Ian Hislop's engaging First World War play reaches the West EndYou may be having a moment of déjà vu, as Ian Hislop and Nick Newman's new play (which lands in the West End after a U…
She's been Sally Bowles, Lady Macbeth and Elizabeth Darcy. Now for a gritty courtroom drama about rapeShe was Lyra in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials at the National, she has shared…
Cut! Simon McBurney muddles the story of Hollywood mogul Robert EvansThe beauty of fiction is that its stories have both compelling shape and deep meaning " they are dramas where things feel…
Christopher Wheeldon's staging of the movie is the most glamorous escape in townWhat's in a yellow dress? Hope over experience? Reckless confidence? This is a legitimate question when t…
Eve Best shines in wartime Rattigan rarity which riffs on 'Hamlet'What's in a name? Terence Rattigan's Love in Idleness is a reworking of his 1944 play Less Than Kind (never staged…
Acting becomes being in Ivo van Hove's six-hour Shakespeare epicIt felt good to be encountering Shakespeare at his most political with a world event to smile about, for once (hailing, o…
Maria Friedman's revival of frothy comedyRichard Harris's award-winning comedy about a group of seven women and one man who attend a weekly tap-dancing class in a dingy north London chu…
Michelle Collins stars in haunting account of belief and lonelinessMichelle Collins, actor and TV presenter, is so strongly associated with her roles in EastEnders and Coronation Street that…
Molière at full throttle: Griff Rhys Jones and Lee Mack excelTrimmings, trimmings, trimmings. They prove the final straw for Molière's Harpagon in this new production of the classic French…
Shakespeare with smartphonesAmy Leach's energetic Romeo and Juliet is fast, furious and a little breathless, the setting transposed from Verona to a fairly grim contemporary Leeds. Think Wes…
Berlin based avant-pop songwriter has enough pop to balance the avantOK, the title could be offputting, suggesting as it does the crassest of adversarial politics. But this record is somethi…
The birth of a very personal new work at Hampstead Theatre about a small family business The monster has come alive and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Thirteen actors playing three gen…
The poet laureate's verbatim play about Brexit sinks into banalityOh dear. The first explicit play about Brexit is being staged by the National Theatre in a production that has all the acrid…
Humour and vitriol contend in a tightly orchestrated production of Albee's celebrated playMartha is described in the script of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as "a large, boisterous wo…
Conflicts in a theatre family: sharp writing in a new American two-hander In I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Halley Feiffer has written a right curmudgeon of a central role. David is a succe…
Docudrama about the 1981 Labour Party split is a treat " for politics buffsPolitics is a serious business, but it's also a spectator sport. Think of the duels in Prime Minister's Questions; …
Stoppard's breakout play gets a giddy 50th-anniversary revival To the list of abiding theatrical partnerships one must surely add Tom Stoppard and the director David Leveaux.
New play by debbie tucker green is too abstract for its own goodLove, we know, will tear us apart again. And again. And yet again. It will shred our nerves and rip through our guts; it will …
Othello as Iago's tale: sex, violence and mysogynyIntimacy is a mixed blessing: Richard Twyman's close-up exploration of sex and violence in his production of "Othello" for Bristol's Sh…
The second oldest play, adapted by David Greig for the Actors Touring Company, bursts with contemporary resonanceI'm sitting in a rehearsal room in Manchester preparing an Actors Touring Com…
Kurt Egyiawan's Moor takes arms against a sea of production troubles, but in vainThere's no reason why ruffs and candles shouldn't mesh with bursts of contemporary speech, song and ligh…
American play about virtual reality therapy is a bit thinTheatre increasingly uses digital delights to enhance audience enjoyment. And you can easily see why. Visual effects that mimic the e…
On directing Othello at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and taking over at the GateIn a few days' time, Ellen McDougall will become artistic director of the dynamic little Gate Theatre in Notti…
Andrew Scott, predictably unpredictable, is subject to Robert Icke's slow-burn clarityHow often do you leave a production of Shakespeare's most layered drama in tears, thinking "what an…
Tony winner's first play couples awkwardness and charm There's something to be said for encountering a playwright fresh out of the starting gate. Since his debut play Speech & Debat…