sun 17/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Dream, RSC online review - gaming version unleashes revolutionary potential

Rachel Halliburton

Which of Shakespeare’s plays is most plagued by misperception? For my money, I would argue A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Most people encounter it at school age because of the ease with which it can be dressed up as a light comedy involving fairies.

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Typical, Soho Theatre online review - powerfully poetic and painful

aleks Sierz

As the events of last year made clear, the police have a problem with race on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, BAME people are more than twice as likely to die in police custody while being forcibly restrained than people from other social groups.

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Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament review – choose-your-own whodunnit

Laura De Lisle

I’ll admit, I’ve never been a fan of murder mysteries. Patience is not one of my virtues; if I can’t work something out in 30 seconds, I’m liable to give up, and whodunnits tend to need a bit longer than that.

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Barnes' People, Original Theatre Company online review - intriguing quartet of monologues revived

Tom Birchenough

The four monologues that make up Barnes’ People were filmed in the grand surroundings of the Theatre Royal, Windsor, and that venue's atmospheric spaces (now deserted, of course) seem to tell a sad tale of their own, one that chimes rather appropriately with the mood of some of them.

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The Color Purple - at Home, Curve online review – life-affirming musical retelling of Alice Walker's novel

Rachel Halliburton

This production of The Color Purple is an extraordinary testimony to the fact that many of the 20th century’s most joyous forms of music – jazz, ragtime and of course blues – had their roots in misery and oppression.

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Hymn, Almeida Theatre online review - highs and lows of a soulful brother bonding

Tom Birchenough

Contact without touch: among the many readjustments that the pandemic has brought to theatre, its demands that restrict direct contact almost to nothing must be among the most testing. We have learnt much about how rigorously any new production – for now, only live-streamed – must be prepared: the regular testing in rehearsals, the two-metre distancing, the repeated cleaning of props.

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All On Her Own, Stream.Theatre online review - a vivid monologue on bereavement

Rachel Halliburton

This stunningly delivered online monologue from a bereaved widow to her husband feels simultaneously incredibly timely and very dated. At this time of lockdown it is chilling to wonder how many rooms across the world contain individuals with only ghosts for comfort.

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Romeo and Juliet, Palace Theatre, Manchester online review - futuristic and timely

Heather Neill

The story of Romeo and Juliet is well known, worth revisiting endlessly and always relevant. But there is another story here: the making of the piece using innovative digital technology including CGI, to keep actors and creative team safe in a pandemic.

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Good Grief, Platform Presents online review - a little more, please

Laura De Lisle

Good Grief, a new show from American screenwriter and playwright Lorien Haynes, can’t work out what it wants to be. It’s billed as an “online filmed production”.

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Shook, Papatango online review - strongly acted, but depressingly predictable

aleks Sierz

Film is the new theatre – this we know, but does the distance imposed by the change of medium increase or decrease the impact of the story?

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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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