Review: The Inseparables
A transfixingly beautiful production, with often superb acting, especially from Lara Manela
Genre: New Writing
Review: Tending
Essential theatre, essential witness and mandatory for anyone who wants to know how human we have to be, from beginning to end.
Review: Lula Mebrahtu I Am – OommoO
Everything you’ve heard is true. Lula Mebrahtu is memserising, and I Am – OommoO like its creator has vast potential.
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: Men’s Business
A quietly phenomenal, ground-breaking play, blistering in sumps of silence. See it.
Review: Flutter-Bye
Since this play and Allison Ferns have a lot of legs, it’ll be worth coming back to see it run.
Review: Jane Upton (the) Woman
A ground-breaking play, fully deserving of its London run. Catch it there.
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: 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: 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: Vaughan Williams, J.M. Synge Riders to the Sea
Betteridge’s prologue is certainly worth seeing even if you know the work, and won’t need persuading. And after the opera, the rest is surf, and silence.
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime
A sure-fire miniature epic, spanning history and damn lies. Sublimely written and with a superb cast both seasoned and fresh, the finest concentration of panto this season.
Review: {Title of Show}
Delicious, certainly, truly witty and fast-moving, never indulgent about self-indulgence, this is a sure-fired soufflé
Review: Women Who Blow on Knots
As fine a realisation as anyone could manage. The immediacy, cries, reveals are inherently theatrical and precious. A must-see.
Review: Burnt-Up Love
One of the very finest three-handers I’ve seen for a long time, Burnt-Up Love refuses to judge and nor will anyone left reeling after seeing this. Stunning.
Review: 1984
This is the fleetest most theatrical version I’ve seen for some time. Telegraphic in its conveying a nightmare world, it nevertheless does so by lightning strokes.
Review: The Ungodly
The Ungodly which playwright Joanna Carrick also directs is different, and special. No wonder it transfers to Off-Broadway next spring. An outstanding piece of theatre.
Review: Autumn
This is a partially bewitching production and it might send you back to the novel or quartet
Review: Gigi & Dar
Compelling and unanswerable, it’s more humane than recent history in several parts of the world allow. Setting it in 2016, Josh Azouz knows history itself has been overtaken. Highly recommended.
Review: Beryl Cook: A Private View
A further triumph in Kara Wilson’s groundbreaking fusion of words and paint.
Review: The Cat and the Canary
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
Review: Giant
Giant is both a magisterial debut and a landmark work for braving a terrain littered with - as Tom says - "booby traps... And surprise surprise - boom."
Review: Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret
Who could object to its urgency, or its starry messenger? A gem.
Review: Gareth Strachan Project M.E. The Rock Inn Pub
Strachan proves he can pull together serious talent who believe in his work. It’s a step up in all directions
Review: 23.5 Hours
A worthy successor to Never Not Once, almost from the other side of the glass, it makes Crim one of the most visible and exciting of US dramatists.
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 Unlikely Secret Agent
How it ends I urge you to discover in this sizzling paean to humanity.
Review: Shower Chair
We meet some people's deepest revelations through performance here, actors finding themselves becoming vulnerable through theatre, getting naked.
Review: Dummy in Diaspora
A challenging solo show which does manage to capture the confusion and the liberation of being yourself.
Review: Barbara Fernandez Singing, Sagging and Shagging
Soaring vocals, belly laughs, and touching tales
Review: Sonnets from Suburbia
Witty, droll and suave sonnets that will leave you simply quite astonished
Review: Lies Where It Falls
A compelling and moving exploration of grief, trauma, and the long shadows cast by violence
Review: You Deserve It
It is a play which is undeniably a laugh while attempting to highlight some of the realities of a life in the spotlight.
Review: Hardly Working
She is performed confidently by Lily Simpkiss, really coming into her own towards the end of the play.
Review: Pride and Prejudice
An unalloyed delight, compressing the story but revealing things even those who know the novel will take back to it.
Review: Four More Short Plays Loosely Linked By The Theme of Crime
Quartet of four well crafted, amusingly dark and daft plays
Review: It’s the Economy Stupid
A great bit of storytelling ,with sleight of hand magic, disguised as a cost-of-living seminar
Review: Flat 2
The uses of sound throughout are incredibly effective, adding something different to the portrayal.
Review: Son of a Bitch
Captured by social media at the worst moment in her life a mother’s frantic attempt to hold on to what matters most
Review: Freak Out!
A theatrical response to a serious issue of our time along with a dollop of end-of-the-pier entertainment.
Review: Ever Yours
Played by Alex Wanebo, Olivia is beautifully portrayed, her pain feeling tangible throughout.
Review: Or What’s Left of Us
Sh*t Theatre are lost and found through folk in a show that lingers like a loved refrain
Review: A Play by John
An absurd piece of drama which delivers and hints at more possibilities than can be imagined, or not.
Review: Beyond Krapp
A beautifully poised solo drama filled with caution for the dying and the hope that the living can still listen.
Review: Letters From My Dad (Who is Dead)
Youthful company’s dramatization of growing up in the shadow of a lost parent.
