Sunday, December 30, 2018
Sharon D Clarke’s bravura performance in Caroline, or Change reaches London’s West End, tears flow at Goodnight Mister Tom, and a Robin Hood reboot hits the markChristmas is for children…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMSunday, December 23, 2018
Tramway, GlasgowSound, light and sets brilliantly convey Scrooge’s turn from miserliness to philanthropy in Neil Bartlett’s joyous adaptationCharles Dickens’s 1843 story of the transfo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMSunday, December 16, 2018
Mel Brooks’s classic musical about two swindling impresarios gets a risky reprise, while a brilliant cast carry off Cole Porter“It ain’t no myst’ry. If it’s politics or hist’ry. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMSunday, December 9, 2018
Ustinov, BathDiana Quick and Ian Gelder star as Holocaust survivors moving from New York to Florida in this superb production of Donald Margulies’s 80s black comedyFinely directed by Laure…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AMSunday, December 2, 2018
NST City, SouthamptonJon Brittain’s musical adaptation of David Walliams’s tale of Joe Spud, the richest boy in the country, has plenty to sing aboutDavid Walliams’s book titles give m…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AMSunday, November 25, 2018
Home, ManchesterThough prison metaphors threaten to oversimplify this nuanced tale of sinister role-play, great performances win outWhen Mistress is out, her two maids, sisters Claire and So…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMSunday, November 18, 2018
York Theatre RoyalPantomime gags drive home the betrayal of the working class in this deft update of Fo’s comic caperHunger is the starting point for Italian Nobel prize winner Dario Fo’…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMSunday, November 11, 2018
Nottingham PlayhouseThrough Gatiss, the audience feels the agonies of Alan Bennett’s tormented monarchKing George III is not mad, but he is ill. However, the porphyria from which he suffer…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMSunday, November 4, 2018
Crucible, SheffieldA crack ensemble delivers Kate Bowen’s timely new play exploring identity and gender through female officers on their first tour of dutyLast month, the defence secretary…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMSunday, October 28, 2018
Live theatre, NewcastleA fantastical reworking of The Fall of the House of Usher set in a Tyneside psychiatric ward hits all the right notesA large, bright clock face looms over double doors…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:48AMSunday, October 21, 2018
Leeds PlayhouseCharacters stranded in a transitional land exchange stories, fears and hopes in this timely productionPremiered during the Yugoslav wars, the action of David Greig’s first f…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMSunday, October 14, 2018
Albion Electric Warehouse, LeedsThe audience becomes part of the action in this tremendous promenade production of Brecht’s antiwar, anti-capitalist playRed Ladder is 50 this year. For a c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AMSunday, September 30, 2018
Birmingham Rep, and touringThe now-retired inspector returns in a new story by Ian Rankin and playwright Rona MunroIn one of Ian Rankin’s Rebus stories, the curmudgeonly Edinburgh detectiv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMSunday, September 23, 2018
Crucible Studio, SheffieldThin characterisation and half-formed scenes mar this play about women, race and Labour politics set in a northern cityChris Bush’s new play, directed by Rebecca …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMSunday, September 16, 2018
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughAlan Ayckbourn blurs the lines as an ageing crime writer’s life invades his fictionFor three of its four acts, the tone of Alan Ayckbourn’s new play, h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:18AMSunday, September 9, 2018
York Theatre RoyalA stunning cast and unshowy direction do full justice to Bennett’s far-reaching play imagining a meeting between Auden and BrittenIt’s 1972. To the Oxford college rooms…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMSunday, August 26, 2018
CanadaHub at King’s Hall, EdinburghCliff Cardinal’s visceral tale of addiction, violence and abuse is a shape-shifting tour de force“It’s a tough watch,” said the man handing …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMSunday, August 19, 2018
Assembly Rainy Hall, Edinburgh Mark O’Rowe’s compelling new work draws breathtaking performances from Aisling O’Sullivan, Cathy Belton and Derbhle Crotty“People are sitting at a tabl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMSunday, August 12, 2018
Grosvenor Park Open Air theatre, ChesterThe fun moments cannot lift Bryony Lavery’s workaday productionSharks surge between the banked tiers of the temporary auditorium, dorsal fins glide …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AMSunday, August 5, 2018
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughThe playwright directs a terrific revival of his 1978 play centred around a happy couple who want for nothing…Written a decade after Iris Murdoch’s nov…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AMSunday, July 29, 2018
Milton Keynes international festivalA thrilling collaboration between a circus and dance company full of daring leaps and bounds, and a giant Jenga setBlock is one of five circus-inspired ev…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42AMSunday, July 22, 2018
Williamson Park, LancasterThemes of kindness and inclusivity are threaded cleverly through a lavish, thrilling adaptation“All for one and one for all!” rings out the cry of the three mus…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:04AMSunday, July 15, 2018
New Vic, Newcastle-under-LymeAn action-packed production tells the story of the local man who invented big-top entertainment 250 years agoCircus is hopefulness in action. Objects fly, people…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:48AMSunday, June 24, 2018
Chester CathedralIn a break from tradition this year, Chester's Mystery Plays are performed inside the city's cathedral. The setting suits them – and they it. Stage lanterns blaze on to a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:18AMSunday, June 17, 2018
Children’s Wood and North Kelvin Meadow, GlasgowNational Theatre of Scotland’s pioneering play transports the audience into the individual worlds of autistic performers“Embrace nature,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:32AMSunday, June 10, 2018
Various venues, BoltonAn inventive adaptation of the Cliff Richard movie takes its audience all aboard for an unashamedly feelgood outingMany transport promises have been broken round these …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42PMSunday, May 27, 2018
Paisley Arts CentreThe staple figure of Slavic folklore is wittily recreated as a noisy neighbour with magical powersAny Russians in the audience expecting to find the Baba Yaga of childhood…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMSunday, May 20, 2018
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsUnconvincing plotting and a tension-free narrative hamper this adaptation of Paula Hawkins’s novelA woman is missing. In a room, a detective quizzes two peop…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMSunday, May 13, 2018
York Theatre RoyalJonathan Lewis stars in his own perceptive play about exam pressures within a familyThis timely four-hander explosively explores the pressures of our exam-obsessed educatio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMSunday, May 6, 2018
Everyman, LiverpoolCasting a woman as Othello was a brilliant move, but setting the play in the present day undermines itSince a play is a world of make-believe, gender-blind and colour-blin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:24AMSunday, April 29, 2018
Octagon, BoltonLawrence Till’s adaptation of Bill Naughton’s short stories makes a fitting final production before the building’s refurbishmentWhat is a theatre but a little world wher…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AM 
