mon 18/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Twelfth Night, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh - a touch too sweet

David Kettle

“Well, that was really sweet,” one young audience member in front of me remarked on his way out of Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre.

Read more...

Poet in da Corner, Royal Court review - mind-blowing energy plus plus plus

aleks Sierz

There was once a time when grime music was very angry, and very threatening, but that seems a long time ago now. Today, Dizzee Rascal is less a herald of riot and revolt, and more of a national treasure, exuding charm from every pore, even if his music has become increasing predictable and safe.

Read more...

Eyam, Shakespeare's Globe review - plague drama, dark and loose

Tom Birchenough

The end-of-season contemporary writing slot at the Globe must be a proposal as full of promise for playwrights as it is perhaps intimidating.

Read more...

Henry V, Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol review - the pity of war

mark Kidel

Henry V is a play shot through with martial energy and the terrible chaos of war.

Read more...

The Outsider, Print Room at the Coronet review - power in restraint

Rachel Halliburton

As the Syrian conflict enters its final convulsions, renewing memories of how the Sykes-Picot agreement – between an Englishman and a Frenchman – would cause more than a century of political resentment in the Arab world, The Outsider seems particularly piquant.

Read more...

Heathers The Musical, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - a sardonic take on teen angst

Marianka Swain

This London premiere of Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s 2010 musical (based on Daniel Waters’ oh-so-Eighties cult classic movie, starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder) had a development period at The Other Palace – no critics allowed – before cruising into the...

Read more...

The Human Voice, Gate Theatre review - unrelenting and sad

Katherine Waters

It’s night, and the woman (Leanne Best) is waiting for a phone call. She’s desperate for the voice of her lover  or rather ex-lover: they split three nights ago. Both have secrets they will disclose over the course of their final conversation. Both have positions to defend. The scene is set for a coupling of melodrama and banality.

Read more...

The Prisoner, National Theatre review - Peter Brook's latest falls sadly flat

David Kettle

Of the Edinburgh International Festival’s three productions by 2018’s resident company, Paris’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, The Prisoner is the most gnomic, the most baffling, and, frankly, the most disappointing.

Read more...

An Adventure, Bush Theatre review - epic but flawed

aleks Sierz

Director Madani Younis, who since 2011 has transformed the Bush Theatre in West London into one of London's most outstanding Off-West End venues, is leaving in December, on his way to becoming the creative director of the Southbank Centre.

Read more...

Foxfinder, Ambassadors Theatre review - too ponderous by half

Matt Wolf

A sizeable Off West End success nearly eight years ago looks more than a little exposed in a new, scaled-up production that is one of several shows on now, or imminently, to feature a Game of Thrones actor in a leading role.

Read more...

Pages

Advertising feature

★★★★★

A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.
The Observer, Kate Kellaway

 

Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.

 

★★★★★

This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.
The Times, Ann Treneman

 

Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.

 

Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.


latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Blu-ray: Who Wants to Kill Jessie?

"Crazy comedy" was a recognised subgenre in post-war Czech...

BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized...

There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans....

Gibby Haynes, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - ex-Butthole...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Cat Cohen / Lachlan Werner /...

Cat Cohen, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Adrian Sherwood - The Collapse of Everything

UK dub maestro and producer, Adrian Sherwood is hardly what...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...

Frang, Romaniw, Liverman, LSO, Pappano, Edinburgh Internatio...

Right from the bracing brass fanfare that began this Sea Symphony, you know exactly where you were: right in the midst of the deck, with...