wed 25/06/2025

Theatre Reviews

The Forest, Hampstead Theatre review - puzzling world premiere from Florian Zeller

Helen Hawkins

If Florian Zeller isn’t a Wordle fan, I’d be very surprised. As with the hit online game, the French playwright likes to offer up a puzzle for the audience to solve, clue by clue, before the curtain falls.

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Queens of Sheba, Soho Theatre review – energy, entertainment and rage

aleks Sierz

Black women often find themselves subject to a double dose of prejudice. Pressure. They face everyday racism as well as sexism. It’s called misogynoir, and Queens of Sheba is a short show dedicated to calling it out. In as joyous and energetic way as possible.

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The Chairs, Almeida Theatre review - a tragi-comic double act for the ages

Demetrios Matheou

By all accounts, whenever The Chairs is dusted off for a new production it manages to resonate for audiences, as would any half-decent play laughing in the face of the futility of existence. And this cheeky, charming, often uproarious new spin on Eugène Ionesco’s "tragic farce" has landed at just the right time.

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Wuthering Heights, National Theatre review - too much heat, not enough light

Laura De Lisle

“If you want romance,” the cast of Emma Rice’s new version of Wuthering Heights say in unison just after the interval, “go to Cornwall.” They’re using the modern definition of romance, of course – Emily Brontë’s novel is full of the original meaning of "romantic", much wilder and more dangerous than anything Ross Poldark gets up to.

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Hamlet, Shakespeare's Globe review - melancholy mash-up lacks chemistry

Rachel Halliburton

Hamlet isn’t often played for laughs. When David Tennant took the comedic approach in the RSC’s 2008 production, it was testament to his mercurial genius that his performance brilliantly conveyed the manic grief of a young man whose world was disintegrating around him.

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Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks, Royal Court review – fearless, frank and feminist

aleks Sierz

Irish teenager Saoirse Murphy has a dirty mouth. And she’s not afraid to use it when talking to the nuns at her convent school.

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A Number, Old Vic review - revelatory yet again

Matt Wolf

Time continues to be kind to A Number, the astonishing 2002 play by Caryl Churchill that reaps fresh rewards with every viewing.

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Conundrum, Young Vic review - inscrutable and ungraspable

Laura De Lisle

Conundrum is a tricky play. Written and directed by Paul Anthony Morris, founder of Crying in the Wilderness Productions, it’s an extended meditation on Blackness and what it means to live in a racist society. Anthony Ofoegbu is the star of the show, but his mesmerising performance isn’t enough to make sense out of Morris’s inscrutable script.

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The Glow, Royal Court review – bizarre, beautiful and breathtaking

aleks Sierz

Bizarre. Breathtaking. Beautiful. I leave the Royal Court theatre with these Bs, as well as others such as bewitching and beguiling, buzzing in my mind.

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Dr Semmelweis, Bristol Old Vic review - dazzling but overloaded

mark Kidel

Dr Semmelweis, a star vehicle for Mark Rylance, one of Britain’s most versatile and talented actors, fills the Bristol Old Vic with a dizzying kaleidoscope of words, sounds and images.

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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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