Donmar Warehouse, London Payne's utterly relatable characters make this play about scientific progress an exploration of the very human concepts of love, identity, faith and lossNick Payne's…
Minerva, ChichesterPatricia Hodge is superb as a madcap aunt, whisking her buttoned-up nephew on a world tour, in a perfectly pleasant show that lacks the novel's ambiguitiesGraham Greene's …
Through intelligent handling of its racial themes, Daniel Evans's revival has steered this much-loved 1927 show smoothly into the modern ageWhat is it about Show Boat? Why is it that a music…
Duke of York's, London The Game of Thrones actor gives us a sense of the scholar's flailing despair but Jamie Lloyd's excessive version of the tragedy comes with a trite messageChristopher M…
Composer and conductor who wrote music for RSC productions of all Shakespeare's playsIf music is now seen as an integral part of modern Shakespeare productions, the credit belongs to Guy Woo…
BBC2 The show perked up when it got round to the plays but tried to cram too much into one eveningIt is always worrying when an entertainment promises "something for everybody". That usually…
As celebrations kick off around the world " including an immersive Romeo and Juliet in a Dubai mall " we look at why his plays are still staged 400 years after his deathOn Saturday the RSC m…
Dorfman theatre, London Astonishing New York hit goes behind the scenes at a cinema to expose the desperate longings of its three young protagonists Arnold Wesker in The Kitchen introduced u…
St James theatre, LondonPaul Robinson delivers an impeccable revival of Charlotte Keatley's 1987 play about the trials and tribulations of mothers and daughters Charlotte Keatley's play, fir…
Temporary theatre at the National, LondonDrawing on interviews and first-hand accounts, Gillian Slovo's enlightening play puts the rise of Isis, and its appeal to young Europeans, in context…
Lyttelton, LondonSuhayla El-Bushra brings Nikolai Erdman's 1928 social comedy into the modern day, but leaves its eccentricity and subversion behindThe National Theatre these days seems susp…
Print Room at the Coronet, London Two prisoners and a condemned man vie for dominion of their cell in a well-executed production leavened by fantasy sequencesThis is Jean Genet's first play,…
Gielgud theatre, LondonHair is more than just a musical: it is a social and cultural phenomenon, a jubilant assertion of life and freedom and a cry of protest against politicians who, in the…
With interrogations of class, labour and politics entwined around the lives of ordinary people " including plenty of well-written women " Arnold Wesker created plays that showed his endless …
Almeida, LondonLeo Butler's play follows a teenager adrift in cold, modern London, but its compassion is sometimes overwhelmed by a restless productionLeo Butler has attempted something tric…
As playwright Arnold Wesker turns 80, he talks about his early successes, his later battles " and the day he tried to flog his entire oeuvre for £10,000'I don't feel I'm known as a playwr…
Arcola, London This compelling portrait of how the Maoist revolution gripped one particular village is a big, ambitious and thought-provoking playThere is a growing body of plays about China…
Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonNo one any longer has to make a case for this once-despised play. But, whether it is viewed as a neo-Senecan study in stoic acceptance of grief or a Tarantino-like e…
David Ireland's story about a Belfast loyalist is a blackly comic examination of sectarian hatred " and a subversive drama that has never been more relevant Related: Cyprus Avenue review " c…
Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonAlan Bennett makes a shrewd point in his Diaries. Attending a performance by Complicite, he remarks that some theatre companies have become like rock groups attracti…
Watford Palace theatreThe team behind Britain's Got Bhangra can't smooth over the thorny issue of arranged marriages with song and dance in this musical based on a 12th-century forerunner of…
Old Vic, LondonFollowing the current trend of not treating Harold Pinter with pause-ridden reverence, Matthew Warchus transforms the writer's first big hit into a wild comedy of deluded misf…
Royal Court, LondonCharacters hear strange voices and time itself starts to dissolve in Alistair McDowall's new play, set in a research base on PlutoAlistair McDowall has quickly built a rep…
Coliseum, LondonSemi-staged performance brings us closer to Billy Wilder's film than Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1993 version Billy Wilder, on emerging from the original 1993 staging of Andrew Llo…
Southwark Playhouse, London There are good performances in this finely staged revival, but Hemingway's autobiographical drama set during the Spanish civil war is a rambling affairErnest Hemi…