Review

Neil Dowden in north London 19 September 2022 Richard Eyre has had a distinguished career as a director of plays,

Simon Jenner in north London 15 September 2022 Six into five won’t go. When overworked British-Nigerian junior doctor Ore (Gloria

Neil Dowden in central London 14 September 2022 Inua Ellams is a British-Nigerian playwright, poet, and performer best known for

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 12 September 2022 Who Killed My Father – the absence of a question mark

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Austria 9 September 2022 After a last-minute cancellation last June due to illness, the highly awaited

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 4 September 2022   Harry Lloyd’s Jim stands on the abyss of his smartphone downstage

Simon Thomas in Somerset 26 August 2022   Eleven years ago former Monty Python Terry Gilliam made his operatic debut

Glenda Frank on Broadway 14 August 2022 The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s first novel (2003) was on The New York

Jeremy Malies in north London 12 August 2022 Sustained applause in the middle of a show is rarely the will

Glenda Frank in Manhattan 28 July 2022   Murder is how the characters in Robert Icke’s rewriting of Aeschylus’ Oresteia

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 1 August 2022 How times have changed. When Roy Williams’ Sing Yer Heart Out For

Crysse Morrison in the West Country 31 July 2022 Remember reading Treasure Island as a child or quite possibly as

Neil Dowden in west London 26 July 2022 Patrick Marber’s play Closer became a big hit when first produced at

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin 23 July 2022 The musical comedy Happy End , which Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill opened

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 23 July 2022 “With love to lead the way, I’ve found more clouds of gray

Crysse Morrison in Somerset 20 July 2022 Back in the 1970s, in an era of exuberance unrecognisable to most in

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 18 July 2022 There are three time periods in this reworking of Sheridan’s The

Neil Dowden in north London 18 July 2022 Peter Morgan has made a successful career of imagining what went on

Annie Loui in Perugia 11 July 2022 History of Violence directed by Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of the Schaubühne Theater

Dana Rufolo in north London 9 July 2022 Experiencing the vitality and emotional intensity of black British playwright Roy Williams’

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch at the Berlin Theatertreffen festival 6 July 2022   In 2020 and 2021, the annual Theatertreffen festival had

Tom Bolton in south London 5 July 2022   It says something about national cultures that the French equivalent of

Annie Loui in Perugia 5 July 2022 The Belgian-based choreography WEG by Ayelin Parolin comes to this Umbria festival framed by

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 23 June 2022 Jitney is August Wilson’s first work in his epic Pittsburgh or

Neil Dowden in Richmond 21 June 2022   The Orange Tree Theatre’s latest show in their adventurous mix of old

Crysse Morrison in the south-west 20 June 2022 August Strindberg considered this his best play, and the vicious marital hostility

Jeremy Malies in the West End 20 June 2022   As we take our seats for James Macdonald’s production with

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna 16 June 2022 One of the highlights of this year’s Theater im Park, which is

Simon Jenner in Brighton 15 June 2022   “Where nothing happens. Twice.” Thus Vivian Mercier at this work’s Irish premiere

Neil Dowden in west London 8 June 2022   Jean Racine’s tightly structured neoclassical plays – obeying the unities of

Neil Dowden in the West End 7 June 2022   Tennessee Williams famously described The Glass Menagerie – which made

Neil Dowden in north London 3 June 2022 Girl on an Altar is Irish playwright Marina Carr’s powerful new take

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna After two cancellations in April 2020 and March 2021, the long-awaited Vienna premiere of Gruber

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 31 May 2022 You don’t see a version of the life story of Mahatma

Neil Dowden in east London 29 May 2022 The Arcola has finally reopened its indoor theatre – having previously staged

Jeremy Malies in the West End 23 May 2022   The action of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady begins

Neil Dowden in north London Beth Steel writes big, bold, ambitious dramas in which individuals are caught up in a

Neil Dowden in north London 16 May 2022 Although based in the UK for many years, Naomi Wallace returns to

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 12 May 2022 An unusual Skidmore Ranch this one; Jud Fry not only looks

Jeremy Malies in the West End 10 May 2022 It’s St George’s Day in an unspecified year at the village

Tom Bolton in Notting Hill, London 26 April 2022 Irish company Gare St Lazare were booked to perform at the

Neil Dowden in west London 23 April 2022 Mike Bartlett has become one of the few contemporary living playwrights to

22 April 2022 Das Zigarettenreich (Jeder Traum hat ein Ende), Werk X- Petersplatz Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna.   The

Glenda Frank in New York City Birthday Candles, a play by Noah Haidle, produced by Roundabout Theatre follows Ernestine from

Glenda Frank on Broadway 17 April 2022 Take Me Out, a locker room dramedy by Richard Greenberg, now at the

Neil Dowden in the West End 11 April 2022 Harper Lee’s classic 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird has been

Jeremy Malies in Waterloo 11 April 2022   The near future in vaguely Shakespearian blank verse appears to have plenty

Crysse Morrison in south-west England 8 April 2022   When Liam leaves his best friend Fletch on an upwardly mobile

Glenda Frank in New York 7 April 2022   Has Sarah Jessica Parker been miscast all these years? Yes, she

Crysse Morrison in Somerset 7 April 2022   “Never boring for a split second” was Noël Coward’s verdict on the

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 30 March 2022   David Hare’s new play Straight Line Crazy at the Bridge

Jeremy Malies in north London 25 March 2022   Ethnicity and land grab. Reduce things down to how people really

Neil Dowden in the West End 24 March 2022   Jean Cocteau’s 1930 monodrama The Human Voice about a woman’s

Dana Rufolo in Germany 18 March 2022   It is a relief that Franziska Autzen, the director of Katharina Blum

Neil Dowden in the West End 18 March 2022 Mike Bartlett made his name with the Olivier Award-winning Cock at

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna 14 March 2022   Vienna’s Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom has joined forces with the acclaimed stage

Crysse Morrison in Bristol 14 March 2022 ‘A vision for the future of theatre’ is how director Tom Morris sees

Crysse Morrison in Bristol Written by David Lane and directed by Sita Calvert-Ennals, this poignant two-hander follows an imagined reunion

Tom Bolton in London Borough of Newham 11 March 2022 Dennis Kelly’s 2005 play After the End is set inside

Tom Bolton in Notting Hill Gate 4 March 2022   Jonathan Kent opened his tenure as Artistic Director of the

Maggie Rose in Milan 7 October 2022 M. Il figlio del secolo is a literary adaptation, based on Antonio Scurati’s

Maggie Rose in Milan 21 September 2022   Milan’s Franco Parenti theatre has hosted La vita davanti a sé (The

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 8 March 2022   Last staged in London 26 years ago, David Mamet’s 1977

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 25 February 2022   Anthony McCarten’s new play focuses on a fascinating true episode

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli at the Bronski & Grünberg Theater, Vienna   Bronski & Grünberg Theater is a popular venue in

Glenda Frank in New York City2 February 2022   Prayer for the French Republic, Joshua Harmon’s (Significant Other) new play,

Neil Dowden in north London15 February 2022 Over the last decade French playwright Florian Zeller has had a series of

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna 30 September 2021 Kaja Dymnicki and Alexander Pschill are founding members of Vienna’s Bronski & Grünberg

Neil Dowden in north London17 February 2022 The slippery ambivalence of absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco’s works makes them tricky to

Tom Bolton on the South Bank4 February 2022   Sean Holmes’ production of Hamlet in the Globe’s indoor space opens

Jeremy Malies in Canterbury10 February 2022 “Hate the critics? I have nothing but compassion for them. How can one hate

Neil Dowden on the South Bank11 February 2022 Bristol-based company Wise Children’s touring production of Wuthering Heights now blusters into

Crysse Morrison in Bristol27 January 2022 Bristol Old Vic director Tom Morris pulled off what many will consider a coup when

„Der Herr Rudi“ in Georg Danzers „ Sauna G’schichten“ Reviewed by Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna.7 February 2022   Following

Jeremy Malies at the Old Vic2 February 2022 Caryl Churchill’s A Number is about cloning though the word is never

Neil Dowden in Sloane Square, London.28 January 2022 Alistair McDowall’s new play The Glow is a strange brew. The first

Jeremy Malies in north London20 December 2021   Peggy for You, written by Alan Plater in 1999, is the last

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank Best of Enemies by James Graham was always going to be a triumph or

Dana Rufolo on a streamed Romanian theatre festival.13 December 2021 The National Theater of Cluj-Napoca, Romania’s streamed 2021 Theatre Festival

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna atEin Sommernachtstraum am Wörthersee – oder Wann ist die Familie Lustig aus Graz verschwunden20 March

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli in Vienna12 January 2022 After the cancellation of the originally scheduled premiere about a year ago, the

Neil Dowden in Southwark14 December 2021 Alan Bennett may be cherished for his subtle melancholic comedy but in 1973 he

Dana Rufolo in Constance 2 October 2021 In the Spring 2019 issue of Plays International & Europe, the new artistic

Julie Sorokurs in Covent Garden21 October 2021 Love and Other Acts of Violence serves as the Donmar’s inaugural production after

Ben Brooker at the Bakehouse Theatre11 September 2021 When an actress friend of mine recently asked if I was going

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex14 October 2021 David Storey’s amazing play Home has been produced by the Chichester Festival Theatre

Neil Dowden in Newham, London.24 September 2021 One of Ireland’s leading playwrights, Conor McPherson is probably best known for The

Neil Dowden on the South Bank1 October 2021 The National Theatre’s revival of Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking 1985 play The Normal

Alice Grahame on the South Bank3 September 2021 Winsome Pinnock’s powerful drama looks at the impact of the unfinished business

Alice Grahame on the South Bank13 October 2021 The American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has built up an impressive body of

Margaret Rose in Milan20 November 2021 Theatreland is once again bustling with companies scrambling to open productions, some of which

Neil Dowden on the South Bank13 September 2021 Actor turned playwright Ayub Khan Din is best known for his semi-autobiographical

Dana Rufolo in Constance29 October 2021 Extracting a two-hour long play out of a one thousand-page novel is always a

Neil Dowden in Southwark19 September 2021 The Menier Chocolate Factory finally reopened in September with Paula Vogel’s Indecent, which had

Alice Grahame in north London12 September 2021 At a time when many of us are preoccupied with illness, hospitals and

Jakob Hingst in Hamburg One of the productions of the Thalia Theater’s new season, which began in August, truly deserves

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 10 December 2021 The African-American actor/playwright/novelist/activist Alice Childress made a significant impact in her

Neil Dowden in outer London3 September 2021 Athol Fugard’s 1972 play Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act is

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin15 August 2021   The Berliner Ensemble started the new [post-2021 lockdown] season with a revival of

Jeremy Malies in north London 15 September 2021 Kiln Theatre in Kilburn has commissioned and produced NW Trilogy, a set

Jeremy Malies in west Sussex 9 September 2021   The cliché is that Martin McDonagh was enthused to write plays

Jeremy Malies in west London 28 June 2021   Race runs through each of a trio of monologue plays by

Jeremy Malies in the London Borough of Havering 8 September 2021   David Eldridge’s Beginning is a play for two

Crysse Morrison in the west of England 10 October 2021 Open-air theatre has always formed a strong strand of live

Jeremy Malies in Berkshire14 October 2021 It’s a truism among Anton Chekhov diehards that Firs in The Cherry Orchard should

Neil Dowden at Happy Days 18 June 2021   Happy days are here again with Trevor Nunn’s sixtieth anniversary production

Jay Paul Skelton in the West End 13 December 2020   In the nineteenth century, the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull

Neil Dowden in north London 9 July 2021 Ayad Akhtar is an American writer of Pakistani heritage with his finger

Glenda Frank on Broadway 23 August 2021   Pass Over is perfect for a newly active Broadway. Playwright Antoinette Chinonye

Julie Sorokurs on the South Bank 12 August 2021   Kae Tempest’s Paradise, premiered in the round at the National

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 4 July 2021   The Bridge Theatre — which boldly led the way in

Jeremy Malies in the West End 7 October 2021   The Mirror and the Light is the third of Hilary

John Russell Taylor on the South Bank. 23 June 2021 The National Theatre opened its doors to audiences again in

John Russell Taylor in the West End 2 July 2021 Nick Payne’s award-winning two-hander Constellations (starring Rafe Spall and Sally

Jef Hall-Flavin in south London 31 July 2021 Hearing the song “Wrapped Around Your Finger” as I was coming down

Neil Dowden in the London Borough of Newham 5 July 2021 Theatre Royal Stratford East reopened in the early summer

Jeremy Malies in Lambeth, London 1 August 2021 Changing Destiny is the Young Vic’s much-trumpeted post-Covid return to live drama.

Jef Hall-Flavin in north London 27 July 2021 If The Two Character Play is one of Tennessee Williams’s problematic plays,

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin17 June 2021   Simon McBurney, the co-founder of the British theatre company Complicité and an internationally

Tom Bolton on the South Bank4 December 2021   For her last production in the Globe’s candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,

John Russell Taylor in outer London 22 May 2021   The other day I was watching one of those Rediscovering

Jay Paul Skelton 29 May 2021   Sonia Friedman, the well-known British producer, has not only led the charge as

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin 8 April 2021   The Vaganten Bühne, an intimate hundred-seat theatre tucked away at the end

Jeremy Malies at the Hampstead Theatre 4 June 2021   Alfred Fagon’s rarely staged 1975 play The Death of a

Margaret Rose in Milan 5 June 2021   As I write this report in early June [2021], lockdown is gradually

Julie Sorokurs on the South Bank24 November 2021 Moira Buffini’s Manor was initially set to have its premiere in 2020

How a Fringe Performance Led to the Trial of the Decade 26 August 2022   No theatrical event has been

Ludovico Lucchesi Palli at Werk X-Petersplatz 10 January 2023   Even though all of Vienna’s theatres are currently shut, Werk

Natalia Isaeva in Paris 9 January 2021   7 Deaths of Maria Callas is a co-production with the Bayerischen Staatsoper,

Roxana Silbert, artistic director of Hampstead Theatre, has found a lovely way to burnish the reputation of this venerable playhouse

14 February 2021 Dana Rufolo   The Kreation Kollektiv’s Recherche Show (Research Show), a co-production with the Vienna Volkstheater and

Jay Paul Skelton at Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads: The Bridge Theatre It’s notable how the Bridge Theatre’s production of Talking

Jeremy Malies at the Chichester Festival Theatre (Minerva) 4 November 2020   My trip to Chichester for Sarah Kane’s Crave

Jay Paul Skelton on the South Bank 1 September 2020   Alan Bennett’s celebrated Talking Heads monologues were first broadcast

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 1 September 2020   Has Alan Bennett’s A Lady of Letters fared well since

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 1 September 2020   As with the other pair of plays I review from

Julie Sorokurs on the South Bank 1 September 2020   The Bridge Theatre tentatively opened its doors in late August

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch at the Berliner Ensemble 1 September 2020 The Berliner Ensemble premiered Gott (God), Ferdinand von Schirach’s latest work

Neil Dowden in the West End 1 June 2020   Prospero’s epilogue in The Tempest in which he renounces his

Neil Dowden on two Caryl Churchill plays1 March 2020   During six decades as a playwright, Caryl Churchill has not

Jeremy Malies in the West End 1st March 2020   It may be a signature throughout Anton Chekhov that his

Bill Grantham in Dublin 1 December 2019   This year’s Dublin Theatre Festival was as packed with plays as ever,

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank1 December 2019   There seem to be two current styles of presenting Chekhov: making

Bill Grantham in Dublin and Galway 1 November 2019   I’ve long been an admirer of the Italian film director

Neil Dowden in the West End 1 September 2019   There was much hype ahead of the world premiere of

Mohammad Reza Aliakbari 1 September 2019   Life in the metropolis of Tehran is characterized by a combination of overcrowding,

1 September 2019   I am immediately surrounded by mystical, seemly unearthly sounds that make me feel suspended in space

Jo Briggs on the South Bank1 June 2019   Ten minutes before this play begins, we have the opportunity to

Eva de Valk in central London1 June 2019   The characteristically to-the-point announcement: “This play is called Our Town” is

Iran report1 June 2019   Iranshahr Theatre is one of the oldest and most popular theatres in Tehran. From its

Jeremy Malies in north London17 April 2019   At most productions of Chekhov’s Three Sisters I end up longing for

7 March 2019   Jeremy Malies’s feature covers Simon Stone’s lnternationaal Theater Amsterdam’s Medea which was at London’s Barbican Theatre

Jo Briggs at The Royal Court14 December 2018   I am old enough to remember a cane at my village

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank1 December 2018   There is theatre critic equivalent of locker room gossip suggesting that

Neil Dowden sees two productions of Richard II  at the Almeida Theatre and Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. 1 December 2018  

Jeremy Malies in Essex 26 October 2018   You hardly needed to be a scheduling genius to realize that a

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 25 October 2018   Martin McDonagh’s new play A Very Very Very Dark Matter

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 10 October 2018   Sir David Hare’s I’m Not Running which had its world

Jeremy Malies in East Sussex 13 September 2018   In his The Habit of Art, Alan Bennett uses a play

Michael Ajzenstadt in Tel Aviv 1 September 2018   In the autumn of 1993, the newest play of the time

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 26 August 2018   The best theoretical physicists, notably Lawrence Krauss and the late Stephen

Jo Briggs in Covent Garden14 August 2018   The only son among the last of the O’Donnells of Ballybeg Hall

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 21 October 2018   Emma Rice’s adaptation of Angela Carter’s Wise Children at the

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 17 July 2018   “It lit a match and the explosion was Trump.” This

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 8 June 2018   The style of playwright Polly Stenham has been compared to

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank23 October 2019   Orson Welles said that writers hit peak popularity two or three

Dana Rufolo in Constance In 1776, Adam Smith wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 8 May 2018   End-on, in-the-round with a promenade option and now a thrust.

Jeremy Malies in Covent Garden 7 April 2018   If William Congreve’s The Way of the World is the jewel

Jeremy Malies in Hampshire 5 June 2018   In her programme notes, director Chelsea Walker says: “This is a play

Neil Dowden in the West End 6 February 2018   Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece Long Day’s Journey into Night was not

Neil Dowden in North London 17 December 2017   The 1995 West End premiere of Simon Gray’s play Cell Mates

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin Last November, the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, one of Berlin’s oldest playhouses in the historic city centre,

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 28 January 2018   Nick Payne’s two-hander Constellations at Hartford Theatre Works is an invitation to

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 13 February 2018   Observing the substantial number of school children at the Chichester Festival

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 28 January 2018   Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Baker has seen her 2015 play John

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 28 April 2014   Rival meteorologists squabble for 72 hours over the most important weather

Glenda Frank in New York 6 February 2018   What kind of stories do theatre artists choose to dramatize: stories

David Cowan in Paris 23 January 2017   Provincial life features on the main stage of the Comédie Française in

Doron Elia in Jerusalem 11 December 2017   The ruler of the underworld Samedi says, “Only here in the theatre,

Jeremy Malies in north London8 March 2018   Writers from Virgil through to Sylvia Plath have obsessed about the relationship

David Cowan in Paris 1 February 2018   Jean-Luc Lagarce’s play J’étais dans ma maison et j’attendais que la pluie

Jeremy Malies in Covent Garden 14 February 2018   Peter Gill’s The York Realist depicts two men falling in love

Neil Dowden in Kensington and Chelsea 17 February 2018   Dennis Kelly may have had a lot of popular success

John Russell Taylor in the West End 18 January 2018   In 1958 when The Birthday Party was first performed,

John Russell Taylor in the West End 23 January 2018   Oh dear! Alas, what a fall is here. The

Christine Eccles in Kensington and Chelsea 16 October 2017   In reviewing Rita, Sue and Bob Too it has become

Jeremy Malies in Covent Garden 24 February 2017   One of the numbers in George and Ira Gershwin’s An American

Margaret Leask in Sydney 10 August 2017   The Bell Shakespeare Company’s production of The Merchant of Venice, directed by

Christine Eccles on the South Bank 17 February 2017   It is always a bit uncomfortable for me to watch

Christine Eccles in Kensington & Chelsea 2 August 2017   This is a fantastic and very well-timed revival of Jim

Jeremy Malies in the West End 12 March 2018   “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is” comes from another Noël