sat 16/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Back to the Future: The Musical, Adelphi Theatre review - a spectacular West End show to delight fans old and new

Gary Naylor

There’s a lot of going back to the future in theatres just now - shows (like this one) postponed by 18 months or so and delayed still further by co-star Roger Bart being indisposed on press night are bringing the bright lights back to the West End.

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Shining City, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - occasional sluggishness alongside a true star turn

Tom Teodorczuk

When Brendan Coyle, playing a modestly magnetic widower and sales rep called John in this revival of Conor McPherson's 2004 play Shining City, first appears on stage, he looks thoroughly bewildered. His eyes dart back and forth as he initially struggles to find his bearings.

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The Last Five Years, Garrick Theatre review - bittersweet musical treat gets West End upgrade

Gary Naylor

Much has happened in the five years since your reviewer braved the steep rake at The Other Palace and saw The Last Five Years (not least my now getting its “Nobody needs to know” nod in Hamilton – worth a fistful of Tonys in prestige, I guess) so it’s timely to revisit Jason Robert Brown’s musical.

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Blithe Spirit, Harold Pinter Theatre review - an amusing, if dated, revival of the Coward classic

Gary Naylor

We’re in an agreeable drawing room with an author, Charles Condomine, who is looking forward to having a bit of fun with a local spiritualist, Madame Arcati, whom he has invited over for an evening séance.

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Black British Musical Theatre 1900-1950, Wigmore Hall review – a disappointing missed opportunity

Bernard Hughes

The Wigmore Hall is a bastion of white musicians playing the music of white composers to a largely white audience and it is to the credit of the management that, in seeking to diversify, it staged this lecture-recital on the history of black musicals in Britain from 1900-1950 in a main evening slot.

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Camp Siegfried, Old Vic review - the banality of evil, brilliantly served up

Matt Wolf

A stealthily powerful play gets the production of its dreams in Camp Siegfried, which marks a high-profile UK presence for the American writer Bess Wohl.

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The Lodger, Coronet Theatre review - underdeveloped family drama

Laura De Lisle

The Coronet Theatre is a beautiful space – it’s a listed Victorian building, and the bar’s like something out of a film about Oscar Wilde.

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Is God Is, Royal Court review – blister, flare and burn, baby, burn

aleks Sierz

God is a tricky one. Or should that be One? And definitely not a He. So when she says take revenge, then vengeance is definitely not only hers, but ours too.

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The Memory of Water, Hampstead Theatre review – uneasy tragi-comedy

aleks Sierz

Memories are notoriously treacherous — this we know. I remember seeing Shelagh Stephenson’s contemporary classic at the Hampstead, when this venue was a prefab, and enjoying Terry Johnson’s racy staging, which starred Jane Booker, Hadyn Gwynne and Matilda Ziegler as the trio of bickering sisters, and then being blown away by his West End version, in which comedy heavyweight Alison Steadman partnered Samantha Bond and Julia Sawalha (with Margot Leicester thrown in for good measure).

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Frozen, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - twinkling spectacle with a sincere drama at its heart

Marianka Swain

Let it snow!

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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.


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