3,478 stories from The Arts Desk
Complicité's reflection on memory, connection and storytelling remains as potent as ever
I'm sitting in the Olivier waiting for the show to start, comfortable in the knowledge that I've see…
Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1980s spectacular skates into a new era
The reinvigoration of Andrew Lloyd Webber continues apace. New York is now hosting a ballroom culture, drag-inflected Cats, and…
New play about the death of the most famous American woman of the Camelot era
The death of Marilyn Monroe is a wet dream for conspiracy theorists. Like the assassination of JFK in the follo…
Fans of the film will love it, but it's like being in a pink fever dream
Nothing anybody over the age of 30 says about the new Mean Girls musical, spawn of Tina Fey's witty script for the 20…
A production with a green message for younger audiences
It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably…
New play about secrets from the past is both funny and profound
Following the huge success of Benedict Lombe's Shifters, which transfers soon to the West End, the Bush Theatre is riding hig…
'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' brings the house down in a strongly cast lineup
Lincoln Center's Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican's latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter's c…
New history play about football has a flawed second half
Every day this week I'm watching a football match, and now " after April's production of Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan and Rachel Lemon'…
This 'Shrew' has many fine elements but ultimately they don't coalesce
A recent Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that 2.1 million people in the UK had been victims of domestic ab…
★★★★ MISS JULIE, PARK THEATRE Sparks fly across class and gender divides that persist today
Much adapted play gets a traditional staging fuelled by electric leads
…
Adrian Lukis revisits his disruptive character from the beloved BBC television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an actor tends to take a sympathe…
★ MARIE CURIE, CHARING CROSS THEATRE Korean musical makes elementary mistakes
Celebrated scientist is ill-served by confused and dull show imported from Seoul
There are many women w…
Alice Childress's 1962 play about interracial love has lost none of its richness and fire
Alice Childress's Wedding Band has arrived at the Lyric Hammersmith like an incendiary bomb, a weapo…
★★★ACCOLADE, WINDSOR THEATRE ROYAL Pokey questions about public figures' private lives
Vintage Emlyn Williams play asks pokey questions about private-public tolerance, desp…
Dublin Fringe Festival hit from 2022 comes to London's main new writing theatre
Faye is okay. Or, at least she says she's okay. But is she really? And, if she really is, like really okay, w…
★★★ ROMEO AND JULIET, DUKE OF YORK'S THEATRE Doomy and deathly, and much-hyped
Tom Holland reaches for the stars and makes it to the theatre's roof
One of Shakespeare's lo…
LIFT2024 promises a characteristically broad and bracing array of global performance
LIFT 2024 is nearly here. It's a festival that will take you on deep and personal journeys. We've got sh…
The legendary small-screen drama still resonates in a new medium
Prolific playwright James Graham was born in 1982, the year Alan Bleasdale's unforgettable series was televised. From Notting…
Taboo-tickling comedy about both conceiving a baby and life as empty nesters
"Welcome to motherhood, bitch!" By the time a character delivers this reality check, there have been plenty of la…
Katie Mitchell's staging of Maggie Nelson's bestseller is neither original nor beautiful
When does creativity become mannered? When it's based on repetition, and repetition without developme…
Three talented performers in a revue that doesn't add up to much
Catchy even when the lyrics are at their cheesiest, the Jerry Herman Songbook serves up a string of memorable tunes: you'll p…
A female cast rips into toxic masculinity in a rebalanced treatment of villainy
There's a fierce, dark energy to the Globe's new Richard III that I don't recall at that venue for a fair whil…
Stephen Adly Guirgis's Pulitzer-Prize winner finally makes it to London
It's often said that contemporary American playwrights are too polite, too afraid of giving offence. But this accusat…
Giles Terera excels leading a livewire cast in an irreverent look at Black identity
From New York's Public Theater, the venue that nurtured Hamilton, comes another estimable pocket musical, …
John Cleese's sitcom masterpiece makes seamless transition to the stage
There are many definitions of bravery, and taking on the challenge of embodying John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in Cleese'…
