The Almeida's all-women hit transfers to the West End Annie Ernaux's semi-autobiographical book Les Années charts a woman's life across time and space, history and memory, through wha…
Brie Larson makes a brave West End debut that, alas, misfires We live in tragic times given over to cataclysmic events that require outsized emotions in return. That may be one reason to ac…
Is it a dance piece with added text, or a stripped down play with excess choreography? The opening scene of the Old Vic's Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes …
Kandinsky Theatre co-creator on a new play tethering technology to existence It started with a Guardian long-read. I'm ashamed to admit it since so many shows could say the same, but that w…
★ MRS PRESIDENT, CHARING CROSS THEATRE A widow, a photographer but no soul Curious play that fails to mobilise theatre's unique ability to tell a story The phenomenal global success o…
★★★ SECOND BEST, RIVERSIDE STUDIOS First-class performance in a second-class play Martin is not Harry Potter in the movies, then might be in real life, but proves to be the…
New play about mental breakdown is a mix of acute distress and poetic writing In a world tainted with racism and homophobia, the Bush theatre is something of a refuge from prejudice. As one …
★★★★★ PLAY ON!, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH The Bard and The Duke in perfect harmony! Super performances deliver magnificent entertainment If you saw Upstart Crow on tele…
Still inventive and fun but short on sharp shocks How excited Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton must have been to learn that the venue for their Inside No 9 stage show was haunted, by an …
★★★ AN INTERROGATION, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Detective gets her man, but at what cost? Rosie Sheehy and Jamie Ballard shine in Edinburgh Festival import In a dingy room with …
★★★ CYMBELINE, SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE Patriarchy defeated! A new, if not as radical as once it were, take on Shakespeare's cross-dressing call to arms There's not much…
★★★★ THE LONELY LONDONERS, KILN THEATRE A beautifully realised stage adaptation Memories, frustrations and hopes in a city emerging from post-war austerity As som…
The script turns dry-as-dust diplomatic detail into nothing less than an adrenaline sport It took a while for journalists to identify the chain-smoking, Machiavellian figure who was a perman…
South African satire about racism, sexism, home ownership and community politics Most Brits don't know much about South Africa today, but we do know about house values, so this new comedy b…
An intimate staging and superb casting make this a superior West End production Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes …
★★★★ THE MAIDS, JERMYN STREET THEATRE Master and Servant, poison & procrastination Class, in its 21st century manifestation, colours much performed play There ar…
★ TITANIQUE, CRITERION THEATRE Celine! Tina! Jack and Rose! But no wit at all Affectionate piss-take set for cult status at best This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in …
BEST OF 2024: THEATRE The classics reclaimed afresh, the acting often astonished The classics were reclaimed afresh, and the acting more often than not astonished It's the images that linge…
The classics were reclaimed afresh, and the acting more often than not astonished
★★★ TWELFTH NIGHT The winter comedy provides more chills than chuckles despite a funny fool Too much thinking; not enough laughing It is not just Twelfth Night, it's Twe…
This latest incarnation of the show is a wild, spinning ride through different forms of reality This feels like the theatrical equivalent of being in a centrifuge " a wild, spinning ride thr…
Magic is minimised in Jamie Lloyd's pared-back version Shakespeare must have relished the opportunities brought by the indoor Blackfriars Theatre in 1611: sound magnified in a way impossible…
★★★★ NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812, DONMAR WAREHOUSE Broadway show takes eight years to traverse the Atlantic, but proves worth the wait War and Pe…
Tom Stoppard's classic evocation of Victorian golden age Oxford stars Simon Russell Beale Can men really love each other " without sex? Or, to put it another way, how many different forms of…
Matthew Bourne's masterly reinvention has become a classic itself How do you refresh a masterpiece? Bringing back his first and still greatest hit, Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne seems to have ch…