Genre: Adaptation 0
Review: Beauty and the Beast New Wolsey, Ipswich
Possibly the best pantomime now playing, it proves Stone is currently the queen of writing and scoring pantos.
Review: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
This is a virtuoso production like no other you’ll see in one twice as big with a stage twenty times as huge.
Review: Sunny Afternoon
Joe Penhall’s book is outstanding and frankly puts most musical biopics in the shade. His wit and deft charactering of core band and satellites who interact with the complexity of a play, the way the songs move the narrative. Ray Davies’ storytelling and songs are self-recommending. Sunny Afternoon still deserves those awards.
Review: Alice in Wonderland
This 23-strong cast triumph in this cavalcade of Carroll. A must-see and pretty outstanding.
Review: Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson
Don’t expect Sherlock, and you could be entertained by Ms Holmes. And emphatically Ms Watson.
Review: Ballet Shoes
A winter paean to wonder and possibility, Kendall Feaver’s and Katy Rudd’s Ballet Shoes has proved as evergreen as the book itself. Outstanding.
Review: Here & Now
With young talent like this, no-one need worry just yet about British musical theatre. And that is the best reason to see this silly yet warm-hearted pre-Christmas cracker.
Review: David Copperfield
An outstanding production, a seasonal offering more satisfying than most pantos.
Review: The Line of Beauty
Not the most theatrical story, it’s a heady narrative. A dance to the music of a time that marred us, this still compels
Review: Women Only, Albert’s Bridge
Albert’s Bridge is a Stoppard rarity you’re unlikely to see again. And Women Only seems swiftly established as a tiny, semi-precious comic gem.
Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley
A must-see. Minor caveats aside it’s as absorbing as some productions recently have plodded. This isn’t just any Ripley….
Review: Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts
For Morse fans, this is still a low-yield vintage that can mature
Review: The Lightning Thief
There’s talents you’ll want to see and hear. And a stunning set whose production values spring surprises for the audience too. Highly recommended.
Review: Keep Your Sunny Side Up
In nearly every way exceptional. Hampshire is consummate and sets off Rouselle as worthy to inhabit Fields.
Review: Deaf Republic
Its claustrophobia overwhelms and moves, whilst leaving Dead Centre room for yet another slant on Ilya Kaminsky’s imaginary.
Review: Death Comes to Pemberley
Stylishness in the fixtures, truth in the lower orders, some superb acting by the likes of Berger, Boyce, and Faulkner, as well as two couples with chemistry.
Review: Sense & Sensibility
Austen fans can feel they’re delivered the story’s heft, if not all its socially pinched circumstance. It’s a small gem.
Review: The Wild Washerwomen, Brighton Open Air Theatre
Ella Turk-Thompson has scored something special here.
Review: Adrian Lukis Being Mr Wickham
There’s nothing more charming or endearing in the West End this summer.
Review: Les Misérables
There’s not enough adjectives left to praise this. But there is a verb phrase: see it!
Review: ADHD? WTF is ADHD!
Emma Wilkinson-Wright is unnervingly close to the pulse of how real this is. A hidden gem.
Review: 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.
Review: The Midnight Bell
An outstanding ballet by any standards. One that like its inspiration Patrick Hamilton will last.
Review: Extraordinary Women
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.
Review: Top Hat
The most joyous musical of the summer. And it has a summer heart that never cloys. A sizzling must-see.
Review: La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu
An engaging play about the manipulation of public opinion to satisfy the taste for war of a tiny elite
Review: 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!
Review: Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country freights a world in a steam whistle. The sheer punch of talent doesn’t come much greater than this.
Review: Tolstoy/Phillip Breen Anna Karenina
Potentially a revelation, perhaps a classic: a fully-articulated world around Anna, and not just her ghost.
Review: Joan Littlewood Oh What a Lovely War
The Merry Roosters forget who they are and come together, awed by the transcendent theatre they’ve invoked. See it.
Review: Mario Banushi Taverna Miresia
Not even the world theatre powerhouse of the Coronet has hosted anything like this. Mario Banushi must be seen.
Review: Timberlake Wertenbaker Little Brother
bsorbs and remains indelible. Stella Powell-Jones is helming a quietly radical shift in Jermyn Street. And she’s taking the audience with her.
Review: Murder on the Orient Express
Even if you don’t like Christie it’s worth seeing not just for an exceptional – and exceptionally-acted – production, but for moral questions that now, as in 1934, need answers in the face of dictators.
Review: Heisenberg
If flawed it’s a fascinating, intimate piece given new life and with luck a new performing tradition. The most compelling two-hander now playing.
Review: The Inseparables
A transfixingly beautiful production, with often superb acting, especially from Lara Manela
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: 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: Men’s Business
A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.
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: Chekhov Three Sisters
There’s a rapt self-communing in this production of Three Sisters. A must-see, it glows long after you’ve left it.
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Helen Edmundson (adaptor) Anna Karenina
With Diane Robinson’s team there’s a vibrant retelling, superbly produced
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Autumn
This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet
Review: Salomé
Dramatically this is the most creative response I’ve seen live. Here, a director’s reach should exceed their grasp, or what’s a production for.
Review: Eurydice
Stella Powell-Jones coaxes provisional miracles from her cast and space. The medium’s playful, even fun. The message though is bleak; and love is still in the letting go.
Review: The Cat and the Canary
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
