Review: The Beauty Queen of Leenane
This is stark theatre. Some will hate Martin McDonagh, and some already love him. I’d say you must see this, where it all started.
Genre: Theatre 0
Review: All the Happy Things
It’s impossible to believe Sienna doesn’t believe Emily’s not part of this at some level, and by the end, you’ll think so too.
Review: The Shark is Broken
Essential theatre for anyone who enjoys new plays with more wit than several comedies. A must-see.
Review: Lula Mebrahtu I Am – OommoO
Everything you’ve heard is true. Lula Mebrahtu is memserising, and I Am – OommoO like its creator has vast potential.
Review: The Importance of Being Oscar
Alastair Whatley takes the joy of the sorrow, and makes it his own. Unmissable if you can squeeze in.
Review: Calamity Jane
See this for the onstage musicians and above all Carrie Hope Fletcher giving Calamity soul as well as heart. Highly recommended.
Review: The Secret Garden/Bleak Expectations
Deliciously wholesome satire, this is a deliriously-paced, superbly-acted production.
Review: The Kelton Hill Fair
A mix of a brutal Brigadoon and the whimsy of the Wonderful World of Dissocia, this is a keen addition to the development of Scottish narrative.
Review: Dr Strangelove
Steve Coogan reigns supreme, and a cast like John Hopkins then Giles Terera are a gift to both Coogan and the show.
Review: Double Act
Death & Co. The Laurel and Hardy of Suicide, the Little and Large of it Do see this timely, painfully funny, and absorbing new play.
Review: Dear England
With its nimbus of inevitability as national storytelling, it’s still groundbreaking.
Review: Playhouse Creatures
When Doll Common claims “Life’s like a storm. Don’t get in its way” one thinks of the stoicism of those in the eye of it, and their audience. A consummate revival.
Review: Men’s Business
A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.
Review: Flutter-Bye
Since this play and Allison Ferns have a lot of legs, it’ll be worth coming back to see it run.
Review: Cry-Baby
Easily the most joyous musical we’ll see this side midsummer, Cry-Baby in this production blazes fit to set another fire in Dalston
Review: Jane Upton (the) Woman
A ground-breaking play, fully deserving of its London run. Catch it there.
Review: Perfect Arrangement
There’s never been a more urgent time for this gem of a work: a small hybrid classic that’s never been produced in the UK before. See it now.
Review: Macbeth
ETT’s gallimaufry stimulates, frustrates, occasionally fascinates. A more selective through-line would have revealed a mineral gleam, a new earth of tyranny.
Review: Alterations
We must be grateful for this compelling revival, and wait for more from the National’s Black archive.
Review: Peter James Picture You Dead
Twists are delicious. If you enjoy Peter James, or thrillers with a light touch, don’t hesitate. Solidly recommended.
Review: One Day When We Were Young
This grips anyone who can’t let first love go, anyone who stares homeward even now, wild with all regret. Unmissable.
Review: Teatro dei Gordi: Pandora
It begs questions: what couldn’t we do, if placed outside our own comfort station in life? Essential theatre. essential questions. A gem.
Review: Son of a Bitch
Anna Morris heightens tragedy and misogyny with gags, humour and farcical horror. Do catch this fleeting gem, running for just two more weeks before it touches down
Review: Khawla Ibraheem A Knock on the Roof
What and who can you choose is something more people are forced to decide as the century rolls. But Mariam’s plight is specific, ongoing, now far worse and essential viewing.
Review: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
An astonishing theatrical vision blended with a fascinating story that combines into an exceptional evening of theatre.
Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Brighton Theatre Group is a chocolate factory all on its own. Nothing in Wonka is as magical as the vision, reach and grasp of this company. It’s perhaps their finest production yet.
Review: Vaughan Williams, J.M. Synge Riders to the Sea
Betteridge’s prologue is certainly worth seeing even if you know the work, and won’t need persuading. And after the opera, the rest is surf, and silence.
Review: Outlying Islands
A first rate-revival of a small classic. Do seek out this rare, dream-like play.
Review: The Last Laugh
This is a must-see. Never outstaying its welcome, you can leave this show after 85 minutes, but stay for that Q&A. I envy everyone the night I won’t be there for it.
Review: Birdsong
If you think on peace in these distracted times, love theatre, can absorb it at its most epic, then this will thrill and overwhelm you. A must-see.
Review: Dan O’Brien The Voyage of the Carcass; Emily Jenkins Bobby & Amy
Dan O’Brien’s piece is for dedicated farceurs. By itself outstanding, it’s hoped by several Emily Jenkins’ Bobby & Amy have a postlude of its own, with this team and these two young actors pitched at this moment in their careers.
Review: The Gift
How far you’d go to pursue either vengeance or to resolve one, asks just such questions of how we choose to box up our lives. The Gift is for all of us.
Review: Mark Tournoff: A Word With the Bird
Mark Tournoff’s an engaging and modest MC. The talent he promotes remains and makes visits worthwhile.
Review: Macbeth
A bold imagining of the Scottish play in a Scottish venue deep in the heart of theatricality.
Review: Macbeth
It’s still a phenomenal feat and even if you know Macbeth, it’s still a must-see for how a quintessence can be dusted off.
Review: Cymbeline
One of the most uneven of late plays, its heights have to be seen; and though there’s pitfalls, this absorbing production surmounts most. A feat.
Review: A Good House
A play deeper than the satire which propels it. And subtly layered enough to brush the epic. A stunning smack between the eyes and a must-see.
Review: Hotel Otori Skin-Okubo
A highly innovative and enticing piece of theatre which examines our relationship not only to our families, but to the way in which the emergence of new ideas and dawns should be embraced.
Review: The Devil May Care
Do see this particularly for an outstanding performance from Burrows and an exceptionally fine one from Woodhouse. This adaptation remains an exhilarating reminder of what a difference a century makes.
Review: Belly of the Beast
Belly of the Beast should be a set text in schools. And should definitely tour there.
Review: Pinocchio
A traditional panto which may lack in personnel, makes up for in huge personalities that delights and gives gallus gusto.
Review: Treasure Island
First-rate youth theatre, creatives and cast excel: detailed, funny, not to be taken over-seriously, then quite a bit more so.
Review: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Frecknall has re-thought and refreshed one of the great, and classically-framed American dramas. And made it classic.
Review: Zinnie Harris, Douglas Hodge, Johnny McKnight 101 Dalmatians The Musical
A perennial tale in essence makes this a Christmas must and New Year resolution: for all of us under ten in the holidays.
Review: Glitch in the Myth
A timeless archetype reimagined through a woman's perspective, capable of resonating with audiences everywhere
Review: Helen Edmundson (adaptor) Anna Karenina
With Diane Robinson’s team there’s a vibrant retelling, superbly produced
Review: Rumpelstiltskin
A high voltage, thoroughly entertaining version of Rumpelstiltskin without a Grimm face in the house.
Review: Ballet Shoes
A paean to wonder and possibility, dreaming to some purpose. Like other winter growths, this should prove a hardy perennial, evergreen as the book.
Review: Happy Days
I’ve never seen a Winnie more ordinary, one without those strange transcendental inflections. Catherine Humphreys isn’t flat: she rises to anguish, though it’s one of realism. I’m still not quite sure what’s been removed. But I’m very glad I’ve seen it.
Review: Agleyum Cliyopatrayum
An original blend of physical theatre and Indian ritualistic elements conveys the unconscious emotional worlds of two archetypal female characters.
Review: Sara Farrington A Trojan Woman
An acclaimed pocket tragedy which yet carries Euripides’ weight in Farrington’s framing, it more than touches the heart: it snatches it and hands it back as a sad and angry consolation.
Review: The Box of Delights
The finest Christmas box imaginable, and the go-to for a seasonal show. If you can get in.
Review: Shakespeare in Love
The mystery’s in the ensemble, the production, its bewitching leads. It’s a mighty reckoning in a little room.
Review: Sam Holcroft Rules for Living
Season’s Greetings for robots. It interrogates a therapy many believe works. More than worth seeing in this first-class NVT cast and production.
Review: Cutting the Tightrope: The Divorce of Politics from Art
An essential, raging and ranging collection of works flashing with humour and teeth, flecked with harrowing stories and above all love for a humanity the establishment wishes us to other and consign to tragedy. A must-see.
Review: Stranger Than the Moon
Essential for anyone interested in Brecht or 20th century drama, it’s far more: starkly entrancing, then engrossing over 110 minutes.
Review: Now That’s What I Call a Musical
The cast grab this by the scruff of its shoulder pads and make us love them. A must-see.
Review: Twelfth Night
Tom Littler again brings an intimate, wintry music to middle Shakespeare: it’s his unique gift. Never sour, never sweet without salt, and with very few reservations, a definitive close-up Twelfth Night.
Review: Ruari Conaghan Lies Where It Falls
Ruari Conaghan has nowhere to hide in every sense. He exudes the charismatic of 100 watts cosplaying a glowing 40, then hits you between the eyes
Review: Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime
A sure-fire miniature epic, spanning history and damn lies. Sublimely written and with a superb cast both seasoned and fresh, the finest concentration of panto this season.
Review: {Title of Show}
Delicious, certainly, truly witty and fast-moving, never indulgent about self-indulgence, this is a sure-fired soufflé
Review: Women Who Blow on Knots
As fine a realisation as anyone could manage. The immediacy, cries, reveals are inherently theatrical and precious. A must-see.
Review: Burnt-Up Love
One of the very finest three-handers I’ve seen for a long time, Burnt-Up Love refuses to judge and nor will anyone left reeling after seeing this. Stunning.
Review: 1984
This is the fleetest most theatrical version I’ve seen for some time. Telegraphic in its conveying a nightmare world, it nevertheless does so by lightning strokes.
Review: The Welkin
The sheer acting catches fire: not a weak link. With their most ambitious production ID triumph. There’s nothing like them at full stretch.
Review: Men Don’t Talk
A vital piece of advice wrapped in the right delivery mechanism for an age, and ages, that needs it more than ever.
Review: The Ungodly
The Ungodly which playwright Joanna Carrick also directs is different, and special. No wonder it transfers to Off-Broadway next spring. An outstanding piece of theatre.
Review: Autumn
This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet
Review: The Wild Duck
This production carries one truth that refreshes: strip all the directors’ concepts and editing, and for once truth will set Ibsen, and ourselves as free as it imprisons its characters. Outstanding.
