Review: Appropriate
NVT confirm this a masterpiece, something I’d not fully appreciated in the excellent 2019 Donmar production, which this excels. Outstanding
Genre: Fringe Theatre 0
Review: Wife to James Whelan
It should transfer, though nothing can beat this space for delivery. Outstanding, a must-see if ever there was one.
Review: Jane Eyre
Polly Teale has released the daemons, but Nettie Sheridan’s ensemble has delivered Jane Eyre’s feeling to a pitch remarkable even for BLT. With a twilight and sunny consummation at BOAT, it’s even more outstanding.
Review: Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances
Absorbing and attracted a sold-out brief run. Factually realist, but liminally fantastical, it wields potential for serious sly fun, and real drama.
Review: Are We Part of the .enclosure.?
Savage Art Escape's murder-mystery escape room in which the audience search for clues in the room before time runs out
Review: The Dasslers
The Dasslers wields a potential beyond its current limitations – both in this brief production and in its current form. And Radford, clearly setting out his dramatic stall in history’s cross-currents, is a voice to watch.
Review: Wench
Standing ovations for this new behemoth of a piece, performed with complete control by the beautiful and intense Felix Le Freak.
Review: Ben Hur – Cue Fanfare
Exceptional and Outstanding epic which never ceases to amaze and amuse!
Review: The Dance of Time: A New Black Comedy
Here’s hoping it returns, clearly a play with a future as long as Tom’s is apparently short.
Review: Foal
The Finborough have form with five-star solo shows. This is clearly another flued and sanded with the ferocity of pursuit. Outstanding.
Review: When Gary Left Annie (Almost)
A beautifully written romantic comedy with a slightly neurotic, awkward energy that makes ordinary people feel strangely lovable.
Review: Jane Eyre
Polly Teale has released the daemons, but Nettie Sheridan’s ensemble has delivered Jane Eyre’s feeling to a pitch remarkable even for BLT.
Review: Neddy Goes to Glasto
Corrina O’Beirne masters the demotic, the lyrical, the witty and metaphorical, all at once. A must-see.
Review: Ashes and Diamonds
Exceptionally humane, humanly absorbing. It’s always 11.15. Till it isn’t
Review: History has no safe word
A haunting journey through Pompeii, power and the voices that refuse to stay buried.
Review: Flush
Timely, timeless and as real as a selfie you might wish you’d never taken when you look again. 80 minutes blink by, but you won’t miss it. Stunning.
Review: The Final Episode
Two original twists, a fine, fresh writer/performer/director and something I certainly look forward to seeing developed.
Review: Edward II
Alex Pearson has devised an Edward II that’s fleet, clear, crisply compelling and as sly as Marlowe: something other productions could profit from.
Review: Pack of Lies
This one-time hit though now rarely-staged Olivier-winning play is worth tracking down; and you’ve a little more time to find it in Southwick.
Review: The Old Ladies
A small classic, if not on the scale of The Truth About Blayds, it’s yet another gem. And a must-see.
Review: The Legend of Davie Mackenzie
A hilarious romp through the lives of two neir dae weels who try their best to survive.
Review: The Olive Boy
An extremely fine, and important one-person play, brimming with comedic gambits to open the floodgates.
Review: Alice in Wonderland
This 23-strong cast triumph in this cavalcade of Carroll. A must-see and pretty outstanding.
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: Jobsworth
A must-see one-person coffee-black comedy, it lasts a full 90 minutes. Libby Rodliffe is a phenomenal performer. And uproarious.
Review: Duty
A fresh and urgent play, Duty should tour as a salutary reminder of how war impacts community, divides war-influenced majority from the few who see through war.
Review: We Are the Lions, Mr Manager
At a time of racialised targeting – a distraction technique born of the very forces Jayaben Desai fought – Grunwick speaks with startling relevance.
Review: Wyld Woman: The Legend of Shy Girl
For Isabel Renner’s witty one-liners, production values and above all her own performance, this show ends up highly recommended.
Review: Mr Jones
Once you’ve seen Mr Jones, it will never leave you. Not just history, but the poignancy that shivers across survivors and leaves them buried, ceaselessly pulling them to the past.
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: Mistero Buffo
A thoroughly worthwhile revival, it still kicks and thrills in equal measure. 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: Who Do They Think They Are?
A finely-written show, with tensions wrought individually to a satisfying whole.
Review: A. A. Milne The Truth About Blayds
A classic revival of a minor classic. Pacily directed and with a consummate cast, this production couldn’t be bettered
Review: Miller The Crucible
It’s almost sold out. If there’s a cancellation on any night, you must see this.
Review: Natasha Cottriall (God Save My) Northern Soul
Time will deepen the shadows and writer/actor Natasha Cottriall 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: Suddenly Last Summer
Conor Baum and his company are carving out a record of distinction. We’re lucky it’s started in the south east. Outstanding.
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: 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: UnTethered
UnTethered could be outstanding and groundbreaking. What Tara Sirois does next could, and should, unnerve everyone; including herself.
Review: The Rubbish Puppets!
Trash Transformed! Getting out of bed can be uneventful but not for this teenager - prepare to see trash become treasure...Introducing 'The Rubbish Puppets.'
Review: Claire Dowie H to He (I’m Turning into a man) Finborough
A must-see for anyone who loves breakthrough: genre-defying, then genre-defining theatre.
Review: Claire Dowie See Primark and Die Finborough
There’s more than a touch of Ken (even more, Daisy) Campbell about the way Dowie structures her circular storytelling. Here it’s at its most consummate, most artful and repays re-reading to catch Dowie at your throat.
Review: Sheridan The Rivals
This company re-thinks Sheridan in his spirit: clear and steady as lead-crystal struck through with sun. The inventiveness of filleting the text to guy the fact of a five-strong cast is part of their distinction. It’s a must-see.
Review: Sarah Ruhl Eurydice
Sam Chittenden 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: 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: Claire Dowie Adult Child/Dead Child Finborough
Claire Dowie’s never mellowed, and remains essential: taut, inordinate, alone, unreconciled. In other words, see it.
Review: Charlie Josephine: I, Joan
Daisy Miles, supremely, Laurits Hiroshi Bjerrum and Rhys Bloy excel in a fine cast and prove this clarion of a play can rise again triumphantly.
Review: Sophocles Electra
The end is set. Conor Baum directs that ratcheting-up inexorably: never hurried, never static. The audience holds its breath. So will you. Outstanding.
Review: Duty
A fresh and urgent play, Duty should tour as a salutary reminder of how war impacts community, divides war-influenced majority from the few who see through war.
Review: Ibsen Ghosts
A triumph of staging, fine acting and in Sarah Tansey a central performance to rival any Helene Alving I’ve seen.
Review: The Fabulous King James Bible
A fabulous historical comedy about the gayest king and his new bible
Review: Jonathan McLean Touching it Makes Baby Jesus Cry: The Musical
This can sing all the way to Edinburgh: just stopping off to be publicly burned, along with Jonathan McLean, in the Vatican itself.
Review: Corrina O’Beirne With Ruby & I
Corrina O’Beirne ‘s a name to seek out in future and in Kempell and her cast and creatives, she’s found first-rate advocates. A must-see.
Review: Tim Coakley In Search of the Dance
Tim Coakley has a potential minor masterpiece on his hands, as he searches for that perfect crashed chord.
Review: Heather Alexander Becoming Maverick
Heather Alexander has arrived as a creative, not simply re-creative force. A cause for dark celebration.
Review: Samuel Rees and Gabriele Uboldi Lessons on Revolution
It’s intersectional, it’s personal, it’s interactive: all great reasons to see this play: unless you’re a board member of BP, or the government.
Review: Helen Edmundson The Heresy of Love
A brave undertaking – typical of Gerry McCrudden and his teams - and a rare opportunity to see this superb, all-too-topical play.
Review: The Inseparables
A transfixingly beautiful production, with often superb acting, especially from Lara Manela
Review: Tending
Essential theatre, essential witness and mandatory for anyone who wants to know how human we have to be, from beginning to end.
