FringeReview UK
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FringeReview UK 2025
We must be grateful for this compelling revival, and wait for more from the National’s Black archive.
BBC Prom 35 Gubaidulina , Ravel, Shostakovich Symphony No. 13 Royal Albert Hall
An outstanding Prom. Catch in on BBC Sounds.
Easily the most joyous musical we’ll see this side midsummer, Cry-Baby in this production blazes fit to set another fire in Dalston
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.
David Lan The Land of the Living
The most moving and theatrically gripping new play I’ve seen for a long time, it’s also the most layered and completely realised. A world that invites ours to ask where on earth we come from.
Steve Coogan reigns supreme, and a cast like John Hopkins then Giles Terera are a gift to both Coogan and the show.
For a bijou summer in a bottle, this can’t be beaten. Exquisite, painfully funny, and hinting at the depths Mackenzie found to his own chagrin. A gem.
Girl from the North Country freights a world in a steam whistle. The sheer punch of talent doesn’t come much greater than this.
An outstandingly thought-through Hamlet though, with more of the prince and play in it than I’ve seen. And Giles Terera’s is with the best of recent decades.
James Inverne That Bastard, Puccini!
With such a script, cast and production values, this is a sure-fire hit, a gem deserving of longer runs too. Don’t let this be a one-run wonder!
John Joubert Jane Eyre, Grimeborn Opera
A gripping romantic opera premiere emerging right out of Dalston. Arcola’s Grimeborn have scored another first with a future.
ETT’s gallimaufry stimulates, frustrates, occasionally fascinates. A more selective through-line would have revealed a mineral gleam, a new earth of tyranny.
This grips anyone who can’t let first love go, anyone who stares homeward even now, wild with all regret. Unmissable.
Austen fans can feel they’re delivered the story’s heft, if not all its socially pinched circumstance. It’s a small gem.
Stephen Sondheim, David Ives Here We Are
Altogether this mightn’t be in the top tier of Sondheim musicals, but it’s one of the most interesting, even profound, and Sondheim exits with a rapt question-mark. Unmissable.
It begs questions: what couldn’t we do, if placed outside our own comfort station in life? Essential theatre. essential questions. A gem.
Essential theatre, essential witness and mandatory for anyone who wants to know how human we have to be, from beginning to end.
Sean Holmes has conjured the most intelligently re-thought Merry Wives of recent years with a convincing take on Mistress Ford. The last few gestures in this show change everything that might follow.
Through choreographic sweep, Tim Price crafts a necessary, traditional warning. A must-see with the finest last line since Good.
Tolstoy/Phillip Breen Anna Karenina
Potentially a revelation, perhaps a classic: a fully-articulated world around Anna, and not just her ghost.
The most joyous musical of the summer. And it has a summer heart that never cloys. A sizzling must-see.
The most exuberant Shakespeare out there, and a summer last-blast to make Malvolio weep.
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.
