Theatre Reviews
Othello, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - 21st century interpretation delivers food for thoughtThursday, 08 February 2024
Detective Chief Inspector Othello leads a quasi-paramilitary team of Metropolitan Police officers investigating gang activity in Docklands. With a chequered past now behind him, he has reformed and has the respect of both the team he leads and his superior officers. But his secret marriage to Commander Brabantio’s daughter, Desdemona, unleashes a stream of racist invective from her father, triggering memories of abuse that are never far from the surface. Read more... |
Metamorphosis, Lyric Hammersmith review - vivid images, but where's the drama?Wednesday, 07 February 2024
Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is a novella whose cultural resonance has echoed loudly down the years. As a modernist metaphor for alienation in our times it has frequently been adapted for the stage. There have been classic, and popular, adaptations by Steven Berkoff and by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson for Vesturport theatre company. Read more... |
Bronco Billy, Charing Cross Theatre - schmaltzy musical brings the feelgood factor just when it's neededTuesday, 06 February 2024
When entering a particular, well-populated region of MusicalTheatreLand, one has to check in a few items at the border. Weary cynicism, the desire for narrative coherence, that nerve that starts to throb when sentimentality oozes across the fourth wall – all need to be left behind. Like pantomime and opera, if you bring those attitudes with you, a dry desert is all you will see, but if you buy in, sometimes, not always, you’ll find oases too. Read more... |
Till the Stars Come Down, National Theatre review - exuberant comedy with a dark edgeSaturday, 03 February 2024
The National Theatre is meant to represent the whole nation – and not just the metropolitan middle classes. So it’s really good to see that Beth Steel – who comes from an East Midlands working-class background and was once writer in residence at this flagship venue – is having her latest play staged here in the Dorfman space. Read more... |
A Mirror, Trafalgar Theatre review - puzzle play with an empty coreSaturday, 03 February 2024
Take dollops of Orwell and Kafka, with a sprinkling of Pirandello for a lighter texture, then bake. That could be the recipe for Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, now transferred from the Almeida to the West End for a limited run. Read more... |
The King and I, Dominion Theatre review - welcome return for the Rodgers and Hammerstein classicWednesday, 31 January 2024
The giant crinolines are back, and the winsome little royal children with miniature temples on their heads, and the glorious songs. The King and I is at the Dominion for a six-week run: how does its storyline look under a 21st century follow-spot? Read more... |
The Most Precious of Goods, Marylebone Theatre review - old-fashioned storytelling of an all-too relevant taleTuesday, 30 January 2024
As last week’s news evidenced, genocide never really goes out of fashion. So it’s only right and proper that art continues to address the hideous concept and, while nothing, not even Primo Levi’s shattering If This Is a Man, can capture the scale of the depravity of the camps, it is important that the warning from history is regularly proclaimed anew – and heeded. Read more... |
Plaza Suite, Savoy Theatre review - real-life married couple brings panache and pain to period comedyMonday, 29 January 2024
Sarah Jessica Parker's screen renown as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City has made a London event out of the West End revival of Plaza Suite, the Neil Simon triptych from 1968 that is as definably New York as the TV series in which Parker made her name. But for all that Simon has over the years been dismissed in London as overly frothy and glib, this current production reminds us that his landscape was no less alive to melancholy, even pain. Read more... |
Northanger Abbey, Orange Tree Theatre review - larky retelling of Austen’s satire with a poignant coreFriday, 26 January 2024
What Zoe Cooper has concocted in her loving rewiring of Jane Austen’s first completed novel looks at first sight like a knockabout satire of a satire. But her aim is more sober than that: a queer rereading of this text as she first experienced it as a student. Read more... |
Cowbois, Royal Court review - fabulously queer extravaganzaSaturday, 20 January 2024
At its best theatre is a seducer. It weaves a magic spell that can persuade you, perhaps against your better judgement, to love a show. To adore a show; to enjoy yourself. This, at least, is my experience of Charlie Josephine’s Cowbois, a queer Western extravaganza which opened at the RSC last year and now arrives, in all its shiny silk-costumed glory, at the Royal Court in London. Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘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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