The Irishman's first new play in over a decade is engaging but overstuffed It's one thing to be indebted to a playwright, as Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter have been at different times to B…
The 1952 classic lives to see another day in notably name-heavy revival The water proves newly inviting in The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Rattigan's mournful 1952 play that some while ago estab…
This wild, intelligent play is a tour de force till the doom-laden finale Ava Pickett's award-winning début play, 1536, is a foul-mouthed, furious, frenetically funny ride through the lives…
More mayhem from the Mischief company From the creative team that brought you The Play That Goes Wrong in 2012 (and assorted sequels) comes this spy caper. As ever with Mischief productions,…
Richard Bean has turned Mamet's steel trap into an amusing puzzle There is so much that is right about Jonathan Kent's new production of House of Games " the casting, the staging, the direct…
John Lithgow gives a masterclass in delivering a 'human booby trap' When Mark Rosenblatt was preparing his debut play, the miseries of the assault on Gaza were still over the horizon. Now th…
The late composer bids farewell with a show made-to-order for now You don't have to be greeting the modern day with a smile unsupported by events in the wider world to have a field day at H…
Estranged father, mother and son each doubled in Jon Fosse's mesmerising meditation Watching the stricken faces on the split screen, I felt at times like callow Farfrae in Hardy's The Mayor …
★★★★★ THE GANG OF THREE, KING'S HEAD THEATRE The big beasts banter 50 years ago Beautifully written and equally well acted play resonates down the decades There…
★★ CONVERSATIONS AFTER SEX, PARK THEATRE Nudity, but nothing new in UK debut Award-winning Irish play fails to reach a memorable climax In Dublin, a city that has changed more th…
Sean Holmes' Western-style production brings a flamboyant start to the Globe's summer season Holsters, Stetsons and bluegrass music bring a distinctive flavour to this Wild West riff on Rome…
The Irish actor Stephen Rea is a silent-movie Krapp to treasure In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a door…
Starry new writing premiere struggles to connect It's both brave and bracing to welcome new voices to the West End, but sometimes one wonders if such exposure necessarily works to the benef…
An ideal revisiting of Patrick Marber's play about risking all to move ahead Patrick Marber's powerful debut about gambling men is 30 years old, born as the Eighties entrepreneurial boom was…
★★★★ MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, RSC, STRATFORD Medieval court's mores translates uncomfortably well to modern football Garish and gossipy, this new production packs a…
Let's make a coronation opera, with bags of dramatic licence Back in 2009, there were Ben and Wystan on stage (Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art). Last year came Ben and Master David Hemmings …
The production gets stronger in the second half as the shadows of tragedy begin to loom In 2012, an eight-hour long version of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby arrived in London a…
De Beauvoir's novel gets an often charming but undemanding staging The Finborough has once again performed the miracle of creating a whole world in its intimate space: this time, inter-war …
New play about two sisters, death and hoarding is well written, but feels incomplete "They fuck you up your Mum and Dad; they may not mean to, but they do." These lines from Philip Larkin'…
★★★★★ GHOSTS, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH - Ibsen screams into 2025 in this perfect reimagining Ten years on, Gary Owen and Rachel O'Riordan top their triumphant Iphigeni…
New play about a sibling's death is well imagined and deeply felt, but a bit slender The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. Or words to that e…
Amy Ng's take on two Chinese titans needs more dramatic ballast The writer Amy Ng has made a sterling effort in digging up the true story behind her new play at the Kiln, Shanghai Dolls, but…
After his Olivier Award win for Oedipus, Robert Icke turns to a modern "monster" Are we really in "a new era of male anger, societal discontent and rage"? This is what Royal Court artistic d…
★ MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE Ambitious project overwhelmed by challenges Two misfits misfire in misconceived show It seems a bizarre idea. Take a pivotal film in America…
Writer-actor Keelan Kember floods the stage with a torrent of gags but few ideas Keelan Kember's play Thanks for Having Me may look like a vehicle for Kedar Williams-Stirling (Sex Education,…