Slender new monologue about struggling middle-class womanhood On my way to see this show, I see an urban fox. Before I can take a photo, it scrambles away. And I'm sure that, as it goes, it …
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…
Middleton's decimation of an Italian court needs more satirical thrust Vendetta, morte: what a lark to find those tools of 19th century Italian opera taken back to their mother tongue in a M…
Jason Robert Brown's conceptual relationship musical gets an enriching new layer There's concept on top of concept in this revival of Jason Robert Brown's beloved 2001Â musical, which cha…
Verbatim account of transatlantic deportation is an uneven mix of fact and farce Since 2000, Esther Baker's Synergy Theatre Project has worked with prisoners, ex-offenders and young people a…
Immersion in Georgian court intrigue Les Enfants Terribles is the theatre company behind several interesting immersive projects, including Alice's Adventures Underground and Inside Pussy Rio…
Popular film romcom looks fairly icky on stage It's not so much that Pretty Woman: The Musical isn't much good, which it isn't. More to the point is that this West End replica of the …
Brian Cox turns director in an attenuated two-hander starring his wife Layla is trapped in a pit of sand up to her shoulders, with a shroud over her head and piles of rocks surrounding her.…
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…
This mammoth stage adaptation is more splashy than spiritual The theatre gods rained down not fire and pestilence, but a 45-minute techincal delay on opening night of this substantially revi…
A provocative fact-based play locates truth in transcripts You are at a party having a good time when someone gives you a glass of champagne. You take one and then another and soon the party…
American theatre phenomenon pushes buttons aplenty to diminishing effect This latest musical theatre exercise in "geek chic" has been an American phenomenon: a show propelled by social medi…
Roger Allam and Colin Morgan refashion Caryl Churchill's contemporary classic There are any number of ways to perform A Number, Caryl Churchill's bleak and beautiful play about a father and…
Embarrassing period piece needs a lift from better comic timing than this Not the musical then, worst luck. How timely it would have been to mark Jerry Herman's passing with a celebration of…
Waiting for Godot meets Exodus in American drama about Black Lives Matter The Black Lives Matter movement is such an important international protest that it is odd how few contemporary plays…
Ben Elton's new comedy is a gagfest What joy it is to welcome this offshoot of the television series to the West End stage " complete with several of that show's cast, plus a few new additio…
Lesley Manville rises above the prevailing muddle Lesley Manville's thrilling career ascent continues apace with The Visit, which marks American playwright Tony Kushner's return to…
New debut play is a heartfelt account of the black lesbian experience Queer people of colour face a double discrimination: racism and homophobia. Against this sickness of negation and stupid…
The director Patrick Marber has knitted Tom Stoppard's putative swan song into a compelling whole It's not uncommon for playwrights to begin their careers by writing what they know, to co-o…
Revival of Caryl Churchill's brief dystopic classic is vivid but unexceptional Caryl Churchill, Britain's best living playwright, is enjoying a spate of high-profile revivals of her classic …
Breffni Holahan's bravura performance controls a monologue of mental malaise There's such remarkable symbiosis between material and performance in Irish dramatist Margaret Perry's Collapsibl…
Stef Smith brings exhilarating spirit to a familiar classic Ibsen's Nora slammed the door on her infantilising marriage in 1879 but the sound of it has continued to reverberate down the year…
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 …
High on concept and low on clarity, this Shrew misses its mark Say what you will about The Taming of the Shrew (and you'll be in good company), but it is one of Shakespeare's clearest plays.…
This flawed but trenchant new spy drama asks who's watching the watchers With counter-terrorism an urgent concern " and specifically how best to find, track and use the data of suspected thr…