Cardboard Citizens shine an unforgiving light on poverty in the UK A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,…
Christopher Hampton's love of Stefan Zweig's text becomes a drawback Who was Stefan Zweig? It's likely that it's mostly older folk who studied German literature at A-level who have encounter…
Two awkward science nerds and a violent alcoholic father are oddly likeable company Sarah Power, the writer of Grud, now in the Hampstead's smaller space, is a self-confessed geek who…
A fine cast spell out the cost of survival in today's ailing industries For a long stretch of its first half, Dominique Morrisseau's 2016 award-winner, Skeleton Crew, seems a conventional…
Fans of the film will love it, but it's like being in a pink fever dream Nothing anybody over the age of 30 says about the new Mean Girls musical, spawn of Tina Fey's witty script for the 20…
A production with a green message for younger audiences It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably…
'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' brings the house down in a strongly cast lineup Lincoln Center's Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican's latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter's c…
Alice Childress's 1962 play about interracial love has lost none of its richness and fire Alice Childress's Wedding Band has arrived at the Lyric Hammersmith like an incendiary bomb, a weapo…
Giles Terera excels leading a livewire cast in an irreverent look at Black identity From New York's Public Theater, the venue that nurtured Hamilton, comes another estimable pocket musical, …
Superb cast deliver Van Badham's anti-incel barbs and feminist wit with gusto What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided …
Ian McKellen's Falstaff thrives in Robert Icke's entertaining remix of the Henry IV plays Shakespeare's plays have ever been meat for masher-uppers, from the bowdlerising Victorians to the m…
A five-women team spell out a feminist message with humour and strong singing Many an Edinburgh Fringe transfer has struggled when it moves to the big city, but the Dirty Hare company's Gunt…
It's a great song and dance evening, but the story is an empty one In a secret chamber somewhere, the producers of MJ the Musical may be keeping a portrait of the King of Pop that has ac…
Director Rachel O'Riordan finds lighter moments in a tale of grief Brian Friel's Faith Healer isn't noted for its laughs, but Rachel O'Riordan has found more than most directors do in this …
Lucy Kirkwood's latest mixes the birth of the NHS with a Brief Encounter-ish romance Keeley Hawes onstage is something to look forward to, so rare are her appearances there. In Lucy Kirkwo…
The rise of fascism in the 1930s East End is given a human face Hot on the heels of Brigid Larmour's updating of The Merchant of Venice to the East End in 1936, a spirited new musical acr…
Tracy-Ann Oberman turns Shylock into a heroic Jewish anti-fascist It's an unhappy time to be staging Shakespeare's problematic play, given its antisemitic content, so hats off to adaptor-dir…
Felicity Huffman, heading a superb cast, is a force of nature In 2017, two years after Hir premiered, Taylor Mac was awarded a "Genius Grant" and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for drama. Th…
Sarah Snook gives a virtuoso performance amid a dazzling display of tech wizardry Oscar Wilde's 1890 novella The Picture of Dorian Gray has given the world a trope built for flattery, along …
Age has not withered one jot the FAs' fury at the absurdities of modern life You don't expect a couple of septuagenarian contraltos, aided by a spring chicken of a soprano in her fifties, t…
Ingenious twists can't give Sam Holcroft's play a vital sense of danger Take dollops of Orwell and Kafka, with a sprinkling of Pirandello for a lighter texture, then bake. That could be the …
Bartlett Sher's intelligent reading is gorgeously staged and winningly performed The giant crinolines are back, and the winsome little royal children with miniature temples on their heads, a…
Zoe Cooper's queer reading is a tonic: clever, funny and seriously silly What Zoe Cooper has concocted in her loving rewiring of Jane Austen's first completed novel looks at first sight like…
Jonathan Spector is a Stoppard fan, but might Mamet have been better? How do you make a play out of Stalin's defecting daughter Svetlana, the psycho-economic theories of Daniel Kahneman and …
Les Enfants Terribles can't work their usual magic at the QEH There are probably two distinct audiences for the latest adaptation from Les Enfants Terribles, The House with Chicken Legs: the…