The power of the mob still resonates in a production that speaks powerfully to our times An arrogant leader contemptuous of his people. Could there be a more perfect timing for Josie Rourke'…
James Graham acutely perceives the obsessions and motivations of our times There is a line of argument that " unfairly " blames playwright James Graham for Dominic Cummings. Would Cummings, …
Barbershop banter and the place it occupies in black male identity Barber shops " as we are all starting to appreciate in this time of lockdown " fulfil an emotional as much as a cosmetic ro…
Robert Lepage seizes on the fragments of human lives to build an epic If you want to pinpoint the genius of Robert Lepage's multi-faceted seven-hour epic, that has returned to the National T…
Paul Kember's play doesn't sing convincingly any more It may seem strange to watch a play about four English people on a kibbutz in the Seventies, and find yourself thinking about Brexit, bu…
In the #Metoo era, the exploitation of the female characters is particularly resonant This raunchy, gleefully cynical production takes one of Thomas Middleton's most famous tragedies and tur…
Joe Crilly believed in skewering the romance surrounding sectarian violence The news that the Continuity IRA created a bomb destined for England on Brexit Day has added to the timeliness of …
Raw depiction of a community where dreams go to die Despair hangs like mildew over the small iron-ore mining town of Duluth, Minnesota, where dreams go to die, and the living haunt the clapp…
An interrogation of power, womanhood and the mythologies with which we surround ourselves History has corseted Elizabeth I with the title of "Virgin Queen" for centuries, but in Ella Hickson…
A stunning tribute to the wild and wonderful life of the mind This scary, electrically beautiful adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book about living on the faultline between imagination and realit…
An electric interpretation in which the White Witch " like the devil " has all the best tunes We all remember that moment when we walked through the back of the wardrobe: the heaviness of th…
The script misses all that was distinctive about Berlin and Akhmatova's meeting How do you begin to dramatise one of the most extraordinary conversations of the 20th century between two of i…
Wendell Pierce confirms a performance as exciting as any this theatrical year It is 70 years since Willy Loman first paced a Broadway stage; 70 years since audiences were sucked into the vor…
 RSC transfers works best when it engages with the complex emotions of the play Even the most ardent Bardophile has to admit that most of the time the Fool doesn't shine in a Shakespeare…
A potent anatomy of how words and power intertwine At a point in history where " yet again " a few misplaced words from English politicians could wreak havoc with Irish lives, this is a welc…
First-time playwright Ruby Thomas is a daring and exciting new voice This ingenious short work deftly investigates themes of love and identity with a breezy assurance that marks first tim…
Incisive, intelligent and deeply moving The Permanent Way first roared its way into the national consciousness in 2003 when, after a triumphant opening in York, it toured the UK before tr…
The evening is as devastatingly moving as it is bitingly funny If Russia is, as Winston Churchill once so memorably said, "a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma", then…
A resonant tragedy of mutual incomprehension, fresh from the Edinburgh Festival Neil Armfield's resonant, turbulent production of Kate Grenville's classic Australian novel The Secret River s…
Energetic two-hander offers a sparky portrait of a transforming city This witty street-smart play about a white-skinned boy born to a mixed-race mother deploys its narrative with the dexteri…
Navigating the script is a bit like going in a car with a driver who's just passed their test This lovingly lo-tech visit to galaxies far far away is a curious proposition, which, while neit…
Nicholas Hytner's vivacious 21st-century take shines like a disco glitterball Nicholas Hytner's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Bridge Theatre is a feat of exuberant brilliance, a gender-ju…
A moving antidote to fast-paced narratives and rampant individualism Our Town was written shortly before World War Two about a small town in America in the years leading up to World War One,…
A simultaneously sweeping and intimately human production Mammon and Yahweh are the presiding deities over an epic enterprise that tells the story not just of three brothers who founded a ba…
Roy Williams revival looks beyond the headlines to see the codes, complexity and camaraderie of crime We are living in a time when gang culture rips and roars its way down London streets, an…