Alexander Zeldin creates a complex portrait of a woman's struggle for self-esteem How to describe Alexander Zeldin's latest, The Confessions? It is almost a kitchen-sink drama, but also a pi…
James Graham's play works like a big joke that a whole nation is in on It was interesting, in the same week that the England football team trounced Italy 3-1 in a Euros qualifier, to see Dea…
Mustapha Matura's 1981 play set in modern Trinidad is superbly served up Mustapha Matura's 1981 play, Meetings, is still a knockout. Supply the characters with mobile phones and it could be…
Maggie O'Farrell's inventive retelling of the Shakespeares' love story needs a more inventive production The RSC apparently has a hit on its hands with its West End transfer of Hamnet. Box o…
Big Broadway show with a pleasing British accent The Sondheim gala show Old Friends is a must for fans of the master, naturally, but its quality would knock anybody who loves musical theatre…
Ben Elton has written an odd musical-documentary, part comic-strip, part lecture The Biba dresses are way too colourful, the shop's interior about 10 times too bright… and did anybody real…
Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer have muddled aims for a tale of warring actors An impressive performance by Samuel West as one of two warring hams stuck on-set in a trailer over a not-so-d…
Lynn Nottage's 2018 play gets an exquisite staging with moving performances The work of the double Pulitzer-winning Black American dramatist Lynn Nottage has thankfully become a fixture in t…
The affable American humourist proves death becomes him Few comedians are such good company that you never want them to stop. The young Billy Connolly was one such; affable American Mike Bi…
Yasmin Reza's savage study of the middle-classes becomes a farce lacking in danger Yasmin Reza's God of Carnage (2008), like her British megahit, 1994's ART, is not strictly a comedy. The Fr…
Twin miseries of bipolar disorder and grief are given an unusual treatment The journey from off-Broadway to central London has taken 15 years, but the multi-award-winning musical Next to…
The Public Acts project creates a model mix of high and low for a modern ensemble One of the great wonders of Western literary history is one of the earliest, Homer's The Odyssey, an epic po…
Gillian Slovo's incendiary play points a finger at the bureaucrats at the heart of the tragedy The shadow of Grenfell Tower has already produced Nick Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor's dispass…
Two students clash over changing the world with a playlist The revolution in the title of AJ Yi's new play at the Bush is the one activists hoped to set in motion in Hong Kong in 2019, when …
Will Young brings sweetness to a thin scenario Lucky Will Young: the production of the Simon Stephens monologue Song from Far Away that he is delivering at the Hampstead Theatre is directed…
Michael R Jackson's writing talent finds a claustrophobic outlet If you are going to see A Strange Loop, the new American musical trailing a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize that has arrived …
A star turn from Gabriel Vick powers a lively but loud adaptation The heart sinks (mine does, anyway) as the latest film-to-musical adaptation rolls into town, all with similar sound-worlds,…
Pupils at an elite Ghanaian school learn home truths about their country The alternative title of Jocelyn Bioh's 2017 play School Girls, The African Mean Girls Play, might indicate that it's…
Easy targets and predictable jibes let down an ambitious production There are flashes during Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical of the old mordant humour from the show's…
A winning ensemble led by Jamie Parker deliver a refreshing piece The short story F Scott Fitzgerald wrote as a challenge, of a man born 70 years old whose body gets younger as the years pas…
A bravura turn from Andy Karl propels a tricky piece over its self-created speed bumps Groundhog Day, appropriately, is back where it started. The hit film about a TV weatherman's endlessly …
Forgotten Miles Malleson play deserves its revival Miles Malleson, known as an inter-war character actor who popped up in numerous small roles on stage and screen, was also a surprisingly p…
The Master's life seen close up but with no warts Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson's documentary Mad About the Boy, but they will doubtles…
Dickie Beau creates a tribute to past Hamlets, one in particular Lip-syncing has become the hobby of many a young TikToker, but only an intrepid professional would contemplate using the tech…
Nikhil Parmar delivers his play with passion and wit The Bond film theme plays and the lights go up at the Bush's Studio space to reveal, not a tuxedoed superspy, but a slim figure in casua…