Genre: Mainstream Theatre 0
Review: Mary’s Babies
Maud Dromgoole’s proved more than adroit, skilful, and deliciously risk-taking. A must-see.
Review: The Rubenstein Kiss
If you care for grippingly argued, passionate theatre, you must see this.
Review: Rotterdam
Rotterdam’s an outstanding play about sexual identity, choices, and above all what it means to transition.
Review: After Edward
This has to be the smartest debut from this venue since Jessica Swales’ Bluestockings: no wonder the playscripts sold out early.
Review: Downstate
A masterly, unsettling play that in this production never puts a foot wrong. And wrong-foots us all.
Review: Berberian Sound Studio
Thoroughly absorbing, full of walking shadows who throw vivid questions.
Review: Blood Knot
With Angela Smith’s phrase ringing in our ears, there’s not going to be a better play anywhere that answers it. Do see it.
Review: Shipwreck
A superb ensemble piece. Of all dramas on these interesting times in America, it’s the one truly necessary.
Review: Cyprus Avenue
Devastating drama about the DNA of bigotry; and it all starts in surreal farce.
Review: The Lady From the Sea
A groundbreaking production. Even outside its unique terms it’s outstanding.
Review: When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other
This cast’s exemplary dedication deserves watching for their sheer performative belief.
Review: I’m Not Running
Compelling dissection of what hampers the mindset of our main progressive party.
Review: Sweat
No wonder this play’s just extended its run. Don’t even read this before you try booking.
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Sparkling, a sassy, sexy, sure-footed revival. On its own terms, could it really be bettered?
Review: The Tell-Tale Heart
As an electric shock to schlock gothic, theatre doesn’t come much better than this.
Review: Romeo and Juliet
This Romeo and Juliet has all the pace and heart any production, modern-dress or period, demands. Karen Fishwick’s radiant Juliet is the soul that imprints itself on it.
Review: Antony and Cleopatra
Supremely worth it to see a pair so famous weighing equal in their own balance, perhaps for the first time.
Review: Madagascar The Musical
Highly Recommended for monkeys and lemurs of all ages – quite apart from lions, zebras, hippos and giraffes.
Review: The Madness of George III
This magnificent revival poses even more urgent questions. A twitch on the thread for all of us.
Review: The Funeral Director
One of the most riveting few minutes of contemporary theatre I’ve seen all year.
Review: Allelujah!
Bennett’s exhorting us to fight back with laughter and rage in this riveting, timely play. It’s a sad and angry consolation.
Review: Stories
Utterly compelling. Anything Nina Raine writes now is routinely expected to touch greatness. No pressure.
Review: Measure for Measure
The most thoughtful and thought-provoking recreation of a Shakespeare play this year.
Review: I’m Not Running
Compelling dissection of what hampers the mindset of our main progressive party.
Review: Antony and Cleopatra
Supremely worth it to see these characters weighing equal in their own balance, perhaps for the first time.
Review: Private Peaceful
This is as good as a one-person show of this kind gets. Andy Daniel should be up there above his own rows of five-star ratings.
Review: Dirty Dancing
There’s a fitting heart-warming climax to a dream of production. And a surprise to those who think they know the film.
Review: The Outsider
Like so much from The Print Room, this feels like European theatre. And we need it more desperately than ever.
Review: Eyam
A ringing, tolling end to a pioneering season. This play must have a life – and already possesses a miraculous importunity.
Review: Aristocrats
Turner terraces a reading of Aristocrats that heightens Friel’s study in dislocation.
Review: Cyrano de Bergerac
A delightful night of theatre in an ensemble piece that brings the leid o oor land tae life fur the fowk tae tak delight wi
Review: Dance Nation
As an airborne metaphor for how you get to be grown-ups, what it does to you, Dance Nation takes as it were some beating.
Review: Copenhagen
A superb revival that can hardly be bettered, it’s more than enough to persuade us of Copenhagen’s classic status.
Review: The Play That Goes Wrong
A play about amateurs no amateur company should even dare contemplate. There’s genius in the timing of all this. Outstanding.
Review: Emilia
This is a necessary, thrilling play, its energy and message spill straight into the audience.
Review: Home, I’m Darling
It’s a moment when rejoicing to concur with the general public, as Samuel Johnson once did over Gray’s Elegy, is the only thing to do.
Review: The Death of Edgar Allan Poe
Equal parts ghost story, biography, gothic theatre, and poetry, The Death of Edgar Allan Poe is a funeral to which you should not be late.
Review: That Daring Australian Girl
This is an empathetic and heartfelt account of a life that has been, until now, ‘hidden from history.’
Review: Exit the King
We need such risk-taking theatre back. This outstanding production of Exit the King might just remind us how to get it.
Review: The Meeting
Quieter than Humble Boy, The Meeting juggles ideas as adeptly, and heart more fully perhaps than any Jones play. There’s every reason to celebrate Jones’ return to the stage.
Review: Romeo and Juliet
This Romeo and Juliet has all the pace and heart any production, modern-dress or period, demands. Karen Fishwick’s radiant Juliet is the soul that imprints itself on it.
Review: Summer Holiday
Stunning Ray Quinn and ensemble work their bobby-socks off with notable support from Rob Wicks and his band. Give No. 9 a proper MOT and it’ll strike gold too.
Review: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
It’s not shorter than before, but dare one say it, somehow Sparkier, conveying the author’s economy in a sinewy morality tale.
Review: Hamlet
In Michelle Terry’s quicksilver, quick-quipping Hamlet, much has been proved, from interpretive to gender fluidity in tragic action, that sets a privilege on being in at a beginning.
Review: This Is Elvis
Inevitably this stands or falls by Steve Michaels, but it could only be outstanding if the whole production revs around it, and this one fires into life, never letting up. This Is Elvis. Elvis lives. End of.
Review: As You Like It
A ripping discovery, a spontaneity and transparent skin to the process makes this thrilling. An As You Like It for the moment, certainly. But a moment of change.
Review: The Winter’s Tale
If Sicilia and its dense expressive syntax could rise elsewhere, this might be altogether remarkable. As it is, enjoy its slow burn.
Review: The Case of the Frightened Lady
This is still something of a vintage treat, and a rare opportunity to see the old master in action.
Review: Jumpy
You begin to wonder how life, not the playwright, will treat these playhouse creatures. De Angelis has hit a true vein. You must see this delirious state-of-the-pause play.
Review: Lonely Planet
If you know Angels in America, you’ll be grateful for Dietz’s concentration and economy. Much reckoning is packed into a little room.
Review: Utility
It’s a great phase of U. S. playwrighting, driven by women, and we’re lucky to be living in the middle of it. Schwend unleashes unexpected miracles and is one reason to see this hushed superlative of a play.
Review: The Chalk Garden
Not quite the last drawing-room comedy. But the Janus-faced prophesy of plays that took thirty years to catch up. Chichester’s season of women dramatists is one of the treasurable things of 2018.
Review: Machinal
Only when we see the best of Sophie Treadwell’s other thirty-eight plays will Machinal’s lonely pinnacle be augmented. This triumphant revival by the Almeida could signal the start. You must see this.
Review: Legally Blonde
You must see this. Apart from the heroic production itself, if there’s one outstanding performer it has to be Lucie Jones with Rita Simons’ superb support. Jones' voice is stunning, stratospheric, above all characterful.
Review: The Two Noble Kinsmen
We’re looking at a bright Book of Hours. Barrie Rutter’s done it profound service, adding a warmth and agency that opens up this pageant. This is hopefully just the first of many such he’ll bring to the Globe.
