Genre: Mainstream Theatre 0
Review: Before We Forget
Exhilarating to see how, despite all the cuts and starvation of opportunities, vibrant voices find a refuge and a springboard at the Bush.
Review: Bury the Hatchet
Killer theatre whetted, ground and gleaming. It will turn heads. Again. Unmissable.
Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
An outstanding production. Don’t even think of journeying to the West End.
Review: Dido and Aeneas Arcola, Grimeborn Festival
Ensemble OrQuesta should be tracked down, and The Magic Flute queued for.
Review: Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing
An outstanding and landmark double production.
Review: Ewartung, The Murderous Delusions of Gavrilo K
Unmissable for those interested in the wilder shores of late Romanticism, once it’s staged again
Review: Love’s Labour’s Lost
Summer-drenched pizzazz and spectacle could hardly have been better timed.
Review: Oberon
Weber’s greatness – wider than his operas - has been rather underplayed in his bicentenary year in the UK, the place which finally killed him off.
Review: The Misanthrope
Impressive. This Moliere, with Sandra Oh commanding too, seems slightly less urgent though eminently worth seeing.
Review: War Horse
An astonishing spectacle that still moves and will forever craze the idiocy of war on the retina like an iced-over No-Man’s Land.
Review: My Fair Lady
Kavanagh’s production is in every way outstanding, I’m not sure there’s been a finer – or at least more believable - My Fair Lady conceived and staged as here.
Review: -320°F
If you’ve not seen a Noda production, see it. If you have, see it. It’s still the most intelligent spectacular I’ve seen in recent times.
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: Much Ado About Nothing
Not only lands in all the right places, it fizzes perhaps more than any Much Ado I’ve seen.
Review: 45 Years
Acting and often dialogue still compel in long bursts. It sets a seal on one of the swiftest slow-burn productions I’ve seen.
Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
With a re-think more thorough than a new fuel-tank for Priscilla, it’s now an outstanding show.
Review: Under the Shadow
Far richer than any ghost play haunting the tour circuit, it’s a blistering, scary must-see.
Review: The Beekeeper of Aleppo
It’s important to see it now. It’s none the less real for being fiction.
Review: Are You Watching?
Georgie Dettmer’s voice should be one of the leading dramatists of resistance. Yet more, Dettmer has already much to say about how to live now and next.
Review: Teeth ‘n’ Smiles
As Teeth ‘n’ Smiles ends, we’re left to feel the long withdrawing roar of the 1960s, and the bleaker horizons and disillusion Hare saw by 1975. A must-see.
Review: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
This desperate elegy of betrayal, straight from Le Carré’s own hurt, will haunt you with the truth of its despair.
Review: The P Word
A bold yet tender exploration of what it is to be gay, Asian and humane. You come out cheering. A must-see.
Review: Mother Courage and Her Children
Brecht’s ferocious message that those who seek profit from war are often its victims too is driven home in the weight of dropped bodies, and Michelle Terry’s outstanding performance.
Review: Operation Mincemeat
This is the finest new musical I’ve seen for many years. End of. The hype, the Oliviers and Tony call it right. See it.
Review: Quartet in Autumn
Absorbing, a must-see for anyone asking questions of where we begin our endings.
Review: Godot’s To-Do List, Krapp’s Last Tape
A performance of lessness writ large: a man shrinking from his environment, the memories taking over and kicking Krapp’s mere organic matter out.
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: Allegra
As an example of a Peter Quilter soufflé, this is the best of his I’ve come across; and Maureen Lipman gleams with a supreme gravity-defying performance. Irresistible.
Review: Teatro dei Gordi: Visite
As ever, the Coronet and its guests have scored something unique in the British theatre-world.
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: Escaped Alone
It mightn’t quite be the droll, dry Churchill we know, but it’s certainly one we should greet. Absorbing.
Review: Magic
Brave, timeless, and troubled, Magic sometimes refuses to give up its secrets too. Absorbing.
Review: Uccelini
A rich, suggestive and above all probing work about how we live with our ghosts so we can live with each other.
Review: Two Halves of Guinness
As a gentle voyage around the frothy half of Guinness we know, and the dark we don’t, it deserves awards, and another tour.
Review: Carmen
A must-see for anyone compelled by ballet; something we’re not likely to see in Brighton for years.
Review: Between the River and the Sea
Recognizing humanity is a mingled yarn mightn’t sound revelatory. Nor what we want to take away. But it’s what we need.
Review: The Waves
A mostly outstanding – and theatrical - adaptation of an almost impossible-to-adapt novel.
Review: Iphigenia
Pacing is fleet, inexorable, even with those frozen minutes of contemporary video. Unmissable.
Review: The Ballad of Johnny & June
That rare event: a new musical with classic inscribed on it. Outstanding.
Review: John Proctor is the Villain
The apotheosis is both thrilling and more than timely. At a moment where feminism is being closed down, this needs screaming
Review: A Doll’s House
The end, a question-mark, leaves a silence where you might hear a door banging three streets away.
Review: Waitress
Hope Fletcher raises soaring music theatre, an ounce of gold in the throat and stars six inches above it.
Review: The Authenticator
Absorbing, playfully swerving from where it might travel, The Authenticator mildly frustrates, mostly digs you in the ribs with questions. And thoroughly entertains.
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: Summerfolk
We need Summerfolk. Sided and slant, this version is a must-see. And almost as much as Chekhov, we need more Gorky.
Review: Vincent in Brixton
An outstanding revival, not least for the quiet blaze between Niamh Cusack and Jeroen Frank Kales, but with a revelatory supporting cast
Review: The BFG
Evans and his team have transported the magic so completely it’s taken up residence. Both outstanding and a delight
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.
