This year's crop of Dreams " taking in Blitz spirit and colonial India " shows how Shakespeare's comedy is fertile ground for infinite interpretation. But it is Benjamin Britten's opera vers…
Traverse theatre, EdinburghRoss Dunsmore's play is strong on compassion, but it raises questions that it fails to answer about a society that drives people to the brink Related: Edinburgh fe…
Traverse, EdinburghRochelle Bright's 'play with songs' starts out as a promising love story but despite vigorous performances and a lively band it never quite bloomsSubtitled "a play with so…
King's theatre, EdinburghJohn Tiffany's superb production stars Cherry Jones as a woman who clings tenaciously to the memory of her aristocratic past Related: From Black Watch to Harry Potte…
★★★★/★★The Lyceum, EdinburghWe're Peeping Toms for Vanishing Point's riveting but disastrous dinner party, but the company's media critique, The Destroyed…
Young Vic, LondonIn a bravura display, Piper lays bare the soul of a woman who is unable to have children " even if Simon Stone's update is less powerful than Lorca's original playThe Austra…
David Hare's versions of Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull, now at the National Theatre in a superb production by Jonathan Kent, leave you exhilaratedI have spent many all-day sessions in the…
St James theatre, LondonA snapper falls under the spell of a Mephistophelian PR man in Mike Dyer's energetic story, which takes a turn for the absurd despite some decent songsThe Faust legen…
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London The pop singer brings verve and musicality to the glamorous enigma, with admirably conflicted support from Matt Barber " it's Truman Capote's story itself tha…
Lyttelton, LondonThe women are exceptionally strong in this production of O'Casey's great Easter Rising drama, which draws out the complex humanity of its charactersI found it took time to g…
Palace theatre, LondonIt's convoluted, but the latest expansion of the Potter universe is thrillingly staged, with time travel and age-old quests given a dash of post-Freudian guilt"Keep the…
Ireland's international festival has shown the merits of merging different art forms while reawakening enthusiasm for a much-reprised Beckett classicThey were dancing in the streets last wee…
Leisureland, Salthill, GalwayThe playwright embraces a new form of category-defying theatre in a story of love and oppression that echoes Orwell's 1984No Galway international arts festival s…
Minerva, ChichesterAnne Reid and James Bolam star in Beaton's dark comedy about fracking that becomes an outright plea for direct actionAlistair Beaton's forte is topical satire. His most re…
Park theatre, London Anne Archer plays the actor and activist in a drama that revisits the consequences of Fonda's visit to North Vietnam in 1972Terry Jastrow's play speculates on what happe…
Southwark Playhouse, LondonRay Rackham's musical brings us three Garlands at different periods of her life and deals with the causes and the symptoms of the star's declineI once said that I'…
Producer Cameron Mackintosh turned the West End musical into a global franchise. And he's not finished yet. New shows are opening round the world, new theatres are being purchased ... the em…
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonFiasco's inventive, vigorous version of Stephen Sondheim's modern fairytale doesn't entirely mask the problems of James Lapin's convoluted bookFiasco Theater'…
Arcola, LondonHicks confirms his gift for exploring unbalanced minds in this riveting adaptation of the Russian author's novella, directed by John TerryWhen Nancy Harris's adaptation of Tols…
Royal Court, London Matt Smith gives a fine performance but this movie industry satire is unbalanced by one character's eruptionThere is a long history of theatrical satires on the movie bus…
Barbican, LondonRobert Lepage's wry and haunting 1991 piece about various brands of addiction was inspired by two great artists, and it lives up to their brillianceRobert Lepage has revisite…
Young Vic, LondonThe ordeal of 13 Syrian women is powerfully re-created through horrific personal testimony and heartbreaking nostalgiaIt seems faintly obscene to slap star ratings on a show…
Barbican, LondonCardboard Citizens' remarkable version of the TV drama was followed by a fiery discussion in which Loach condemned the government's 'conscious cruelty'Can art change anything…
Theatre Room, LondonThis two-woman update of Life Is a Dream is brilliantly performed and looks at the Spanish play from a fresh perspectiveThis two-woman version of Calderón's Spanish cl…
In exposing our leaders' fallibility, it's natural to invoke Shakespeare but that crowns them with borrowed grandeur. A better reference point would be Dryden's brand of mock-heroic satireAt…