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…
Donmar Warehouse, London Henry exudes authority as a deadly racketeer but Bruce Norris's version of Brecht's 1941 drama tries too hard to draw parallels with the new US presidentIt is always…
Finborough, LondonTwo sisters confront each other and the irrationality of hatred in David Ireland's blackly comic political dramaDavid Ireland is our theatre's expert at exploring the psych…
Southwark Playhouse, London A defiant duchess takes on a corrupt clergyman in this vigorous revival of James Shirley's cracking 17th-century playJames Shirley (1596-1666) is one of British t…
Almeida, London Lyndsey Turner's immaculate, neon-lit revival of Crimp's 1993 play lays bare the ways reality is exploited and distorted by the mediaThere's a rich ambiguity to the title of …
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonThis risible production butchers the language, turns Juliet into a squawking, pampered princess and makes everyone dance to the Village PeopleDaniel Kramer, direct…
Chichester Festival theatreDaniel Evans directs a patchy and slightly chaotic revival of Alan Bennett's comedy about a Britain torn between tradition and progressDaniel Evans made such a suc…
Barbican, LondonJude Law stars in Ivo van Hove's classy stage adaptation of Luchino Visconti's 1942 film that just falls short of original's atmospheric detailJude Law is the big draw in thi…
Vaudeville, LondonPhil Davis and Sinéad Cusack star in Nicolas Kent's verbatim staging of the US Senate's confirmation hearings of four of Donald Trump's political appointeesOne of the most…
Royal Court, LondonSimon Stephens' experimental new piece about grief and urban alienation is intentionally 'fluid and contradictory' " but also baffling and obscureSimon Stephens is clearly…
The Old Vic, we read, is "going dark" for the summer: a far more expressive phrase than being "shut", since it implies the temporary extinction of light. But it's also a potent reminder that…