Donmar Warehouse, LondonRoger Allam is astonishing as Roy Jenkins in this drama about how the 'gang of four' left Labour to form the SDPSteve Waters likes to peep behind closed doors. In Tem…
Donmar Warehouse, LondonJames Graham's new play under the direction of Josie Rourke is rich and adrenaline-fuelled but lacks a real intellectual tussle' Ewan MacAskill: Fear, then relief, at…
Old Vic, LondonActor perfectly matched in nimble high-wire act that is still spritely " but gains heft from its awareness of death The play's the thing. Fifty years after its professional pr…
Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, LondonMeera Syal stars in debbie tucker green's play about intimate relationships which is given a perverse staging that leaves you with a crick in the neckAs t…
Chichester Festival TheatreTrevor Nunn's fine production of Tom Stoppard's 1966 play begins with a striking image: the two heroes seen against the stark background of a leafless tree. The Be…
Audiences have been asked not to consume food at a new show. Theatre is a collective act of concentration " it's spoiled by constant chomping and slurpingHallelujah! Imelda Staunton has had …
Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonThe ghost of a wronged widow hovers over a modern industrial town in the RSC's intriguing update of a 13th-century playThis is a genuine curiosity. As part of its mi…
Hull Truck theatre, HullStaged for Hull's year as UK City of Culture, this One Man, Two Guvnors-style farce is a merry take on local historyThe road to Hull, they say, is paved with good int…
Richmond theatre, LondonSally Cookson directs a fine ensemble in a witty and inventive high-wire production with a modern edgeThe last attempt to stage Fellini's Oscar-winning 1954 movie had…
Almeida, LondonRobert Icke's staging of Shakespeare's tragedy has fine performances and highly intelligent touches but some of its ideas are eccentrically wrong-headedBy a strange irony Andr…
Trafalgar Studios, LondonPatsy Ferran shines in Stephen Karam's shapeshifting off-Broadway hit about teenage dilemmas and predatory adults set around a school rhetoric contestFirst seen off-…
Young Vic, London Simmering hatred, lust and violence are never far away in a disturbing production that delves deep into the collective unconsciousRomantic Victorian versions of Shakespeare…
Olivier, LondonSimon Godwin's inventive gender-fluid production of Shakespeare's most perfect comedy has a vital elan and some great performancesThe casting of Tamsin Greig as Malvolia is bo…
Arcola, London Trevor Griffiths' version of the masterpiece is staged in London for the first time in a modern-dress production implying we too are on the brink of changeThis enterprising th…
Phoenix theatre, London The Take That star and Tim Firth have collaborated seamlessly on a show that is far superior to its predecessors on stage and screenIt might be fair to assume that th…
The Other Palace, LondonThis musical adaptation, based on Joseph Moncure March's racy 1928 poem, is so frenzied it leaves you exhausted Andrew Lloyd Webber acquired what used to be the St Ja…
Arcola, LondonOladipo Agboluaje hits close to home as he shows the darkly comic side of the fight for revolutionary changeDriving home after the play, I caught an item on Radio 4's The World…
Shedding his clothes and seducing the audience, Lars Eidinger's Gloucester is the classic charming narcissist " but why soften the play's political bite at such a crucial time?I have a high …
Crucible, SheffieldDan Gillespie Sells has a lot to offer musical theatre, but this Billy Elliot-style story about a northern teen drag queen lacks dramaA northern working-class lad strikes …
Finborough, LondonThis new play heightens our awareness of the city as a sterile Shangri-La, but the arguments would carry greater weight if it was more balancedAlongside all the promotional…
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, LondonThis superbly performed production of Pearl Cleage's drama gives a fierce sense of the conflict between belonging and the desire to escape Given the big …
National, LondonEvery 20 years or so we rediscover Harley Granville Barker's astonishing play. Following revivals at the Royal Court in 1965 and the National itself in 1989, we now have Pete…
Duchess, LondonLenny Henry has won his spurs as a Shakespearean actor in Othello and The Comedy of Errors. Now he takes on the titanic role of Troy Maxson in August Wilson's Fences which won…
Barbican, London With dazzling virtuosity, this Complicite/Schaubühne staging of Stefan Zweig's novel brilliantly evokes a doomed romance and the imminent horror of warBalzac, about whom St…
Royal Court, LondonLinda Bassett, Kika Markham, June Watson and Deborah Findlay deliver pitch-perfect performances in Churchill's apocalyptic conversation piece Related: Here We Go review " …