Review: Deaf Republic
Its claustrophobia overwhelms and moves, whilst leaving Dead Centre room for yet another slant on Ilya Kaminsky’s imaginary.
Genre: Mainstream Theatre 0
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.
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: Dr Strangelove
Steve Coogan reigns supreme, and a cast like John Hopkins then Giles Terera are a gift to both Coogan and the show.
Review: Double Act
Death & Co. The Laurel and Hardy of Suicide, the Little and Large of it Do see this timely, painfully funny, and absorbing new play.
Review: Dear England
With its nimbus of inevitability as national storytelling, it’s still groundbreaking.
Review: Playhouse Creatures
When Doll Common claims “Life’s like a storm. Don’t get in its way” one thinks of the stoicism of those in the eye of it, and their audience. A consummate revival.
Review: Men’s Business
A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.
Review: Cry-Baby
Easily the most joyous musical we’ll see this side midsummer, Cry-Baby in this production blazes fit to set another fire in Dalston
Review: Jane Upton (the) Woman
A ground-breaking play, fully deserving of its London run. Catch it there.
Review: Macbeth
ETT’s gallimaufry stimulates, frustrates, occasionally fascinates. A more selective through-line would have revealed a mineral gleam, a new earth of tyranny.
Review: Alterations
We must be grateful for this compelling revival, and wait for more from the National’s Black archive.
Review: Peter James Picture You Dead
Twists are delicious. If you enjoy Peter James, or thrillers with a light touch, don’t hesitate. Solidly recommended.
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: Teatro dei Gordi: Pandora
It begs questions: what couldn’t we do, if placed outside our own comfort station in life? Essential theatre. essential questions. A gem.
Review: Son of a Bitch
Anna Morris heightens tragedy and misogyny with gags, humour and farcical horror. Do catch this fleeting gem, running for just two more weeks before it touches down
Review: Khawla Ibraheem A Knock on the Roof
What and who can you choose is something more people are forced to decide as the century rolls. But Mariam’s plight is specific, ongoing, now far worse and essential viewing.
Review: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
An astonishing theatrical vision blended with a fascinating story that combines into an exceptional evening of theatre.
Review: Chekhov Three Sisters
There’s a rapt self-communing in this production of Three Sisters. A must-see, it glows long after you’ve left it.
Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Brighton Theatre Group is a chocolate factory all on its own. Nothing in Wonka is as magical as the vision, reach and grasp of this company. It’s perhaps their finest production yet.
Review: The Last Laugh
This is a must-see. Never outstaying its welcome, you can leave this show after 85 minutes, but stay for that Q&A. I envy everyone the night I won’t be there for it.
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: The Gift
How far you’d go to pursue either vengeance or to resolve one, asks just such questions of how we choose to box up our lives. The Gift is for all of us.
Review: Macbeth
It’s still a phenomenal feat and even if you know Macbeth, it’s still a must-see for how a quintessence can be dusted off.
Review: Cymbeline
One of the most uneven of late plays, its heights have to be seen; and though there’s pitfalls, this absorbing production surmounts most. A feat.
Review: A Good House
A play deeper than the satire which propels it. And subtly layered enough to brush the epic. A stunning smack between the eyes and a must-see.
Review: The Devil May Care
Do see this particularly for an outstanding performance from Burrows and an exceptionally fine one from Woodhouse. This adaptation remains an exhilarating reminder of what a difference a century makes.
Review: Belly of the Beast
Belly of the Beast should be a set text in schools. And should definitely tour there.
Review: Treasure Island
First-rate youth theatre, creatives and cast excel: detailed, funny, not to be taken over-seriously, then quite a bit more so.
Review: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Frecknall has re-thought and refreshed one of the great, and classically-framed American dramas. And made it classic.
Review: Zinnie Harris, Douglas Hodge, Johnny McKnight 101 Dalmatians The Musical
A perennial tale in essence makes this a Christmas must and New Year resolution: for all of us under ten in the holidays.
Review: Ballet Shoes
A paean to wonder and possibility, dreaming to some purpose. Like other winter growths, this should prove a hardy perennial, evergreen as the book.
Review: Happy Days
I’ve never seen a Winnie more ordinary, one without those strange transcendental inflections. Catherine Humphreys isn’t flat: she rises to anguish, though it’s one of realism. I’m still not quite sure what’s been removed. But I’m very glad I’ve seen it.
Review: Sara Farrington A Trojan Woman
An acclaimed pocket tragedy which yet carries Euripides’ weight in Farrington’s framing, it more than touches the heart: it snatches it and hands it back as a sad and angry consolation.
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: Now That’s What I Call a Musical
The cast grab this by the scruff of its shoulder pads and make us love them. A must-see.
Review: Twelfth Night
Tom Littler again brings an intimate, wintry music to middle Shakespeare: it’s his unique gift. Never sour, never sweet without salt, and with very few reservations, a definitive close-up Twelfth Night.
