Finborough, LondonAn Iranian teacher is confronted by one of her former pupils in Matt Parvin's claustrophobic two-hander about social and racial prejudiceMatt Parvin is a young, Dorset-born…
Orange Tree, RichmondBranden Jacobs-Jenkins's extraordinary play is both an adaptation of a 19th-century melodrama and a dazzling postmodernist critique of itIf I say that this bizarrely bri…
Shakespeare's Globe, London Sailor-suited dancers and a disco soundtrack add a party atmosphere to Shakespeare's comedy but drown out its melancholyThe peremptory treatment of Emma Rice by t…
Old Vic, LondonWhereas Georg Büchner's original masterpiece allows audience to fill in the blanks, Thorne's adaptation piles the pressure on the title characterThis production has a lot goi…
Attenborough Centre, BrightonRichard Nelson prophetically captures sense of unease as early as first play when character asks: "Do you feel like something really bad is about to happen?"What…
The Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonPhil Porter's take on Plautus's bombastic farce is a crowdpleasing show that reminds us of the ancient playwright's immense influence on modern comedyThe Roman c…
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonMaureen Lipman's brisk bureaucrat is a perfect complement to Felicity Kendal's gutsy exhibitionist in a revival of Peter Shaffer's heritage satireYou might ha…
Young Vic, LondonThe Atonement director presents the story of the astronomer with a kaleidoscopic theatricality that increasingly detracts from Brecht's textIt is a sign of Bertolt Brecht's …
Swan, Stratford-on-AvonA reactionary pope dies, only to be succeeded by a seeming liberal who soon reverts to institutional conservatism. You could hardly have a more topical play than this.…
Octagon, Bolton Cathy Tyson stars in Timberlake Wertenbaker's ambitious play which debates the choices politicised women face, from ancient Athens to modern BritainTimberlake Wertenbaker's n…
Arcola theatre, LondonHicks has the power to give individual words a wealth of meaning in his portrayal of a villain driven by infantile dreams and private demonsHot on the heels of an accla…
Minerva, ChichesterA Jewish boy and his family's black maid are at the heart of this witty, pulsing musical that takes in everything from klezmer to Tamla MotownSince this musical has book a…
Apollo, LondonFriends of Dorothy may be diverted by this musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz. But, although it has been a hit in New York, it seems all too typical of the modern Broadway mus…
Theatre Royal Stratford East, London A moving adaptation of the award-winning novel, with added songs, explores the mental toll on an abducted woman and her childMy queasiness about the subj…
Wyndham's, LondonTim Pigott-Smith gives the performance of his career in Mike Bartlett's intelligent meditation on the pressures and purpose of monarchy today' King Charles III: a West End t…
Olivier, LondonThe celebrated writer-director's attempt to radically update and reclaim the story is hamstrung by a terrible text and an over-complex stagingIt's not been a great month for c…
Hampstead Theatre, LondonMore symbolist poem than play, Oscar Wilde's once-banned Salome invites a strong directorial concept. But where Steven Berkoff memorably gave us a stylised, slow-mot…
Hampstead theatre, LondonThis adaptation shows the nightmarish conflicts faced by Stewart as a provincial governor in Iraq but fails to connect with the bigger political pictureThere have be…
Jermyn Street theatre, LondonIn his debut as a playwright, Stephen Unwin explores the fate of disabled youths in Nazi Germany and creates an engrossing moral debateThere is an obvious diffic…
Joan Littlewood's pioneering 1963 musical about the first world war not only changed attitudes towards the conflict, it remade British theatre. As the show gets a loving revival, Michael Bil…
National, LondonGalileo is a restless, endlessly evolving masterpiece. Brecht himself wrote three versions between 1937 and his death. David Hare has now amplified his 1994 adaptation for th…
Barbican, LondonHow do you recapture the shock impact of Alfred Jarry's 1896 play, with its savage portrait of a grotesque monster? Given that Jarry's play started as a schoolboy prank aimed…
Lyttleton, LondonTwenty five years after its first production, this eight-hour fantasia is revealed as both a document of the Aids crisis and an amply justified vision of US politicsTwo big …
Royal Court, London Paddy Considine stars as a reformed IRA activist in the Jerusalem playwright's deeply involving and abundant new workThe combination of Jez Butterworth as writer and Sam …
Minerva, ChichesterDespite stumbling over a line, Henry ended the evening looking totally assured in a Willy Russell revival that proves Lashana Lynch's star potentialThis was one of the str…