Intriguing new play from Ron Hutchinson capsizes in performance You can't keep a great playwright down. Ron Hutchinson, whose award winning stage plays, such as Rat in the Skull (1984) and …
Great staging enlivens this well-written monologue about a cross-generational relationship Love is the most difficult four-letter word. And platonic love is perhaps the hardest kind of emot…
Debut play about football and gentrification is pitch perfect Football stories are never just about a game " they are also about life and how to live it. In Tyrell Williams's Red Pitch, his…
Misogynoir gets the song and satire treatment in a short but powerful show Black women often find themselves subject to a double dose of prejudice. Pressure. They face everyday racism as we…
Energetic debut monologue explores eating disorders, personal identity and sex Irish teenager Saoirse Murphy has a dirty mouth. And she's not afraid to use it when talking to the nuns at he…
Time-travelling fantasia boasts a brilliant staging and a spoof playtext essay Bizarre. Breathtaking. Beautiful. I leave the Royal Court theatre with these Bs, as well as others such as bewi…
Northern Ireland's contemporary problems get the meta treatment History is a prison. Often, you can't escape. It imprints its mark on people, environments and language. And nowhere is this …
Revival of American writer Alice Childress's 1955 anti-racist play shines bright The National Theatre has a good record in staging classic American drama by black playwrights. James Baldwin…
Moira Buffini's state-of-the-nation, climate-change play runs into the doldrums After all the tides of monologue plays have ebbed, British new writing is now paddling in the pools of state-o…
Roy Williams and Clint Dyer bring their monologue sequence to a triumphant conclusion One of the absolute highpoints of new writing in the past couple of years has been the Death of England …
Al Smith's new play was jinxed before it started " and it never really recovers Why are we indifferent to anti-Semitism? In the past few weeks the Royal Court, a proud citadel of wokeness, h…
Powerful play about masculinity in crisis fails to reach a satisfying resolution After lockdown, the stage monologue saved British theatre. At venue after venue, cash-strapped companies put…
New play about love during the Bosnian war is beautifully written and compelling Is the Bosnian conflict of 1992"95 the war that Europe forgot? Maybe, although most fans of new writing for t…
New play about gentrification could be regenerated with a make-over I've lived in Brixton, south London, for about 40 years now so any play that looks at the gentrification of the area is, …
Saoirse Ronan makes her UK stage debut in Yaël Farber's testosterone-fest Remembering the months of lockdown, I can't be the only person to thrill to this play's opening lines, "When sha…
Larry Kramer's modern AIDS classic retains all of its passionate glory Hypocrisy. Is this the right word? I don't mean the play, but the audience. Of course, in the middle of the current COV…
Aleshea Harris's award-winning play is a thrillingly satirical mash up God is a tricky one. Or should that be One? And definitely not a He. So when she says take revenge, then vengeance is …
Sombre revival of Shelagh Stephenson's 1996 classic about three sisters Memories are notoriously treacherous " this we know. I remember seeing Shelagh Stephenson's contemporary classic at th…
Poetic play about enslaved peoples and Victorian painter JMW Turner For more than three decades, playwright Winsome Pinnock has been at the forefront of new writing, often experimenting wit…
A 4,000-year-old poem reopens this venue, but is more educational than dramatic The Young Vic, led by the inspiring figure of Kwame Kwei-Armah, is back. After a prolonged closure, during whi…
David Mamet's most controversial play retains its explosive charge Before seeing this play, I decided to eat a steak. It seemed the right culinary equivalent to David Mamet, one of America'…
Ambitious triptych examines the themes of Empire, race and parenthood It is an index of the ambition of some venues that they are not only reopening their doors, but also staging plays that…
Debut play about siblings, climate change and space travel is full of ideas There's something definitely inspiring about producer Sonia Friedman's decision to reopen one of her prime West E…
New monologue is a complex and ambiguous account of a digital obsession After months of watching theatre on screens large, medium and tiny, I definitely feel great about going to see a live…
Philip Ridley's new monologue is a dazzling masterclass in storytelling I think I can safely say that polymath playwright Philip Ridley has had a good lockdown. In March last year, when The…