, joy and the agency of women.
Review: After All These Years
A superb play, it should as one director present said, be in the West End. With these actors.
Review: Chamberlain: Peace in Our Time
A light-filled small gem of a show, tuning into wireless crystals of a lost world.
Review: Between Two Waves
A play about the Climate Crisis, family, photography and being screwed by insurance.
Review: The Vertical Hour
The definitive Fringe revival of a mainstream play this year. Absorbing, baggy, intimate. See it.
Review: There’s a Ghost in My House
Stunning. Greet the nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.
Review: The Lady in the Van
Sarah Mann and her company will surely return with this gem of transubstantiation.
Review: The Rape of Lucrece
The definitive way to experience this troublingly great, disturbingly unresolved poem
Review: Shaw Shorts
A joyous, heady and oh-so-welcome return to this intimate yet high-kicking theatre. An absolute must-see.
Review: Vagabonds My Phil Lynott Odyssey
An original off-kilter approach to elegy, tribute and becoming yourself.
Review: Two Horsemen
The glaring energy of this piece can’t disguise how it strikes profundity in its funny-bone.
Review: Hole
Don’t miss the chance to see this transcendent actor prove she possesses another dimension altogether.
Review: Bag Lady
This could develop into something special. Thoroughly recommended as an industrial-strength ice-breaker.
Review: I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical
Flawless, a stunning pocket-sized musical you really must see.
Review: Sacrament
A revelation, superbly written and acted. Comparisons have been made with A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing. I can think of no higher praise either. You must see this.
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
