Review: Safe Haven
There’s a perennial feel not just to the humanity at the play’s core; but the work itself. In these dark days, a must-see.
Genre: Historical 0
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Keep Your Sunny Side Up
In nearly every way exceptional. Hampshire is consummate and sets off Rouselle as worthy to inhabit Fields.
Review: 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.
Review: Miller The Crucible
It’s almost sold out. If there’s a cancellation on any night, you must see this.
Review: Amazons
A heartfelt exploration of one woman's Brazilian heritage told through the lens of the region's history.
Review: Mussolini
"An intelligent and technically remarkable portrait of the dictator as a clown and mime-artist"
Review: NIUSIA
A powerful, multi-layered journey through three generations of formidable women, as one unpacks her grandmother’s legacy and her own Jewish identity.
Review: 1 King, 2 Princes and Shakespeare’s Lie
A commanding, Ricardian, retelling challenging the myths surrounding Richard III
Review: 5 Mistakes That Changed History
A range of mistakes to delight even the most ardent history fan.
Review: Formosa Viva
A catchy dance theatre performance displaying Taiwan's historical heritage through movement and dance
Review: Chiara Atik Poor Clare
Sassy yet profound, probing yet exuberant, it asks all of us: No, don’t look at me. Look at you. A quiet must-see this summer.
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: Lynn Nottage Intimate Apparel
Everything built up, like a corset, is unloosed. What we thought we knew we don’t. Outstanding.
Review: Tim Price Nye
Through choreographic sweep, Tim Price crafts a necessary, traditional warning. A must-see with the finest last line since Good.
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: 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: 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: Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens After The Act Royal Court Downstairs
Most of all this musical is necessary. With four outstanding multi-roling performers, a message both affirmative and defiant; and with a fierce joy that makes it a must-see.
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: 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: Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky The Gang of Three
The wittiest, wisest play I’ve seen this year, it deserves a long run, not least so we can absorb its lessons. Unmissable.
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: 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 Shark is Broken
Essential theatre for anyone who enjoys new plays with more wit than several comedies. A must-see.
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: Flutter-Bye
Since this play and Allison Ferns have a lot of legs, it’ll be worth coming back to see it run.
Review: Alterations
We must be grateful for this compelling revival, and wait for more from the National’s Black archive.
Review: One Day When We Were Young
This grips anyone who can’t let first love go, anyone who stares homeward even now, wild with all regret. Unmissable.
Review: Outlying Islands
A first rate-revival of a small classic. Do seek out this rare, dream-like play.
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: Relief Camp
A play that vividly portrays the clashes between ethnic communities in Manipur as the tragic culmination of a long history of subjugation by colonial and state powers.
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: Ruari Conaghan Lies Where It Falls
Ruari Conaghan has nowhere to hide in every sense. He exudes the charismatic of 100 watts cosplaying a glowing 40, then hits you between the eyes
Review: The Welkin
The sheer acting catches fire: not a weak link. With their most ambitious production ID triumph. There’s nothing like them at full stretch.
Review: The Ungodly
The Ungodly which playwright Joanna Carrick also directs is different, and special. No wonder it transfers to Off-Broadway next spring. An outstanding piece of theatre.
Review: Autumn
This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet
Review: Giant
Giant is both a magisterial debut and a landmark work for braving a terrain littered with - as Tom says - "booby traps... And surprise surprise - boom."
Review: Precious Cargo
Precious Cargo brings to light a key part of history that must not be forgotten.
Review: The Last Bantam
A moving tribute to the forgotten soldiers of World War I and a masterclass in storytelling
Review: An American Love Letter to Edinburgh
An unassuming American storyteller comes to the stage with the story of another American in Edinburgh two hundred and fifty years earlier. Charming and informative!
Review: The Years
This production reminds us it’s often the least theatrical, least tractable works that break boundaries, glow with an authority that changes the order of things.
Review: The Promise
Clare Burt’s Wilkinson, racking asthmatically across the play, is indelible, crowning the evening in an arc of sacrifice, Essential theatre-going, an education.
Review: Mnemonic
Mnemonic is treasurable, eloquent, a rare passport. It remembers what hope, connectedness and peace smelt like. It’s worth remembering that.
Review: The Bible in Early Modern Drama: Robert Owen The History of Purgatory
Dr Will Tosh leads a discussion The Bible in Early Modern Drama. Absorbing.
Review: The Kite Runner
Spellbindingly translated to the stage and here with more power even than before. Don’t miss it.
Review: Geneva Convention
As this gets quieter, it shouts more loudly. Exciting as this is, it will devastate when it finds its arc. This might ascend into something crucial.
Review: Richard III
In a female-led cast led by the eponymous Richard III (Michelle Terry) it’s striking that the trio of cursing women is this production’s highlight
Review: The English Moor
Richard Brome’s 1637 The English Moor marks a new departure for Read Not Dead. You might say with this play it’s Read to be Dead.
