Review: Midsomer Murders
Don’t miss this. You’ll be surprised. Particularly if you think you know the badgers.
Genre: Dark Comedy 0
Review: Orphans
No wonder the propulsive energy of Lyle Kessler’s script, knotted with such complexity and switchbacks of violence has held the stage for over 40 years. You must see this.
Review: Christmas Day
An absorbing drama, taking risks and never losing its balance. For the most part superbly-crafted, with memorable characters, sparking with urgency and sparkling dialogue throughout. The most exciting new play in London.
Review: The Mask Policy
Tianjiao Tan’s crafted a unique, witty take on an industry with little exposure as it were. A revelation.
Review: Nachtland
Janette Eddisford has scored with this outrageously provocative, troubling satire that flays the German soul and hangs up the skins, stretched.
Review: Forbidden Places
Tom Stoppard dying the day before recalled Leopoldstraat to many. No-one expected this harrowing slant successor. No wonder the audience were on their feet. Outstanding.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Certainly builds as the Globe’s strongest – if not truest - Dream since (at least) their 2013 production.
Review: Jobsworth
A must-see one-person coffee-black comedy, it lasts a full 90 minutes. Libby Rodliffe is a phenomenal performer. And uproarious.
Review: This Little Earth
Jessica Norman is going to be a force. Watch out for her and see a powerful dramatic imagination at least hatch here.
Review: Natasha Cotriall (God Save My) Northern Soul
Time will deepen the shadows and writer/actor Natasha Cotriall shows this in the very last moment.
Review: The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return
It’s hard not to love this exuberant 75-minute romp through Luton’s urban sprawl. It’s both exuberant and serious, warm and yet with a chill undercurrent of deprivation
Review: The Brilliance of Broken Glass: Button
Endearing and life-affirming, whatever this is, it’s exactly what it needs to be.
Review: Beggared in SA
With an unflinching eye and a stripped-back aesthetic, this is a taut gaze on South Africa’s social and political contradictions.
Review: The Drop of a Hat
An exceptional piece of Boy’s own drama that crinkles your stiff upper lip into wide grins.
Review: 1, 2, 3. Shit. That’s my OCD.
Rhythmical, immediate, and cleverly structured, it’s gorgeous work on a strong mind trying to make sense of its landscape past and present.
Review: The Family Copoli: A Post-Apocalyptic Burlesque Musical
Would you bring a child into a world like this?
Review: ADHD? WTF is ADHD!
Emma Wilkinson-Wright is unnervingly close to the pulse of how real this is. A hidden gem.
Review: The Lolita Apologies
A sharp, two-person confrontation with Lolita’s cultural legacy, where minimal staging meets maximum emotional stakes.
Review: That’s Why Mums Go to Switzerland
A stunning portrait of three generations of women and the impossible weight one must carry.
Review: Big Little Sister
A worthy explanation and exploration of what it's like to be a glass child growing up alongside a disabled older brother.
Review: 365 Days/365 Plays
An enlightening event that reminds us of where theatre practice often begins for young people.
Review: The Faustus Project
A hilarious evening with an unsuspecting guest who just happens to be the star of the production.
Review: Short Plays 2025
Enough here to engage and make anyone who’s not yet ventured to NVT to keep coming back. Do see this collation of crazies.
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: Cruel Intentions
If ever you’ve been crossed in love, double-crossed yourself, or just crossing through, then this is for you. It’s June’s sizzle, all the way to Six, this September.
Review: 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.
Review: Rocky Horror Show
An excellent revival. The strength of this cast led with a special wit by Clune makes it absolutely worth seeing however many times you have. Otherwise, just see it!
Review: The Beauty Queen of Leenane
This is stark theatre. Some will hate Martin McDonagh, and some already love him. I’d say you must see this, where it all started.
Review: All the Happy Things
It’s impossible to believe Sienna doesn’t believe Emily’s not part of this at some level, and by the end, you’ll think so too.
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: Double Act
Death & Co. The Laurel and Hardy of Suicide, the Little and Large of it Do see this timely, painfully funny, and absorbing new play.
Review: Men’s Business
A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.
Review: Perfect Arrangement
There’s never been a more urgent time for this gem of a work: a small hybrid classic that’s never been produced in the UK before. See it now.
Review: Dan O’Brien The Voyage of the Carcass; Emily Jenkins Bobby & Amy
Dan O’Brien’s piece is for dedicated farceurs. By itself outstanding, it’s hoped by several Emily Jenkins’ Bobby & Amy have a postlude of its own, with this team and these two young actors pitched at this moment in their careers.
Review: Cymbeline
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.
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: Goodbye Erdogan
A deeply engaging show about a small man overwhelmed by the seismic changes in modern Turkish society.
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: Sam Holcroft Rules for Living
Season’s Greetings for robots. It interrogates a therapy many believe works. More than worth seeing in this first-class NVT cast and production.
Review: The Cat and the Canary
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
Review: Beyond Krapp
A beautifully poised solo drama filled with caution for the dying and the hope that the living can still listen.
Review: How Dead Am I?
An absurdly enticing view of what I might be like at the end of your world … but with snacks.
Review: The Martyrs
any zeitgeisty theatre director should jump at the chance to produce this play fully staged.
Review: Corpse Flower
A beautiful nod to the expressionistic silent movie era, just with words and words that will enchant you!
Review: Gloria’s Gift
In a world where we're all so connected, how can we be more disconnected than we've ever been?
Review: All’s Well That Ends Well
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.
Review: The Beckett Trilogy
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.
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: 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: Banging Denmark
This production’s 100 minutes are so absorbing you’re not quite sure if the time’s stopped, or just your preconceptions. Stunning, a must see.
Review: The Comeuppance
Might prove the most lasting American drama about. emerging to a different world.
Review: Hangmen
Assured, idiomatic performances. And Martin McDonagh’s distinction resonates in a manner peculiar to him alone. A must-see for anyone in Sussex.
Review: London Zoo
A masterly play in the making. It goes where very few dare, and in an environment we think we know. Very highly recommended.
Review: The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare told in flashes of lightning maybe, but with the thunder of laughter and a ghost of wrongs rumbling long after the lights go down. A gem of distillation, dispatch and truth. If you can, go.
Review: Mates in Chelsea
Mates in Chelsea is definitely worth seeing, and apart from adaptations surely the best thing this writer’s produced in a decade. Royal Court Theatre
Review: Little Wars
Allows the best of those it portrays, to shine in one intense beam of feminist solidarity, women against tyranny and genocide.
Review: Meetings
Mustapha Matura draws in and telescopes devastating consequences - perhaps telegraphs years of damage into a few weeks for dramatic licence. That doesn’t lessen his impact. The point is western exploitation kills, in many guises.
Review: That Face
Its qualities are extraordinary, that of a Greek tragedy on Prozac performed by St Trinian’s. Prozac Nation’s referenced, but Polly Stenham’s point is how parental damage numbs you out of feeling anything at the right time, with displacement activities chateau-bottled around a bed. Yet it is, of course, very funny. An outstanding revival, given extra intensity by the staging; an intimacy so palpable you both flinch and laugh at the same moment.
Review: Accidental Death of an Anarchist
The adage that farce is tragedy speeded up met its greatest progenitor in Dario Fo. In a ferocious new version by Tom Basden of Franca Rame’s and Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, directed by Daniel Raggett in a stunning production now at the Haymarket, the target here is squarely the London Met. And if you slowed down Basden’s brilliant, no-holds-unbludgeoned telling, details prove tragic enough.
