Review: As You Like It

A first-rate outdoor revival, and easily rivalling what the Globe have to offer.


Review: Suite in Three Keys

A once-in-a-generation masterpiece of revival. This is what we’ve been missing.


Review: Rootless Tree

Two women's unorthodox relationship during The Great Depression


Review: Lie Low

An outstanding production.


Review: Geneva Convention

As this gets quieter, it shouts more loudly. Exciting as this is, it will devastate when it finds its arc. This might ascend into something crucial.


Review: That Witch Helen

An absorbing retelling. Whatever Ridewood and Sibyl Theatre tackles next will be worth waiting for.


Review: Women’s Writes

We’ve been lucky to sit in on the first stage of a very promising conversation collaboration, and theatre piece.


Review: Richard III

In a female-led cast led by the eponymous Richard III (Michelle Terry) it’s striking that the trio of cursing women is this production’s highlight


Review: Materia

A strangely compelling oddity that plays with the possibilities of form to illuminating effect


Review: Sanctuary

Christine Rose as dramatist is a name we’ll be hearing, with luck, very soon.


Review: Super Connected

Epic music, film and theatre production with a warning


Review: Homestead

An adaptation of Lorca's 'the House of Bernarda Alba'


Review: The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey

Of the 115 (mostly London) shows I’ve seen this year so far, it ranks as the most profound, and one of the very finest.


Review: Cold Water

Still in her twenties but vastly experienced, it’s going to be exciting to see where Lawford breaks out to next.


Review: The English Moor

Richard Brome’s 1637 The English Moor marks a new departure for Read Not Dead. You might say with this play it’s Read to be Dead.


Review: Sappho

A bit of theatrical democracy invoking pre-democracy crafts an exquisite irony for a rainy afternoon. Do see it.


Review: J’ai un Bleu

J’ai un Bleu manages to covey through movement what words simply cannot express. The objectification of the female form.


Review: Kunstler

An outstanding production persuading us such a self-narrating show can enthral as well as inform. A hidden gem.


Review: Much Ado About Nothing

A triumph of tone, of textual intercourse and tight-reined spirits. Beatrice’s star is dancing. It’ll stay fresh as the feelgood Shakespeare this summer.


Review: Lived Fiction

Unique, spellbinding, groundbreaking; above all makes everyone more alive to the possibilities of being human.


Review: Captain Amazing

Simon Stephens commented “If I could get all your numbers I would ring you all up individually and urge you to see Captain Amazing.” That can’t be improved on. It’s a must-see.


Review: El Viaje

The inspirational story of a Cuban refugee, set to song and music


Review: Rock, Paper, Scissors

A joyous revival. Though working in TV production, Hayden’s writing is too good, too well-shaped not to develop in theatre instead.


Review: Nye

Through the choreographic sweep, Price crafts a necessary, traditional warning. It’s more than enough. A must-see with perhaps the finest last line since Good.


Review: Twisted Tales

One mat, six players and bundles of talent in this dynamic ensemble. Bringing Total Theatre back!


Review: Ground

Share a meal, share the world in an atmospheric setting.


Review: You’ll See

Delightfully inventive mini version of Ulysses for mini-people


Review: Dawn Again: A Rap Opera

Elliot has a problem: two girlfriends, both giving birth on the same day in the same hospital


Review: Little Women

There’s heartbreak and joy here. If you don’t know it, be surprised and moved at this hidden fringe gem, realised by this team in delicately-cut facets.


Review: ART

What's the value of a work of art?


Review: Magpie

This really has no place in the Brighton Fringe. Perhaps the Festival. What is a slice of the darkest Sean O’Casey doing at a 9pm slot? Outstanding.


Review: The Promise

With a first-rate cast and team it’s a groundbreaking work.


Review: Seasons

A tapestry of concrete dialogue interwoven completely with stunning poetry prose.


Review: Laughing Boy

Stephen Unwin directs his own play as a sweep of storytelling, laughter and devastation.


Review: Frozen

Frozen is far more than a thriller: it’s an interrogation into the limits of what evil-doing is, what redemption and some capacity to forgive might be, and its consequences: and above all it ends in a thaw cracking like a Russian spring.


Review: Peter Pan

Maybe a too sobering affair for Christmas


Review: Futuristic Folktales

A challenging and engaging theatrical piece of dancing irony – using the future to focus the past, through rebirthing itself.


Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

Mike Poulton’s text gleams and snaps. Lucy Bailey’s production of it thrills and occasionally overwhelms, dazzling in its maze of missteps. A must-see.


Review: The Pull of the Stars

World premiere of Emma Donoghue’s new play set in a maternity ward during the Spanish Flu pandemic in Dublin, directed by Louise Lowe.


Review: Algorithms

A bisexual Fleabag for 2024? It’s more than that


Review: London Tide

It compels, and nothing in its three hours 15 seems superfluous.


Review: Testmatch

A superbly witty interrogation of identity, abuses many histories deep, asking questions it sets up in not too sober a fashion. Testmatch is a lightning-conductor.


Review: An Officer and a Gentleman

What brings this musical home is the drawing-together of threads that hang loose in Act One. And finally you believe in a story that doesn’t flinch from darkness and sings its distress. Thoroughly enjoyable.


Review: Machinal

This triumphant revival by Ustinov Studios and the Old Vic might finally encourage exploration. You must see this.


Review: Haudin the Jaikets

A celebrational read through of a drama based upon one night never to be forgotten in Scottish boxing history.