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.
Genre: Mainstream Theatre 0
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.
Review: 4.48 Psychosis
Sold out at the Court (you might queue for returns), but worth any pilgrimage to Stratford for.
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: 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: Tolstoy/Phillip Breen Anna Karenina
Potentially a revelation, perhaps a classic: a fully-articulated world around Anna, and not just her ghost.
Review: Claire Dowie Why is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt?
If you see one Claire Dowie, this might be 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: Mario Banushi Taverna Miresia
Not even the world theatre powerhouse of the Coronet has hosted anything like this. Mario Banushi must be seen.
Review: In Praise of Love
There’s every reason to see this rare gem, now added permanently to Rattigan’s finer plays.
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: 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: Jon Fosse Einkvan
An opaque, compelling gem from Det Norske Teatret and its director Horn; and the wonderful Coronet.
Review: Jez Butterworth Parlour Song
A probing revival, James Hadrill’s production and Emily Bestow’s set inject a haunting into these people. A cooling tower about to implode: it’s Naveed Khan’s gaunt intimation of Ned’s soul that lingers.
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: 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: The Brightening Air
Redemption has long been a McPherson theme. Here, you have to dig as deep as that well, and bring in a lot of muck. Drinking it off isn’t always best-timed. Or by the right people. McPherson is haunted and haunter.
Review: Murder on the Orient Express
Even if you don’t like Christie it’s worth seeing not just for an exceptional – and exceptionally-acted – production, but for moral questions that now, as in 1934, need answers in the face of dictators.
Review: Heisenberg
If flawed it’s a fascinating, intimate piece given new life and with luck a new performing tradition. The most compelling two-hander now playing.
Review: The Inseparables
A transfixingly beautiful production, with often superb acting, especially from Lara Manela
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 Shark is Broken
Essential theatre for anyone who enjoys new plays with more wit than several comedies. A must-see.
