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…
Bush Hall, London Melissa Bubnic's song-filled attack on the City of London is played with great brio by an all-female cast but stops short of landing a knockout blowMelissa Bubnic's play, j…
Donmar, London A lost world of showbiz exiles is evoked through powerful monologues, hauntingly delivered by Stephen Dillane, Gina McKee and Ron Cook Brian Friel's magical play can be seen i…
Almeida, LondonThe fierce intelligence of the Almeida, Headlong and Nottingham Playhouse's spin on George Orwell shines through - but the play contributes to a worrying theatrical trendIt is…
From Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' to Macbeth's 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow', Shakespeare's lines present an infinity of choicesEarlier this month, I took part in a fascinating discu…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonRay Fearon and Tara Fitzgerald give feverish performances but this production has an aura of perverse oddity " why do the Macbeths have a child?Iqbal Khan's produc…
Open Air theatre, Regent's Park, LondonMichelle Terry is riveting as Shakespeare's wartime king in a production that emphasises how roleplaying is integral to monarchyAside from Hamlet, I ca…
Hampstead theatre, LondonEdward Snowden-a-like Andrew is visited by two shadowy WikiLeaks employees in Mike Bartlett's intelligent new play, exploring the 2013 revelationsMike Bartlett's pla…
Royal Court, LondonMega-fame and limitless cash can turn a man into a monster, and Simon Stephens's new play excellently evokes its hero's spiritually shrunken worldNo one will be surprised …
Almeida, LondonDavid Cromer's cooly observant narrator leads a radically reworked version of Thornton Wilder's classic that taps into collective folk memoryWe are used to seeing old plays gi…
New Wolsey, IpswichThe verse is handled with microscopic precision as Nunn relocates Shakespeare's comedy to a world of diplomats and cocktails where Theseus becomes a white-suited Mountbatt…
Finborough, LondonNeil McPherson pays tribute to Charles Hamilton Sorley in a beautifully orchestrated production with songs by Schubert and George ButterworthRobert Graves considered Charle…
Southwark Playhouse, LondonAn updating of Gorky's play loses the moral ambiguity surrounding its female protagonist and makes little sense uprooted from its historial contextMaxim Gorky's pl…
Versatile actor and writer often called upon to play toffs and bumbling clericsThe actor Jonathan Cecil, who has died of pneumonia aged 72 after suffering from emphysema, spent much of his …
Almeida, LondonIn Rupert Goold's production, Fiennes sacrifices some of the character's irony while Vanessa Redgrave softens the often scolding Queen MargaretRupert Goold's production begins…
Prince Edward theatre, London Impressive stage magic, a gold-dripping design and a party-loving genie make this energetic adaptation of the animated movie a wicked treatImagine a Christmas p…
Adelphi, LondonTransfers can be tricky. But Richard Bean's updated version of Goldoni's comic classic seems, if anything, even funnier than it did at the National. The text has been shortene…
A political radical, as an actor he excelled at playing tortured establishment figuresCorin Redgrave, who has died aged 70, was both a formidable actor and a strenuous political activis…
Barbican, LondonHuppert is a treat but even she struggles to make sense of a production that is at times close to insufferable Continue reading...
Chichester Festival theatreFiennes gives an accomplished performance in an elegantly mounted production of Terence Rattigan's uneven playWe associate Terence Rattigan with domestic drama. He…
Gielgud, LondonPeter Morgan struck box-office gold with his movie The Queen. He's likely to do so again with this play based on the private weekly audience given by the monarch to the prime …