Bush, LondonTessa Peake-Jones and Andrew French star in Barney Norris's quietly affecting two-hander about ordinary lives"I've been alive for so long and I haven't got anything to show for i…
They both create work that is bold and deeply relevant for local communities, so National Theatre Wales and its new artistic director Kully Thiarai are a perfect fitKully Thiarai, the new ar…
Royal Opera House, LondonEdward Watson finds sympathy for the doomed prince while Sarah Lamb gives one of the performances of her career in MacMillan's unsparingly brutal balletMayerling is …
Southwark Playhouse, London A defiant duchess takes on a corrupt clergyman in this vigorous revival of James Shirley's cracking 17th-century playJames Shirley (1596-1666) is one of British t…
The stylised dance routines of New York's gay subculture have made their way to the continent, from Sweden to Estonia, captured in all their theatricality by British grime photographer Ewen …
The National Youth Theatre's Paul Roseby claims that drama school isn't worth the money. He's both right and wrongWhen he says that going to drama school is a waste of time and money for the…
Camden People's theatre, LondonLouise Orwin's bold work involves the voices of real women, as well as naked Ken and Barbie dolls, in order to lay bare the politics of female sexuality"What i…
Almeida, London Lyndsey Turner's immaculate, neon-lit revival of Crimp's 1993 play lays bare the ways reality is exploited and distorted by the mediaThere's a rich ambiguity to the title of …
Got something to ask the Observer's long-standing theatre critic? Here's your chance, ahead of an article in which she reflects upon two decades of reviewingThis June will see the 20th anniv…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonThe lovers alone convince in Daniel Kramer's bewildering productionEmma Rice's last season in charge of the Globe opens with loud defiance. Daniel Kramer's product…
Lyric Hammersmith, LondonA visually dazzling staging by 59 Productions is missing a human dimensionJames Fenton, trenchant former theatre critic of the Sunday Times, once described his job a…
Barbican, LondonNo amount of writhing and roaring can enliven Ivo van Hove's self-absorbed take on ViscontiIn one corner David Hare: the least likely of dramatic Brexiters, suspicious of con…
Chichester Festival theatreRichard Wilson stars as a crusty headmaster in Alan Bennett's playful but patchy 1968 state-of-the-nation play"An elaborate life support system for the preservatio…
Milton Keynes theatre, and touringThe sex is better than the storyline, but Kenneth Tindall's Casanova is a handsome creationKenneth Tindall's Casanova for Northern Ballet is a lustrous prod…
Billy Elliot creator Lee Hall won an Olivier with his musical Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour " now it's starting a major London runUntil I knew the real story, I had some fun imagining the …
The actor and singer on her new role in the civil rights musical Caroline, Or Change " and playing the baddie in pantoSharon D Clarke, 50, grew up in Tottenham, north London, the daughter of…
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, LondonSimon Stephens's experimental 'text for dance' about a woman coping with personal loss teeters on the brink of failure, but is consistently engag…
After 10 years of self-imposed exile, the playwright is enjoying a renaissance. However, she says that female dramatists are still being disregardedPlaywright Timberlake Wertenbaker was once…
The NT's former artistic director digs up absorbing material, and argues that high-minded can also be showbiz goldImpressive though his time running the National Theatre was, in one respect …
She used to be told she was too fat, too northern, too political. Decades into a stellar career, Maxine Peake is on fighting formMaxine Peake looks at me and rolls her eyes. "Last time we me…
Sydney Lyric Theatre, SydneyEven Australian Idol Paulini's stellar voice can't rescue this musical, which turns the Whitney Houston film into a glitzy but baffling spectacle for the stageThe…
Reader Mary McKeown applauds Dame Judi Dench for speaking up about actors delivering inaudible linesHurrah for Dame Judi Dench (Get off the sofa and learn your Shakespeare, Dench tells young…
Royal Exchange, ManchesterAnxieties over loneliness and zero-hours contracts take an eerily real form for the characters in Alan Harris's lyrical two-handerJimmy, who is 34 and lives with hi…
The comedian and sketch-show doyenne on the things that make her laugh the mostSimon Munnery's The League Against Tedium in Edinburgh in the late 1990s. I had never seen anything like it; I …
White Bear, London Politics predominates in Paul Mason's frustrating account of the French communard Louise Michel who was deported to New Caledonia in the 1870sDealing with defeat is part o…