Thursday, December 21, 2023
Our critics’ highlights of the year include a 24-hour marathon, a standup welcoming hecklers, a reboot of The Matrix and a bus ride filled with emotion• More on the best culture of 2023
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SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:18AMWednesday, December 20, 2023
Hampstead theatre, LondonStalin’s daughter and a white supremacist’s son navigate their psychological inheritances as scenarios and characters change quickly in a blizzard of ideas
This …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMTuesday, December 19, 2023
Arcola theatre, LondonThis timely revival of Tim Price’s monologue about a rough sleeper drawn into activism leaves little space for vulnerability
‘Got any change?” asks a man with a w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:18PMFriday, December 15, 2023
The staging is imaginative and expressive, and the audience is immersed in the action by hearing everything through headphones
This is the second starry adaptation of Shakespeare’s Scottis…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:18PMThursday, December 14, 2023
Phoenix theatre, LondonThis origin story has all the dark mystery of the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix series and delivers one coup de theatre after another
It starts with those floating red le…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24PMRiverside Studios, LondonDavid Ireland’s explosive satire turns into farce as two buffoons parading as progressives team up with a dramatist played by Louisa Harland
Two white men in show …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:03AMWednesday, December 13, 2023
Hampstead theatre, LondonStoppard’s 2006 play asks important ideological questions with typically fizzing wordplay but its growling, feral energy comes too late
Tom Stoppard has spoken of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:24PMTuesday, December 12, 2023
The NT’s newly announced artistic director was an inspiring leader at the Kiln. She will bring experience, passion, canny ability – and the magnificently unexpected – to her new post
F…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12PMFriday, December 8, 2023
Royal Court theatre, LondonChris Thorpe’s one-man show is more of a scrappy routine than a meaningful call for disarmament
There are nine nations in the world that possess nuclear weapons,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42AMWednesday, December 6, 2023
Young Vic, LondonPlaying a man meeting his daughter-in-law for the first time, Jared Harris brings out the dark comedy in Pinter’s snapshot of misogyny
Harold Pinter’s two-act family dra…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54AMTuesday, December 5, 2023
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonCo-production with Osaka company brings 1976 study of American imperialism arriving in Japan to subtle, funny life
When Stephen Sondheim’s 1976 musical prem…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AMFriday, December 1, 2023
Theatre503, LondonRoxy Cook’s award-winning debut is a whimsical, layered meta-tale about the clash of old Soviet ways and modern, capitalist culture
This play opens just as the title prom…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:18AMThursday, November 30, 2023
Bristol Old VicPart panto, part Arabian version of EastEnders, writer Sonali Bhattacharyya, and a winning cast have cobbled together a fizzing modern-day fable about the power of storytellin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:18AMWednesday, November 29, 2023
The Depot, LiverpoolStaged in a hangar-like venue strewn with the charred remnants of battle, Simon Godwin’s intelligent production puts violent conflict to the fore
At first, it looks lik…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:18PMLyttelton theatre, LondonAdapted by Alice Birch and directed by Rebecca Frecknall, this is a stylised study in control and daughterly disobedience
‘To be born a woman is the worst punishme…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24AMThursday, November 23, 2023
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, LondonJoe Hill-Gibbins directs his own version of the psychodrama, creating a potent atmosphere with designer Rosanna Vize
If the title of Ibsen’s 1881 tragedy abo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:24PMWednesday, November 22, 2023
Olivier theatre, LondonRoald Dahl’s villains are given a makeover with a gag-filled script by Lucy Kirkwood and a couple of storming numbers
In Roald Dahl’s universe, witches are the mos…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMTuesday, November 21, 2023
Coliseum, LondonA colossal cast of singers, dancers, acrobats and contortionists take your breath away in this epic and moving story of betrayal and parental sacrifice
This show, about the g…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:24AMSunday, November 19, 2023
Stanley Arts, LondonCombining spoken dialogue with BSL this innovative production shines a light on the unsung heroes who keep the economy running while the world sleeps
The drama opens as t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AMMonday, November 13, 2023
Performing naked except for a well-positioned accordion, sprig of parsley or mirror, Eliona Haines tackles labia-shaming by chopping up slices of beef and grilling them. She explains all to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:18AMFriday, November 10, 2023
Hampstead theatre, LondonSocial disparities are highlighted in Magdalena Miecznicka’s satirical study of the power play between two former lovers
We enter this drama in the middle of a con…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMWednesday, November 8, 2023
Southwark Playhouse, LondonUnsettling ideas about sinister political forces are debated in a haunted house. It’s timely subject matter, but fails to create any sense of tension
Holed up in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AMTuesday, November 7, 2023
Duke of York’s theatre, LondonPenelope Wilton plays the isolated royal and Luke Evans is her courtier in a light production that never gains much depth
She was the Queen Mother, he was the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:36PMSunday, November 5, 2023
Finborough Theatre, LondonThe third play in this programme of work by Scotland’s first major modern female playwright redeems an otherwise underpowered evening
The first two plays in Ena L…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24PMFriday, November 3, 2023
There may be comfort in the retelling of Dickens’ familiar tale, but the best adaptations show the imagination to still surprise
Has Charles Dickens’ charming little Christmas story beco…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36PMThursday, November 2, 2023
Park theatre, LondonA crisp and jarringly satirical play presents the 1995 Panorama documentary as a forerunner of today’s fake news
Martin Bashir’s now discredited 1995 Panorama intervi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:32AMWednesday, November 1, 2023
Apollo theatre, LondonJoss Stone and Dave Stewart’s strangely forgettable score does little to lift this musical but there are some wonderful set pieces
For the millions of readers held ra…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06PMArcola theatre, LondonThe enigmatic 1999 novel about three entwined lives is sleekly adapted by Bryony Lavery and sharply directed by Melly Still
Here is a story of unrequited love in which …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:54PMTuesday, October 31, 2023
Wyndham’s theatre, LondonAt two hours with no interval, the actor-director’s production hurtles past at such speed that the depths of the play are too rarely realised
Kenneth Branagh has…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:03PMTheatre Royal, BathAn excellent cast give the story of Ruth Snyder, a woman executed by electric chair in 1928 for killing her husband, a cleverly inventive, chillingly modern update
Ruth Sn…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:03PMMonday, October 30, 2023
Featuring contributions from poets, novelists and a Nobel laureate, this highly charged night – interrupted by updates from Gaza in real time – marked the suffering on both sides of the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:55PM 
