Final Weeks To See Wonka on Broadway! Through Jan 14 Only | Charlie on Broadway by Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

HOW TO WIN AGAINST HISTORY Young Vic SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A SPANGLED ANGLESEY ARISTOCRAT WALKS AGAIN     One way to win, if your own era rejects you, is to be so spectacularly odd that two centuries later a musical theatremaker gets obses…

BARNUM Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A MINI-CIRCUS AND A MISCASTING   A nice irony that this revival of this Mark Bramble / Cy Coleman / Michael Stewart musical about Phineas T.Barnum should open now, just as David Attenbo…

THE WOMAN IN WHITE Charing Cross Theatre SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

 NEW GENERATION CRITIC MICHAEL ADAIR WONDERS WHO IT’S FOR….     When The Woman in White debuted at the Palace Theatre in 2004, much of the commentary focused on it being a tec…

The Best Theater of 2017 by Ben Brantley and Jesse Green

Our chief theater critics on their favorites this year, from “Bruce Springsteen on Broadway” to a host of playwrights tackling life’s chaos.

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas’ at Olney Theatre Center by Paul M. Bessel and Barbara Braswell

Surely, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the definitive Christmas story—at least, in the fiction category—and Paul Morella’s scrumptious and spooky adaptation has become a perennial fav…

LA SOIREE Aldwych, WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

EROTICROBATICS, BANANAS, HIGH JINKS     Relief flooded in with the first act, Cabaret Decadanse from Montreal. Here was a larger-than-life lip-synching puppet diva made of glitteri…

GOATS Royal Court SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

LUKE JONES WANTED TO CARE, BUT SOMEHOW..     Running again through the plot of this play l in my head, I think ‘surely it’s gripping’.? Coffins of martyrs are continuing to s…

Culture highlights: what to see this week in the UK by Steve Rose, Hannah J Davies, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Lyn Gardner and Judith Mackrell

From Michael Haneke’s Happy End to Marilyn Manson’s latest tour, here is our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance in the next seven days Continue reading...

A Date Night Beyond Your Imagination | Charlie on Broadway by Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

See Wonka on Broadway! Through Jan 14 Only | Charlie on Broadway by Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Wonka Wonders Await The Whole Family | Charlie on Broadway by Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Addiction v art: the radical theatre in the heart of Crackland by Paula Sacchetta, Anna Sophie Gross, Maria Valente and Caterina Monzani

As police yesterday yet again applied brute force to the residents of São Paulo's 1,000-strong encampment of addicts, a group of artists is trying something wildly different• Inside Crack…

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Old Vic SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

DICKENS UNCHAINED     Good to see the Old Vic auditorium in the round again (a Spacey innovation). Though this time, there’s a long transverse thrust stage enabling Marley’s gh…

THE SECRET THEATRE Wanamaker, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

RUFF WORK: AN ELIZABETHAN MORALITY FOR TODAY     This is a devilish cunning ploy from Anders Lustgarten – an impassioned critic of state and social policies, sometimes a bit …

Shirley Porter’s London housing scandal to be relived on stage near Grenfell Tower by Vanessa Thorpe Arts and Media Correspondent

Director of theatre near fire that killed 71 people picks play about gerrymandering in 1980s as debut productionA play about a notorious social housing scandal is to be staged in a new theat…

Culture highlights: what to see this week in the UK by Steve Rose, Hannah J Davies, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Lyn Gardner and Judith Mackrell

From Malian band Songhoy Blues to the Natural History Museum’s show about venomous beasts, here is our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance in the next seven da…

EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE Apollo, W1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A GLORIOUS, GANGLING, GRACEFUL PRESENT FROM SHEFFIELD This is glorious. Hits the bullseye. It’s about kids – the boiling mass of hormones that is a year 11 class grappling with GCSEs…

London diners get immersed in the jazz age, Bombay style by Vanessa Thorpe Arts and Media Correspondent

Actors reproduce lost world of ‘Indian noir’ in former art deco department store, which will afterwards become part of the Dishoom restaurant chainAmid clouds of cigarette smoke and the …

Culture highlights: what to see this week in the UK by Steve Rose, Michael Cragg, Jonathan Jones, Lyn Gardner and Judith Mackrell

From wartime race drama Mudbound to Phil Collins’s UK tour, here is our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance in the next seven days Continue reading...

THE RETREAT Park theatre, N4 by Libby Purves and Friends

MANTRAS AND MONEY   There is a useful play to be written about the lure of fashionable Western Buddhist retreats, and the way discontented rat-racers can transfer their competitive ambi…

THE SUPPLIANT WOMEN Young Vic Se1 by Libby Purves and Friends

AN ANCIENT CRY, A TIMELESS THRILL   Across 25 centuries comes a harsh cry: not of war,  not from savage male throats but from a swaying, chanting, defiant chorus of young women demandi…

LEAF BY NIGGLE Touring by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MEETS MINDFULNESS IN THE MIDST OF TOLKIEN’S TIMEWASTING J.R.R. Tolkien, among many other things, is famous for two: his unending ability to procrastinate, a…

MISS JULIE Jermyn St Theatre, SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

SEX, SHAME , THE STROP OF THE RAZOR     I rashly confessed on Twitter that I spent the afternoon before this astringent production of a Strindberg play revelling in the happy furry…

NETWORK Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

PROFIT AND  A PROPHET: RANTINGS AND RATINGS     I came to  this a day late for tedious domestic reasons, but since the original film is about a news anchor , Howard Beale, going …

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid’ at Damascus Theatre Company by Paul M. Bessel and Barbara Braswell

Both “Under the Sea” and in “The World Above,” Damascus Theatre Company brings us a truly charming production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Based on the Hans Cristian Andersen st…

Theatre to serve Nigel Slater’s Toast with a side order of ham by Vanessa Thorpe, Arts and Media Correspondent

Audience to be given food during stage version of Nigel Slater’s memoirToast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger, the bestselling food memoir by Observer writer Nigel Slater, is to be brought t…

QUIZ Minerva, Chichester by Libby Purves and Friends

MULTIPLE CHOICE IN A MANIPULATED WORLD     “We in this country” says the red judge grandly “Do not have trial by media or by mobs”. Hmm. Tell that to anyone now staring con…

Culture highlights: what to see this week in the UK by Steve Rose, Michael Cragg, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Lyn Gardner and Judith Mackrell

From the Taylor Wessing photo prize to Hedda Gabler’s UK tour, here is our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance in the next seven days Continue reading...

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS Playhouse SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

NEW GENERATION REVIEWER MICHAEL ADAIR UNMOVED BY MANSPREADING BUT LOVES THE SWEARING The return of Glengarry Glen Ross feels rather timely. There is something striking about a play consistin…

TWELFTH NIGHT Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford by Libby Purves and Friends

A PERFECT TWELVE   “What country, friend, is this?” That soon becomes clear, in this beautiful rendition of Shakespeare’s melancholy comedy of love and misapprehension. From the f…