thu 07/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's Globe review - Egypt in sign language, Rome in pale force

Tom Birchenough

More surely than any other London stage, the Globe has opened up our theatrical perspective on different languages. Its triumphant “Globe to Globe” 2012 season presented the Shakespeare canon in 37 different linguistic interpretations.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Bellringers / Suitcase Show

David Kettle

Bellringers, Roundabout @ Summerhall  

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The Birthday Party, Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath review - Pinter still packs a punch

Gary Naylor

Before a word is spoken, a pause held, we hear the seagulls squawking outside, see the (let’s say brown) walls that remind you of the H-Block protests of the 1980s, witness the pitifully small portions for breakfast. If you were in any doubt that we were anywhere other than submerged beneath the fag end of the post-war years of austerity, the clothes confirm it. And a thought surfaces and will jab throughout the two hours runtime: “How different are things today in, say, Clacton?”

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Peanut Butter & Blueberries, Kiln Theatre review - rom-com in a time of Islamophobia

aleks Sierz

At one point, in John Fowles’s 1977 novel The Magus, the guru character in the story compares sexuality before and after the 1960s. He says that although “young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not”, there is also a loss – “a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion”.

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Death of England: Michael / Death of England: Delroy, Soho Place review - thrilling portraits, brilliantly performed, of rebels without a cause

Helen Hawkins

Two boys in east London, one Black, one white, grow up together, play pranks at school, then decades later have a tempestuous falling out. That’s the main narrative arc of these twin plays, but it accounts for none of their extraordinary richness and the superlative acting they entail. 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Adam Riches: Jimmy / TERF

Veronica Lee

Adam Riches: Jimmy, Summerhall 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: The Sound Inside / So Young

David Kettle

The Sound Inside, Traverse Theatre

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: In Two Minds / My English Persian Kitchen

David Kettle

In Two Minds, Traverse Theatre  

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The Grapes of Wrath, NT Lyttelton review - a bleak journey into migrant purgatory

Helen Hawkins

It’s a brave company that embarks on a staging of John Steinbeck’s award-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. A grim study of human goodness in an unrelentingly cruel universe, it’s a long slog for both cast and audience.

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The Years, Almeida Theatre review - matchless acting quintet makes for a must-see

Matt Wolf

The title sounds as if we ought to be in for an evening of Virginia Woolf, and, indeed, one of the astonishing women on view (Deborah Findlay) was in fact a co-star of the recent West End version of Orlando. In fact, this late-summer offering is a scorching reminder of the power of European theatre at a venue, the Almeida, that has of late focused its attentions (often very well) on the American repertoire, from Tennessee Williams to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, amongst others.

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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.


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