Review: Hymn
Its potency lies in a fine peeling apart by Adrian Lester and Danny Sapini, and the language that bridges it.
Genre: Short Plays 0
Review: The White Hart
Winner of an OnComm award from Off West End, another Upton triumph by stealth
Review: Nine Lessons and Carols
The Almeida’s another country. They do shows differently there. A bold communing of theatre stories with the fresh poignancy of what’s happened during 2020
Review: Death of England: Delroy
Renders huge black experience into a narrative that bears it, because so well-constructed, so character-driven and so inhabited by Michael Balogun whose blaze of awakening is both benediction and clarion.
Review: 15 Heroines: 15 Monologues Adapted from Ovid
Groundbreaking. The smallest producing theatre in the West End through lockdown has become the largest.
Review: The New Tomorrow
There’s a generosity here, a big hug. Theatre itself affirms the value of life to those who might yet shape it for the better.
Review: A Coward Coupling
Family Album is possibly the most disastrous production this already unfortunate play has ever sustained. More, Coward would declare it’s a travesty; of genius. Hands Across the Sea is pitch-perfect in a slightly outré version of what Coward meant.
Review: Shoe Lady
Katherine Parkinson inhabits that breaking through the office crust asphyxiating us
Review: Waiting for Hamlet
A delight for the ears as two haunting characters of Shakespeare’s Hamlet explore things Kingly before one makes his final, and first entrance.
Review: Barber Shop Chronicles
Barber Shop Chronicles is a breath-taking revelation for those of us who had small inkling of a world in miniature.
Review: A Separate Peace
Stoppard looks at society’s phantom limb ethic. Even when it’s gone it aches, and it aches to have someone opting out.
Review: I and You
Will leave you in a heap and wonder what else Lauren Gunderson has written that comes near this.
Review: Afterplay
Miraculously-attuned. A wafer-thin but absolutely genuine slice of Chekhov. Do see it.
Review: Shoe Lady
Katherine Parkinson inhabits that breaking through the office crust asphyxiating us
Review: Lipstick
Performances and play that should turn us upside down. Do make a detour for this brave. tremulously beautiful coming of love.
Review: Far Away
Our greatest playwright since Beckett and Pinter. An outstanding revival. Hesitating?
Review: The Dog Walker
I want to know what life, not just Paul Minx will do with his characters afterwards. So will you.
Review: The Good Dad (A Love Story)
Intricate, fiercely intelligent, this play packs far more force than some twice its length. Sarah Lawrie’s intensity is magnificent.
Review: Death of England
This work never loses its charge, its own rapturous arrival Spall gives the performance of his career so far.
Review: Scenes with girls
Scenes with girls owns a buzz, a life, a difference about loving that gives it a sliver of unique.
Review: Swive
A Hilliard rather than Holbein, it’s the velocity of Elizabeth’s survival that enthrals
Review: Hunger
An exemplary, scrupulous production so starkly contemporary, it makes Hunger contemporary forever
Review: #We Are Arrested
Peter Hamilton Dyer carries this celebration of the conscience to be fully human
Review: Three Shorts – Fruit / When I Call Your Name / Embracing Nature
An assured showcase of shorts
Review: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.
For a time you feel that beyond Churchill’s world, nothing else quite seems to exist.
Review: Fleabag
Original, raw, brilliantly funny and devastating. This production is Fleabag neat. Its harrowing streak of genius burns like a healing scar torn.
Review: Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation
The most consistently satisfying work of Tim Crouch I’ve seen.
Review: Pilgrims
Elinor Cook’s always worth a diversion for. This drama deserves friends and revivals.
Review: Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes
Rodrigues is a dramatist we need to see far more of.
Review: The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys and The Laments
In nearly every way an outstanding pair of productions.
Review: Those Magnificent Men
Find out what happens to these Magnificent Men; for they were, and are.
Review: Sary
The imaginative force, language and unsettled serenity of this work demands a sustained run.
Review: Caliban’s Codex
a superbly realised piece, vying with Carding’s own outstanding Quintessence.
Review: INK Festival Feast From the East
I’ve not seen a festival of short plays to compare with these.
Review: Creditors
We’re unlikely to see a better production of this still rarely-performed disturber of ourselves.
Review: Miss Julie
It’s unlikely we’ll get a cleaner version, or a more absorbing production any time soon
Review: Double Bill: Mother Figure, A Cut in the Rates
If you enjoy Ayckbourn, catch this in Edinburgh.
Review: Mary’s Babies
Maud Dromgoole’s proved more than adroit, skilful, and deliciously risk-taking. A must-see.
