★★★★ FILUMENA, THEATRE ROYAL WINDSOR Dazzling Felicity Kendall conquers time in a tour de force of comedic playing Dazzling Felicity Kendall conquers time in a …
★★★ACCOLADE, WINDSOR THEATRE ROYAL Pokey questions about public figures' private lives Vintage Emlyn Williams play asks pokey questions about private-public tolerance, desp…
★★★★THE WHITE FACTORY, MARYLEBONE THEATRE Dazzling treatment of a notorious moral betrayal Dazzling Russian production finds fresh relevance in the Lodz ghetto massac…
★★★★PATRIOTS Zingy comedy-melodrama about Putin hits even more painful spots Peter Morgan's zingy comedy-melodrama about Putin hits even more painful spots now With a…
4000 MILES, CHICHESTER Brilliant Eileen Atkins at 88 in a tender, classy play A classy evening with authentic characters and Dame Eileen in a transparent blouse Of all the theatrical dames, …
★★THE VORTEX, CHICHESTER Coward's drama about damaged mother and son needs Dyno-rodding Noel Coward's play about damaged mother and son needs Dyno-rodding Sometimes I go outsi…
★★★ DOGS OF EUROPE, BELARUS FREE THEATRE An apocalyptic vision has dreadful timeliness An apocalyptic vision of an insatiable, all-obliterating Russia has dreadful ti…
★★★AVA: THE SECRET CONVERSATIONS, RIVERSIDE STUDIOS Elizabeth McGovern is glamorous but unrevealing as Ava Gardner Elizabeth McGovern is glamorous but unrevealing as the gl…
***THE SEVEN POMEGRANATE SEEDS, KINGSTONÂ Pierce Brosnan's James Bond finds daft but apt place in Euripidean rewrite Pierce Brosnan's James Bond finds a daft but apt place in Euripidean re…
****THE CHERRY ORCHARD, WINDSOR McKellen's scene-stealing comic act is worth the ticket Ian McKellen's scene-stealing is not the only reason to see Chekhov's comedy The cherry orchard in Ant…
**THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT Mantel self-adapts, and eviscerates, her novel on stage Third time round, Hilary Mantel self-adapts, and eviscerates, her novel on stage The first two stage adapta…
** LEOPARDS, KINGSTON When the trousers come off and the handcuffs go on, the climax is the sexual politics lecture  When the trousers come off and the handcuffs go on, the climax is the…
*****CONSTELLATIONS, VAUDEVILLE THEATRE Chris O'Dowd and Russell Tovey join the bittersweet comedy about sex, bees and cosmic luck The gay couple and the O'Dowd option bring new laughs and t…
HAMLET, WINDSOR THEATRE ROYAL Leaping out of time from Gandalf to Hamlet - athletic thespianism from Sir Ian McKellen Leaping out of time from Gandalf to Hamlet - athletic thespianism fr…
How often are you charmed by one of Shakespeare's sylvan romances while literally under a greenwood tree? Even if this summer is proving rather generous with the rough weather, it is an unus…
According to Sellar and Yeatman in 1066 and All That, the true bible of English history, King John was a Bad (to be exact, an Awful) King. Shakespeare had quite an interest in Bad Kings - Ri…
If one says, accurately, that Richard Bean's Toast is a comedy about Hull's lost bread industry, trade unions and the poor working man, you will possibly yawn and turn the page. But it is no…
Pro patria mori. Now there's the test for Henry V - perform it on Remembrance Day. The "band of brothers" shtick relies on an idea of patriotism from an age when there was no need to define …
The earthy contact with groundlings that Shakespeare's Globe offers in its stagings makes a comical but telling context for Richard II, a play largely about political point-scoring between k…
Jonathan Miller's new King Lear is rustic to its core, spoken in broad Northern accents, and the whole production could be packed onto a travelling theatre's wagon and taken around Britain p…
It's a hostage to fortune really to create a play on one of the funniest books ever written, and a Victorian one at that. Still, Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat is regularly mined for …
Alan Bennett's 80th birthday last May deserves celebrating not just as a point of respect for a formidable playwright but with awe at his continuing liveliness. More than 40 years after he s…
Prince Charles's "black spider letters" - his attempts to influence or change government policy - are real, as is the government's long collusion with Clarence House to keep them from the pu…
In the midst of ferment as the arts world faces fast-shrinking public subsidy, Sir John Tusa, former managing director of the BBC World Service and the Barbican Arts Centre, publishes this w…
When a big star meets a small play, they go one of two ways - they step up to it like a believer, or they clue in the audience that this is all a bit low, throwing everything they have in th…