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Simon Jenner in West London 29 November 2024 For an unstated reason the press were quietly advised to use the

Simon Thomas in South West England 14 November 2024 Theatre Royal Bath plays host to a touring production of Eduardo

Mark Shenton in the West End 12 November 2024 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a new British folk

Glenda Frank in New York 9 November 2024 Robert Downey Jr’s depiction of the writer in McNeal by Ayad Akhtar’s

Simon Thomas in South West England 8 November 2024 Written by one of the finest of contemporary novelists, Kazuo Ishiguro’s

Tom Bolton in South London 8 November 2024 As part of Forced Entertainment’s continuing 40th anniversary celebration, co-founder Tim Etchells

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 5 November 2024 The new production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Hartford Stage has

Neil Dowden in City of London 4 November 2024 Hanif Kureishi’s debut 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia (which was

Glenda Frank in New York 4 November 2024 I was seduced by theatre in part because of the many moving

Simon Thomas in South West England 1 November 2024  In a first coupling, Theatre Royal Bath and Living Theatre Productions

Neil Dowden in North London 28 October 2024 Richard Bean’s atmospheric new play Reykjavik about distant-water trawlermen from his hometown

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 23 October 2024 Adolescence is a former nationality that we renounce as we emigrate to adulthood.

Jeremy Malies in east London 22 October 2024 The ushers at Hackney Town Hall won’t let us in despite the

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 21 October 2024 If Luke Cantarella’s set for Fever Dreams (of animals on the verge of

Glenda Frank in New York 21 October 2024 While The Roommate, a two-hander by Jen Silverman, offers the actors substantial

Mark Shenton in the West End 21 October 2024 Every revival of a classic play is, of course, an opportunity

Tom Bolton in South London 21 October 2024 The title of Jon Berry’s new play is the Welsh word for

Jeremy Malies in South London 21 October 2024 Stage left the drawing of President McKinley struck down by Leon Czolgosz

Neil Dowden in the West End 20 October 2024 Not that it’s ever been in abeyance for too long, but

Glenda Frank in New York 20 October 2024 Yellowface is a quasi-autobiographical work by David Henry Hwang produced by Roundabout

Jeremy Malies in west London 18 October 2024 “What happens to a dream deferred?” In his poem “Harlem”, Langston Hughes

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 13 October 2024 Playwright Alexander Zeldin is best known for The Inequalities trilogy of

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg October 9, 2024 It is always a sign that theatre is well integrated into the cultural

Franco Milazzo in the West End 12 October 2024 “Much-anticipated” is a phrase that is often recklessly bandied about in

Jeremy Malies in East Sussex 10 October 2024 Director Iqbal Khan has reinvigorated Art by Yasmina Reza. I wonder how

Jeremy Malies in the West End 9 October 2024 A maimed young man, two paramilitary executions, disappointment over an inheritance,

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 8 October 2024 “Hello. Hi. You don’t know me yet … but my name is

Jeremy Malies in North London 6 October 2024 John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger hasn’t been seen in

Neil Dowden in South London 6 October 2024 Born in 1855 – the year between the births of Oscar Wilde

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 5 October 2024 “Queenie! Come in! The water is lovely!” Rarely have such clichés

Jeremy Malies in North London 4 October 2024 “My people are not caricatures. They are real (though fiction), and if

Neil Dowden in west London 2 October 2024 In a 1982 TV interview, when asked how he’d like to be

Jane Edwardes in north London 29 September 2024 Playwright Rob Drummond is not to be trusted. At the beginning of

Neil Dowden in the West End 29 September 2024 At one time Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot tended to be

Simon Thomas in the South West 27 September 2024 It is tempting to think that in 2024 we are edging

Jeremy Malies in south-west London 27 September 2024 A play is a poem in which “the action is not related

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 25 September 2024 Kwame Kwei-Armah’s final show as director while leading the Young Vic

Robert Schneider in East Haddam, Connecticut 17 September 2024 This new musical by Scottish-born country star Johnny Reid in collaboration

Dana Rufolo in the Czech Republic 8 September 2024 If This Is A Man by Primo Levi has always been

Jeremy Malies in west London 15 September 2024 “You can pretend you’re her!” “No, I have to be her –

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 14 September 2024 First staged in 1982, The Real Thing is deservedly one of

Jeremy Malies in north London 12 September 2024 The Boys from Syracuse is a 1938 musical by Richard Rodgers and

Jeremy Malies in north London 10 September 2024 Accustomed to tricksy titles at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where I missed

Tom Bolton in East London 9 September 2024 In the basement studio at the Arcola Theatre, instruments are set up

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 4 September 2024 When the novel on which this play is based first came out

Jeremy Malies in the West End 3 September 2024 Peter Hall used to say that good politics always makes bad

Tom Bolton in West London 31 August 2024 Upstairs at the Royal Court the set, by Madeleine Boyd, consists of

Simon Jenner in East Sussex 21 August 2024  Behind every Ideal Husband there’s an idealist wife: or so Wilde mischievously

Jeremy Malies in the West End 19 August 2024 From Lawrence Krauss to Stephen Hawking by way of Oppenheimer, Einstein,

Simon Thomas in South West England 10 August 2024  On paper, director Richard Jones and playwright Harold Pinter is a perfect combination.

Simon Jenner in East Sussex 10 August 2024  It seems the year for Oliver Twist. The Matthew Bourne/Cameron Mackintosh production

 Mark Shenton in North London 9 August 2024  After the sheer, unadulterated joy of the current Palladium revival of Hello,

Mark Shenton in North London 5 August 2024  “Who am I anyway? / Am I my résumé? / That is

Jeremy Malies in the West End 5 August 2024 Death of England: The Plays by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams

Mark Shenton in West London 25 July 2024 In an evolving musical theatre landscape, shows that are designed to both

Mark Shenton in West Sussex 25 July 2024 Producer Cameron Mackintosh has his own name alone above the title of

Glenda Frank  in New York 25 July 2024 For almost a decade, some of the best theatre has been played

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 24 July 2024 What is it with food on stage now? Everything from Next

Jeremy Malies in West London 21 July 2024 “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” said Joan Didion. But

Simon Jenner in East Sussex 19 July 2024  “Is there a serious production of this?” asked one audience member en

Mark Shenton in the West End 19 July 2024 “Well hello, Dolly, it’s so nice to have you back where

Simon Jenner in East Sussex 18 July 2024 It seems pure Patrick Barlow, but as a programme detail reminds us,

Neil Dowden in North London 16 July 2024 Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig’s 1922 novella Letter from

Neil Dowden in the West End 13 July 2024 Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play garnered a then record-breaking 12 nominations

Jeremy Malies in the West End 13 July 2024 Plays and musicals set in factories include The Factory Girls, The

Mark Shenton in the West End 10 July 2024 The impressive programme brochure for Your Lie in April is designed

Mark Shenton in north London 2 July 2024 The third-longest running Andrew Lloyd Webber musical to be launched across the

Tom Bolton in North London 2 July 2024 English is set in a classroom of the kind recognizable throughout the

Jeremy Malies in the West End 1 July 2024 Give this your best attention if you want to see a

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 1 July 2024 Joe Penhall’s absorbing new play The Constituent is a pertinent dramatization

Mark Shenton in the West End 28 June 2024 London is awash with back to high school musicals: Babies, currently

Tom Bolton in West London 23 June 2024 The entirety of Stewart Pringle’s The Bounds takes place on a small

Mark Shenton in central London 20 June 2024 The biggest and splashiest new production to open in London in the

Mark Shenton in the West End 17 June 2024 Musicals about teenagers are all the rage right now. The Outsiders,

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 17 June 2024 “You’ve got a lot of stuff here!” says Ian McDiarmid playing Davies,

Tom Bolton in west London 16 June 2024 Italian company lacasadargilla bring their touring production of Caryl Churchill’s short play

Simon Thomas in the South West 14 June 2024 During her all-too-brief tenure as Artistic Director of the Ustinov Studio,

Simon Jenner in west London 7 June 2024 “It’s wrong to hate, they say. It’s wrong to love, too,” the

Jane Edwardes in south-west London 7 June 2024 In 1965, Noël Coward finished three plays, one full-length and two short

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 4 June 2024 There’s a watery theme developing at the National Theatre. In London

Mark Shenton in the West End 4 June 2024 Jenna Innes and Keelan McAuley. Photo credit: Pamela Raith Photography. Yet

Jeremy Malies in west London 2 June 2024 “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action …”

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg 2 June 2024 Once again, Frank Hoffmann, artistic director of the Théâtre National du Luxembourg (TNL)

Simon Jenner in west London 2 June 2024 “Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 31 May 2024   In 1970, a park ranger discovered Chinese characters carved into

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 31 May 2024 Mid-eighteenth-century gothic is a niche genre, but Jamila Gavin’s 2,000 novel Coram

Jeremy Malies in Romania 30 May 2024 “No quote from Schopenhauer ever raised a penis.” Well, the authors of the

Mark Shenton in south London 28 May 2024 The Young Vic has long pivoted itself on the more experimental spectrum

Simon Jenner in south-east London 25 May 2024  In some ways composer/lyricist Jerry Herman (1931–2019) was a pioneer; and for

Jeremy Malies in Romania 23 May 2024 At festivals worldwide, be it Timișoara or Brighton, we return to the Greeks

Simon Jenner at Brighton Festival 21 May 2024 The UK regional premiere of Steven Dykes’s 2004 Homestead opens at Brighton

Neil Dowden in north London 20 May 2024  All credit to Hampstead Theatre for once again staging the UK premiere

Franco Milazzo in the West End 17 May 2024  In her first scene, Denise Gough’s aspiring actress Emma loudly declares

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 10 May 2024  Strindberg’s 136-year-old play Miss Julie (albeit in a radical workover) proves its

Simon Thomas in the South West 10 May 2024 A few decades ago seeing a Terence Rattigan play seemed like

Franco Milazzo in the West End 9 May 2024 If the avalanche of movie-to-stage adaptations is becoming something of a

Jeremy Malies in the West End 8 May 2024 My last exposure to The Cherry Orchard, in Hackney, took me

Dana Rufolo in Austria 6 May 2024 Frank Castorf, the director of this Thomas Berhard play, certainly never learned to

Simon Jenner in west London 3 May 2024 A story by American sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick isn’t the first

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 23 April 2024 “This is the story of a river / That springs from

Simon Jenner in north London 19 April 2024 A woman sits and plays the piano at St Pancras International Station

Tom Shortland in Cambridgeshire 18 April 2024  The School for Scandal is a Restoration comedy about a perfectly innocent woman

Neil Dowden in north London April 17 2024 Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has established himself as one of the leading young American

Glenda Frank on Broadway 15 April 2024 Water for Elephants is one of the most beautifully crafted musicals to vault

Jeremy Malies in the West End 9 April 2024 As Mary, the morphine-addicted matriarch hurtling towards oblivion at the end

Mark Shenton in south London 8 April 2024 The late Kevin Elyot wrote only a handful of plays, but they

Simon Jenner in west London 8 April 2024 This is the purest theatre I’ve seen at the Royal Court in

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 8th April 2024 “This … is not about me,” Charlotte Brontë (Gemma Whelan) keeps

Tom Bolton in north London 8 April 2024 “Make Mine a Double”, the Park Theatre’s initiative to get more early

Jeremy Malies in south-east London 4 April 2024 “They wouldn’t have lasted a day in the Sixties!” For me, it’s

Mark Shenton in the West End 1 April 2024 Known as the “King of Pop”, Michael Jackson has cast a

Simon Thomas in the South West 1 April 2024 Premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in

Simon Jenner in north London 30 March 2024 April De Angelis is back tackling a subject at which she often

Jeremy Malies in West London 28 March 2024 “I always knew when nothing was going to happen.” Frank Hardy, the

Mark Shenton in the West End 27 March 2024 “You gotta make magic out of tragic,” we are repeatedly told

Neil Dowden in the West End 26 March 2024 Tyrell Williams won a clutch of awards for most promising playwright

Glenda Frank on Broadway 24 March 2024 “Sex.” “Scandal”. These words snag our attention. Other words stimulate the imagination –

Mark Shenton in the West End 24 March 2024 Why are nuns so irreverently and inherently funny, at least for

Yann Messager reports from 6th arrondissement February 2024 How does one wrap one’s head around the idea of suffering? To

Tom Bolton in south London 18 March 2023 As Figs in Wigs point out, it takes a lot of development

Mark Shenton in the West End 15 March 2024 Philip Brugglestein, Harry Clarke’s lonely narrator and fabulist who invents an

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 13 March 2024 Tim Price’s new play Nye is an entertaining if episodic portrait

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 8 March 2024 Harold Pinter used to banter with friends by quoting bizarre moments

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 4 March 2024   Productions of this wonderful play abound internationally. Chichester Festival Theatre

Jeremy Malies in the West End 5 March 2024 I had been transfixed for much of it, transported through three

Neil Dowden in the West End 4 March 2024 Lucy Kirkwood’s ambitious new play The Human Body packs in a

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 1 March 2024 German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s 2022 work Nachtland (here given its

Mark Shenton in south London 28 February 2024 With the ever-alarming rise of the threats of fascism and antisemitism around

Mark Shenton in east London 24 February 2024 When the original 2004 production of The Big Life transferred from the

Neil Dowden in the West End 23 February 2024 In its satire of political corruption and media bias, Ibsen’s 1882

Mark Shenton in the West End 22 February 2024 Like The Who’s Tommy, which began its rock-opera life as a

Neil Dowden in north London 21 February 2024 John Logan’s fascinating new play Double Feature is a close-up view of

Yann Messager in Paris 19 February 2024 Simon Stone’s Traviata, with gripping musical direction by Giacomo Sagripanti, is a grandiose

Glenda Frank in Manhattan 19 February 2024 We slip into Days of Wine and Roses — now at Studio 54

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 19 February 2024 It is difficult to approach the National Theatre’s revival of Dodie

Jeremy Malies in Hove 14 February 2024 They say only organists go to organ concerts. Whether audience members who surrounded

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 14 February 2024 Jukebox musicals have become the lazy bane – or easy balm,

Neil Dowden in west London 11 February 2024 Frantic Assembly’s first new commission since the pandemic is an adaptation by

Simon Thomas in the South West 10 February 2024 The origins of the legend of Bluebeard, the serial wife-killer, are not

Jeremy Malies in the West End 10 February 2024 Write Jerusalem – which many people consider to be the best

Dana Rufolo in Antwerp February 2024 Imagine you are not on this earth and yet you are in a theatre,

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin January 2024 The staging history of Yasmina Reza’s Trois versions de la vie (literally: Three Versions

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 4 February 2024   Nearly every day brings us traumatic news from distant parts of the globe:

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 4 February  2024 Wedding days that are joyful and run smoothly are hardly likely

Glenda Frank in New York After a banner run Off Broadway and 2022 Drama Desk awards for outstanding play as

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg We choose to remain blissfully unaware of the fact that life as we know it would

Jeremy Malies in east London 28 January 2024 One of the many merits of Last Rites performed by Ramesh Meyyappan

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg I went to the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg City on Saturday evening 14 January 2024 to

Dana Rufolo The most brilliant, dramatic and beautiful performance I have had the privilege to see in a long time

Tom Bolton on the South Bank 20 January 2024 Founded in 2001, Gecko Theatre are a collective with an unmistakable

Tom Bolton in west London 19 January 2024 Transferring from Stratford-upon-Avon, Charlie Josephine’s queer fantasy Western Cowbois breezes into town

Simon Jenner in the West End 12 January 2024 Paul Unwin’s The Enfield Haunting – about the alleged supernatural incidents

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 10 January 2024   It’s comparatively rare that a dramatist hatches a work that

Dana Rufolo in Brussels Milo Rau, Swiss-born director of the theatre company NTGent in Ghent, Belgium, is no stranger to

Neil Dowden in west London 20 December 2023 Riverside Studios have a hot ticket (with a top price of £175,

Jane Edwardes in the West End 19 December 2023 It was clear going into the Phoenix Theatre on the second

Jeremy Malies in north London 18 December 2023   Cold War is an adaptation by Conor McPherson of Paweł Pawlikowski’s

Neil Dowden in north London 16 December 2023 The Cold War is back this winter – at least in north

Mark Shenton in the West End 15 December 2023   Peter Pan, of course, is famously the boy who refuses

Jeremy Malies in south-east London 12 December 2023 A novitiate who only recently came under the spell, I am now

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 11 December 2023 Matthew Dunster’s compelling revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming opens in

Simon Thomas in the South West 10 December 2023 An opera staged at Bath’s Ustinov Studio is always going to

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 4 December 2023 The new production at the National Theatre of The House of

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 2 December 2023 “It’s very weird and great.” A woman is trying to read

Yann Messager reports from the 6th arrondissement Stéphane Braunschweig’s “Andromaque” at the Théâtre de l’Odéon is a grand and harrowing performance

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 27 November 2023   Every year theatres up and down the land chase the

Jeremy Malies in west London 26 November 2023 “I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home!” is

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 24 November 2023 It is well known that the first performances of Ibsen’s play

Yann Messager reports from Ile-de-France 23 November 2023   Astrid Bayiha’s latest creation, “M comme Médée,” is a tediously self-indulgent

Theatre Royal Brighton Jeremy Malies in East Sussex “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” said William Faulkner.

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 13 November 2023 Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here places the friendship of six

Jane Edwardes in west London 13 November 2023 Comedies are rarely seen at the Royal Court, but times are harsh,

Jeremy Malies in the West End 13 November 2023 Cock jokes it seems, to paraphrase Claudius in Hamlet, “come not

Neil Dowden in south London 12 November 2023 The plays of Federico García Lorca are regularly staged in the UK,

Neil Dowden in north London 12 November 2023 Richard Bean’s new play To Have and to Hold takes a wryly

Jeremy Malies in East Sussex 12 November 2023 In Brian Friel’s Translations the focus is on what is lost or

Tom Bolton in south London 5 November 2023 Cade & MacAskill – Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill – are a performance

Jeremy Malies in Eastbourne 4 November 2023 As a satire on military conflicts of all kinds, Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What

Mark Shenton in the West End 3 November 2023 Time famously plays tricks on us all; but what if our

Simon Thomas in the South West 1 November 2023 Deborah Warner’s tenure as artistic director of Bath’s Ustinov Studio continues

Yann Messager in Paris 1 November 2023 Jacques Weber’s Ruy Blas is an aesthetically intriguing and occasionally gripping rendition of

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin October 2023 This year, Anton Chekhov’s plays have been as popular as ever in Berlin. Following

Jeremy Malies in the West End 29 October 2023 Worker solidarity, second chances, and ambition tempered by kindness are the

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 26 October 2023 “My life would be a beautiful story that would become true,

Neil Dowden in the West End 24 October 2023 Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling 2020 novel Hamnet opened

Neil Dowden in north London 23 October 2023 Over the last four decades Marina Carr has forged a considerable reputation

Simon Thomas in the South West 21 October 2023 The first time I saw Brian Cox on stage was in

Glenda Frank in New York 19 October 2023 Despite the blood-red curtains, the ebony desk with its golden memento mori,

Vincent Macaigne’s vision of  Shakespeare at MC93 (Maison de la culture de Seine-Saint-Denis à Bobigny) Yann Messager reports from Paris

Simon Jenner in the West End 19 October 2023 Caryl Churchill’s first stage play Owners has proved doubly prescient. Premiering

Mark Shenton in the West End 16 October 2023 As the sun finally begins to set on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s

Neil Dowden in west London 16 October 2023 Ten years on from premiering Tanika Gupta’s The Empress, the RSC have

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 13 October 2023 “It wasn’t as if there was any mystery to unravel” is one

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 12 October 2023 In 2020, Clint Dyer and Roy Williams launched the first of

Glenda Frank in Manhattan 9 October 2023 This does not open with a bang although Jane (Sydney Lemmon, TÁR, “Succession”)

Dana Rufolo in Ghent October 2023   The first foray into directing opera of the acclaimed Swiss theatre director Milo

Simon Thomas in Somerset 6 October 2023 It seems no time at all since Rupert Everett was appearing in the

Tom Bolton in South London 5 October 2023 There is something about Beyoncé and Thomas Middleton. Within a few minutes,

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg October 2023 Lovefool is a drama that demands attention; it is a feminist cri de coeur

Mark Shenton in the West End 5 October 2023 Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends was a one-night gala held (appropriately) at

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 1 October 2023 Kim’s having a bad day, and it spans over a century.

Simon Jenner in West Sussex October 1 2023 “In the world of quizzing, the man who has the questions is

Jane Edwardes in the West End 1 October 2023  When Peter Hall was artistic director of the National Theatre, he

Jeremy Malies in south London  1 October 2023  Playwright Charlie Dupré’s imagination and writing skills have been fired by several

Neil Dowden in north London 28 September 2023 It seems that American playwright Lynn Nottage is finally getting the recognition

Mark Shenton in central London 27 September 2023 In Harold Pinter’s 1975 play No Man’s Land two older men meet

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 26 September 2023 “This is an age of upstarts” is one of Henry Higgins’s

Mark Shenton in east London 25 September 2023 In Jonathan Harvey’s first big hit play Beautiful Thing, originally premiered in

Neil Dowden in north London 25 September 2023 Hampstead Theatre has done sterling work in staging a number of new

Tom Bolton in south London 25 September 2023 It seems 2023 is the year we rediscovered the nuclear bomb. Against

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 20 September 2023 The name Nathuram Godse may not be familiar to most people

Mark Shenton in the West End 18 September 2023 The New York-based comedian, author, filmmaker, and podcaster Mike Birbiglia specializes

Jeremy Malies in west London 18 September 2023  Polly Stenham’s first play That Face (2007) opens by showing a piece

Mark Shenton in the West End 15 September 2023    In a world of seemingly endless re-hashes of popular film

Mark Shenton in the West End 14 September 2023   Like productions of King Lear or Hamlet, you never have

Neil Dowden in west London 12 September 2023 French playwright Yasmina Reza is best known for her dark comedies satirizing

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 9 September 2023   After April De Angelis’ Kerry Jackson at the National last year,

Simon Thomas in the West Country 2 September 2023 A play like Farewell Mister Haffmann shouldn’t really be as entertaining as it

Mark Shenton in the West End 1 September 2023 London had to wait 35 years for the arrival of the