Review: The Cat and the Canary
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
Genre: American Theater
Review: 23.5 Hours
A worthy successor to Never Not Once, almost from the other side of the glass, it makes Crim one of the most visible and exciting of US dramatists.
Review: Greenhouse Festival LAMDA Festival New Directors in association with Orange Tree
Every one of these productions could enjoy a run at the Orange Tree: they’re exciting and accomplished.
Review: The Silver Cord
A darkly thrilling masterpiece, given what might be its finest UK revival. All are outstanding and Alix Dunmore, and certainly Sophie Ward, should be up for some glittering prizes.
Review: 3 Chickens Confront Existence
3 chickens do a deep dive into existentialism... seriously funny
Review: Hunchback Variations
A ‘what if’ comedy fantasy which explores a creative collab between Beethoven and Quasimodo
Review: The Grapes of Wrath
Absorbing and essential, Grapes of Wrath is here as complete as you could wish.
Review: The Hot Wing King
Hall, following Nottage in particular, emerges as one of the most exciting US dramatists.
Review: Kunstler
An outstanding production persuading us such a self-narrating show can enthral as well as inform. A hidden gem.
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: The Comeuppance
Might prove the most lasting American drama about. emerging to a different world.
Review: Afterglow
It’s conquered both sides of the pond. Stunning, heartwarming, heartbreaking. We need this.
Review: The Good John Proctor
A valuable corrective to anticipate both real events and Arthur Miller’s take on Abigail Williams
Review: 1979
Political history told in Mamet-fast satire, imagined conversations and accurate stats. What could be more thrilling? 82 minutes later you won’t ask why this three-hander is like curing New Year’s hangover with Red Bull, ice, something illegal and a vodka chaser.
Review: Clyde’s
Clyde’s follows Sweat, also seen at the Donmar in 2018, which won Lynn Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize. A play of redemption, indeed love. Outstanding.
Review: Twelve Angry Men
This is more than a first-rate revival. In this production it’s a must-see one, the definition of a superbly-made, timeless play.
Review: A View from the Bridge
Here, the hurtling much shorter second act contains a thrilling impulsion and catastrophe that had the audience on its feet. Mostly that’s responding to a great play, but latterly this production carries that charge.
Review: The Yellow Wallpaper
Stephanie Mohr’s adaptation is a remarkable manifestation (no other word seems more apt) of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story The Yellow Wallpaper, an important realisation of a key feminist awakening. It’s good enough for you not to want it depicted in any other way.
Review: Black Mountain, I Dream Before I Take the Stand
In Black Mountain Brad Birch shows in part how fine he can be. Arlene Hutton’s I Dream Before I Take the Stand is a short assault on the way the law assaults its victims, particularly women.
Review: Purgatorio
Groundhog Day - Saying goodbye to old memories, whilst finding new ones. A beautiful physical representation on our ability to accept who we truly are! Get down to Club Purgatorio!
Review: Double Bill: Paul Robeson, Suzi of the Dress
No doubting of the power of this double-bill from Kansas. The Paul Robeson is solid gold, the Suzi of the Dress, quicksilver.
Review: The Goat
Martin Malone more than revives Edward Albee’s 2002 masterpiece The Goat, at the New Venture Theatre; he rethinks how we can receive it. An exemplary revival of a play Michael Billington named one of his 101 Greatest – even over Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Make up your own mind; see it. Martin Malone more than revives Edward Albee’s 2002 masterpiece The Goat, at the New Venture Theatre; he rethinks how we can receive it. An exemplary revival of a play Michael Billington named one of his 101 Greatest – even over Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Make up your own mind; see it.
Review: The Return of Benjamin Lay
Naomi Wallace and actor Mark Provinelli inhabit this gestural giant with wit, sympathy, rage and an agency burning up centuries between. It’s profoundly moving too, speaks to our condition of techno-serfdom, new slavery, discrimination everywhere. The packed audience are never sure who might be picked on next, but delight in the calling-out. Superb.
Review: A Brief List of Everyone Who Died
“Death is the most natural thing in the world.” Not to five—year-old Gracie, whose life of resistance as Gracie, Grace but mostly Graciela Jacob Marx Rice traces in A Brief List of Everyone Who Died. Yet again Finborough have mounted – and nurtured – a first-class work miles from larger fare that fades. Do rush to see it.
Review: Suddenly Last Summer
A flawless production, where Lawrence gives one of the three or four finest performances I’ve seen this Fringe: in other words, phenomenal.
Review: Heathers
Rethought, rejigged, bright with humour and shadowed with plangency, this is the Heathers we’re meant to have
Review: Steel Magnolias
Uniquely moving, it’s a night worth anyone’s time, and its truths that resonate long after the curtain.
Review: The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption returns in an even stronger production than in 2015: sharper, more visceral, and with a stronger set and sound, frames even more resonant performances
Review: Farragut North
The finest UK production of this play, certainly the best drama in Brighton this month.
Review: Watch on the Rhine
Hellman’s uneasy drama, reaching out to our own quandaries, has answers that stay news. A must-see.
Review: The Crucible
A Crucible of searing relevance; by grounding it in its time, it scorches with clarity.
Review: Yellowman
Phenomenal. It’s Aaron Anthony’s and Nadine Higgin’s phenomenal performances that own the Orange Tree’s stripped-back space, and fill it and Yellowman with complexity, heart and utter conviction
Review: Waitress
Halfpenny raises soaring music theatre, an ounce of gold in the throat and stars six inches above it.
Review: Marys Seacole
No simple swapping of heirs and originals, but a dream of the future by Seacole, or equally present dreams raking the past. Do see this.
Review: The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Such exquisite works find their time; speak to it again and again and again.
Review: Heathers
Sometimes the dark is light enough. Meanwhile enjoy an exceptional cast and talent you’ll long to see again in something finer.
Review: Walden
Amy Berryman’s Walden is a remarkable play where the earth itself’s at the cross-planet, and travellers in space have inner and outer choices.
Review: Dirty Dancing
There’s a fitting heart-warming climax to a dream of production. And a surprise to those who think they know the film.
Review: San Francisco Fringe Festival 2020 Sneak Peek!
Catch a taste of what's to come at the 2021 San Francisco Fringe Festival!
Review: Les Blancs
A superb realization of Lorraine Hansberry's unfinished masterpiece - a classic of Ibsenite proportions
Review: The Sound of Music
Phenomenal singing all round. A more than solid recommendation for that alone.
Review: I and You
Will leave you in a heap and wonder what else Lauren Gunderson has written that comes near this.
Review: The Dog Walker
I want to know what life, not just Paul Minx will do with his characters afterwards. So will you.
Review: The Institute for the Opposite of Longing
An inventive, intimate and experimental exploration of parental loss.
Review: Scarlett Fever: The Great Southern Search
Old Hollywood meets tribal acting in an engaging piece of physical theatre.
Review: The Mayor’s Debate of Tranquility, Nebraska
A darkly wry commentary on decorum in American politics
Review: Little Miss Sunshine
It’s a quiet heartbreaker, with stoicism and love the only answers. Do see it.
Review: The Glass Piano
A bewitching mix of deconstructive magic and fabulous therapy, it’s above all Grace Molony who brushes distinction into this already distinctive production.
Review: The Rubenstein Kiss
If you care for grippingly argued, passionate theatre, you must see this.
Review: Downstate
A masterly, unsettling play that in this production never puts a foot wrong. And wrong-foots us all.
Review: Shipwreck
A superb ensemble piece. Of all dramas on these interesting times in America, it’s the one truly necessary.
Review: Sweat
No wonder this play’s just extended its run. Don’t even read this before you try booking.
A completely absorbing experience packed into a pulsing interior. Don’t miss it.
Review: The Graduate
There’s so many reasons to see this production. It’s worth hanging around for returns.
Review: Underground Railroad Game
The most radical piece of American theatre I’ve seen, and certainly the bravest. See it.
Review: Dance Nation
As an airborne metaphor for how you get to be grown-ups, what it does to you, Dance Nation takes as it were some beating.
Review: The Crucible
Identity Theatre Company’s Blue Remembered Hills was a stand-out last year. Directed by Nettie Sheridan and Gary Cook, this is too: strongly-conceived and mostly well-acted with stand-outs: don’t miss it.
