★ JULIUS CAESAR, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Misjudged masterpiece  Intrusive 21st century agenda and dismal staging waste an opportunity With tyrants licking their lips around the worl…
Democracy, justice and personal agendas create a sense of chaos and fun with dystopian overtones To take to the streets in Brighton in pursuit of a superior political ideology isn't unusual.…
Happiest in home-territory epics, Ivo van Hove pulls off a Greek-tragedy stunner Hunger for the gruesome horrors and euphoric highs of Greek tragedy seems to be stronger than ever. Yet when …
Playwright Beru Tessema makes a striking stage debut We are in a room in a simply decorated house in northwest London, where an Ethiopian-British family is gathering for a funeral "tea" for…
Rodgers and Hammerstein revival goes to the dark heart of the story No surreys, fringes or corny chap-slapping: the Rodgers and Hammerstein revival that has arrived at the Young Vic from New…
Pamela Carter's slippery tale of a school trip to Nazi Germany explores the price of a stiff upper lip "We all make history, one way or another." But some of us make more history than other…
David Eldridge's follow up to his 2017 hit, 'Beginning', is disappointing The traditional, and much derided, well-made play is meant to have a beginning, middle and end. Although playwright …
This production carries as much emotional heft as it exudes riotous comedy Lucy Bailey's joyous, visually ravishing Much Ado About Nothing opens on a sombre note. On stage there is laughter …
Jez Butterworth's 2009 play is evergreen in its excellence At long last, the giant has come back. Over a decade after its critical apotheosis on both sides of the Atlantic, Jez Butterworth's…
'Killing Eve' star's stage debut is a triumph National statistics tell us that, in the year ending September 2021, 41% of rape victims in England and Wales eventually withdrew their support …
You go into a dimension where you operate through instinct as much as intellect Punchdrunk's latest epic undertaking may be inspired by the legend of Troy, but this is nothing less than a da…
Off Broadway hit builds to a furious climax in London bow Inspiration jostles irritation in Marys Seacole, Jackie Sibblies Drury's Off Broadway hit from 2019 that has arrived at the Donmar …
Dominic Cooke's imaginative revival improves on Emlyn Williams's 1938 play Let's talk repertoire. Over the past decade the range of British plays, especially those from the 17th, 18th and 1…
Set in America, 'The Breach' was first seen in Paris, as its author explains The Breach is a coming of age story and an age-in-the-making story. The play takes place in the U.S. in the…
James Fritz's play explores the spoken and unspoken ripples of grief with fine naturalism The title of James Fritz's play is allusive, oblique even. I assume it refers to how, in the afterm…
Iconic couple shoot for West End success One of the more irritating memes (it's a competitive field, I know) is the "Name a more iconic couple" appearing over a photo of Posh and Becks, or H…
With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man The title is so long that the Royal Court's neon red lettering only renders the first three words, foll…
★★★ THE 47TH, OLD VIC Mike Bartlett's ambitious Trump satire doesn't quite hit its target As a playwright, how do you handle an arse-fixated arch-disrupter? Megalomania is…
Mike Bartlett's raucous chronicle of London in the age of Boris Johnson If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, then Boris Johnson has played the whole sodding orchestra. Between the parties, the…
Swordplay and songs never quite hit their stride Zorro (what a name!) is back, swashing and buckling his way into the West End, 13 years after he left and now not the only one wearing a mask…
Ché Walker directs his savage play, with a stellar turn from Clare Latham Ché Walker claims he wrote Wolf Cub, now in the Hampstead Downstairs studio space, in a two-day blitz prompted …
The soundtrack features musicians ranging from Robyn and Dua Lipa to Cardi B Jane Austen's waspish vision revealed the vanities, delusions and cynical financial calculations that underpinned…
Jeremy O Harris's scintillating drama poses questions about possession, in life and art Danya Taymor's production of "Daddy" A Melodrama has a huge exuberance: a tour de force in itself, it'…
Niche Sondheim gets an, um, no-trumpets-barred revival Musicals don't get madder than Anyone Can Whistle, the 1964 Broadway flop from onetime West Side Story and Gypsy collaborators Stephen…
Political lesson on the dangers of populism fails to hit home Loud madcap comedy morphs into mime and flops when it should fly When Rhum + Clay conceived this show, the idea of a comic becom…