sat 16/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

2:22 A Ghost Story, Noël Coward Theatre review - unconvincing, sporadically amusing genre play

Gary Naylor

Danny Robins tells us what we’re in for with his title, so we’re warned. And it’s not long before we get the “things that go bump in the night”, the creaking floorboards, the “I know this sounds crazy, but…” because they’re the essential components of the genre. Reviewing a ghost story and complaining about that stuff really isn’t on – like critiquing a pantomime for its audience participation. 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2021: Tunnels / Dandelion

David Kettle

Tunnels Army @ The Fringe ★★

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Constellations, Vaudeville Theatre review - multiple casts continue to shine

Ismene Brown

This week is peak time to test out Nick Payne’s hypothesis of life as a series of accidents, narrow squeaks and near misses. While the Perseids are doing their August explosive thing, go home after the show and look in the night sky with a lover, and see whether both of you see the same shooting star – what are the chances?

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Paradise, National Theatre review - war, woe, and a glimmer of hope

Laura De Lisle

Philoctetes, Odysseus, Neoptolemus: the men’s names in Sophocles’ Philoctetes are all unnecessarily long and weighed down by expectations.

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Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe review - foot-stompingly good fun

Laura De Lisle

The best version of Twelfth Night I’ve seen is not called Twelfth Night. For sheer knockabout entertainment, nothing beats the 2006 film She’s the Man. But Sean Holmes’ production for the Globe’s summer season, brimming with song and physical comedy, comes a worthy second.

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Carousel, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - brave rewrite doesn't land

Matt Wolf

You've got to hand it to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park: this venue never simply dusts off a familiar musical title and plonks it onstage.

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Big Big Sky, Hampstead Downstairs review - a perfectly realised character study

Gary Naylor

Get to Swiss Cottage early because Bob Bailey’s set for Tom Wells's new Hampstead Downstairs play Big Big Sky is a feast for the eyes.

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Anything Goes, Barbican review - an explosion of joy

Matt Wolf

"Times have changed", we're informed in the cascadingly witty title number of the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes, now in revival at the Barbican and bringing with it a pandemic-clearing tsunami of joy.

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Changing Destiny, Young Vic review – an epic literary discovery

aleks Sierz

The Young Vic, led by the inspiring figure of Kwame Kwei-Armah, is back.

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Bagdad Café, Old Vic review - sweet but scattershot

Matt Wolf

A gorgeous song exists in search of a show to match over at Bagdad Café, the 1987 film that gave the world the memorably plaintive "Calling You", which is threaded throughout Emma Rice's stage adaptation of the movie with understandable insistence.

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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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