Genre: Mainstream Theatre 0
Review: Dear Liar
Stella Powell-Jones and her team make the strongest possible case. A must-see for all lovers of theatre, wit, and wincing put-downs.
Review: The Constant Wife
An outstanding revival and adaptation, a faultless cast, an award-winning set too. Brighton has been lucky in its last three productions. This though is the gem. Outstanding.
Review: The Shitheads
Aa a blazing new voice though The Shitheads packs a flinty punch; and paradoxically heralds a vivid poetic talent. A must-see.
Review: Deep Azure
One of the few moments of Peter Brooks’ term “Holy Theatre” has arrived at the Wanamaker. A must-see.
Review: The Story of Peer Gynt
The Norwegian Ibsen company - and here Kåre Conradi - are doing for Ibsen what Conor Lovett and Gare St Lazare are doing for Beckett. And both are to be found at the Coronet.
Review: After Miss Julie
Provocative, absorbing take on Strindberg’s 1888 masterpiece. Fine cast led by Liz Francis make much of demob denouements.
Review: Glorious!
Wendi Peters sends you out singing: with all the right notes in the wrong order. Solidly recommended.
Review: The Tempest
Orlando Gough’s music stamps this production, and makes the pulleys of reinvention sing despite themselves. For that and the sweep of decolonised languages, a must-see.
Review: 1.17am, or until the words run out
A cracking debut that picks you up and never lets go. Like any play that gifts us believable characters, it leaves you wondering what life, not just Hunter Gordon, will do with them. Highly recommended.
Review: Arcadia
As bright as stained crystal and warm as the filament Thomasina reaches for: outstanding.
Review: Dance of Death
Strindberg to live with? Who’d have thought of that? An outstanding must-see. If you can’t get there, tune in to the livestream. This demands a wider audience.
Review: Midsomer Murders
Don’t miss this. You’ll be surprised. Particularly if you think you know the badgers.
Review: American Psycho
If you can queue, you’ll be in good company. Jean queued for Les Mis at 6.30 am.
Review: Mrs President
Mrs President will continue to haunt and I suspect, develop. Be haunted though.
Review: Cable Street
This is an event. Break in (without breakages!) if you have to, to see this. You’ll be standing in the aisles to swarm the barricades.
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.
Review: Single White Female
There’s potential for this to be a taut-paced thriller with higher stakes than the original. As it stands, this isn’t yet quite ready but there’s months ahead to make it work.
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: The Playboy of the Western World
An impossible balance, but having seen Playboy at farce-speed, it’s good to weigh in with a loquacious backbeat of despair. Wholly absorbing.
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: 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: 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: Little Miss Christmas
Little Miss Christmas can develop and this show doesn't outstay it's welcome. And "All I Want for Christmas" is hugely popular with everyone who sings it.
Review: Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson
Don’t expect Sherlock, and you could be entertained by Ms Holmes. And emphatically Ms Watson.
Review: Cockfosters
Fizzing, witty uber-London without Uber and smart without telling us it is. Blissfully recommended.
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: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Certainly builds as the Globe’s strongest – if not truest - Dream since (at least) their 2013 production.
Review: David Copperfield
An outstanding production, a seasonal offering more satisfying than most pantos.
Review: End
Outstanding performances from Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves, and a script fired with conviction and probing tenderness around how we all face death; a must-see.
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: Kindling
Sarah Rickman and Ciara Pouncett have assembled a superb team. They need to revisit the script once or twice more and they’ll have a winner.
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: 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: The Unbelievers
The Unbelievers confirms the Royal Court’s new phase can again splice the traditionally-crafted with the exploratory. A must-see.
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: 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: Blue/Orange
Absorbing revival – and rethinking - of this still relevant 2000 play about abusing the already-abused in the name of psychiatry.
Review: 2:22 A Ghost Story
Sharp, satisfying in itself, above all hauntingly intelligent in its questions.
Review: Hamlet
Kate Waters ensures the fight scene’s a suitable climax to Robert Hastie’s fleet production.
Review: Mistero Buffo
A thoroughly worthwhile revival, it still kicks and thrills in equal measure. Highly recommended.
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: Inter Alia
After 15 years away from the stage, Pike returns in a blaze of morals versus the law. Her triumph though is unequivocal.
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: 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: Cow/Deer
Emphatically theatre worth doing, worth attending, worth fighting to clarify and worth being changed for.
Review: Hamlet
An outstandingly thought-through Hamlet though, with more of the prince and play in it than I’ve seen. And Giles Terera’s is with the best of recent decades.
Review: Benny Ainsworth Vermin
The most riveting two-hander you’ll see this year; it’s not for the faint-hearted. Writing, acting and burned-off minimal staging draw us into hell, and its epiphanies. Outstanding.
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: A Man For All Seasons
A must-see, one of the very finest plays to have reached the theatre this year.
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: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Sean Holmes has conjured the most intelligently re-thought Merry Wives of recent years with a convincing take on Mistress Ford. The last few gestures in this show change everything that might follow.
Review: Lynn Nottage Intimate Apparel
Everything built up, like a corset, is unloosed. What we thought we knew we don’t. Outstanding.
Review: Sean Daniels The White Chip
The most entertaining life-saver you’ll see, whether you need it or not.
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: 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: Ghost Stories
Pure scary, not horror. There’s reasons Ghost Stories is on its second tour out of the West End. Here’s a convenient (and reasonable) way to see why.
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.
