FringeReview UK
Years: 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
FringeReview UK 2024
Don’t go expecting searing insights, but do go for a crack ensemble who will surely turn many to Shakespeare. An endearing and uplifting enterprise.
A definitive telling of that rarest thing, an uplifting Dostoevsky tale. It’s unlikely to be rendered better than this.
Ultimately, the most telling line ”We are all immigrants across time” defines what remains an extraordinary experience
Heart’s Desire/L’Amore Del Cuore
Anyone admiring Churchill, ferocious comedy or excited by a rare UK foray into Italian theatre must see this.
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.
Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret
Who could object to its urgency, or its starry messenger? A gem.
It’s Klaff’s improvisatory edge, founded on absolute technique and clear-headed text, that finds an exit where none was signposted. Magnificent.
Stephen Unwin directs his own play as a sweep of storytelling, laughter and devastation.
Mnemonic is treasurable, eloquent, a rare passport. It remembers what hope, connectedness and peace smelt like. It’s worth remembering that.
An unalloyed delight, compressing the story but revealing things even those who know the novel will take back to it.
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.
It’s reading Beckett in flashes of lightning and laughter. Conor Lovett stuns in this cut-down stand-up Beckett-novels-for-beginners-and-enders three-hour whistlestop. A tour de force as well as a tour de farce of Beckett’s genius.
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
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.
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.
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.
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
This desperate elegy of betrayal, straight from Le Carré’s own hurt, will haunt you with the truth of its despair.
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.
This production reminds us it’s often the least theatrical, least tractable works that break boundaries, glow with an authority that changes the order of things.
