Theatre Reviews
The Thunder Girls, The Lowry, Salford review - all-girl solidarityFriday, 27 September 2019
An all-girl rock group from the 1980s meet again, 30 years after an acrimonious break-up brought their shared stage career to an end … and the sparks fly as old resentments resurface and the bitterness of life’s blows emerges. Will their one-time all-girl solidarity overcome their pain and regrets? Will the show end with them back together, belting out their iconic anthem? Read more... |
Two Ladies, Bridge Theatre review - Cvitešić and Wanamaker really rockThursday, 26 September 2019
Are first ladies second-class citizens? Do they always have to stand behind their husbands? What are they really like as people? Questions such as these have inspired Irish playwright Nancy Harris to explore the relationship between two fictional first ladies, each of which bears an uncanny resemblance to a real-life figure. One is clearly based on Melania Trump, the other on Brigitte Trogneux, better known as Mrs Macron. Read more... |
Blood Wedding, Young Vic review - inventive, poetic if over-stretched revival of Lorca's rural tragedyThursday, 26 September 2019
Earthiness, lyricism, fatalism, the undeniable force of passion, of ecstatic attraction, known as "duende": these are the familiar ingredients of Lorca's plays set in rural Spain. Blood Wedding, written in 1932, was the first, followed by Yerma two years later and The House of Bernarda Alba in 1936, the year of Lorca's murder by Nationalists. Read more... |
Mother of Him, Park Theatre review – lean domestic drama unsure where it standsWednesday, 25 September 2019
Mother of Him was written a decade ago, but its most prescient moment happens in the first five minutes of Max Lindsay's production at the Park Theatre. Read more... |
Youth Without God, Coronet Theatre review - the chill control of nascent NazismTuesday, 24 September 2019
The only novel by the Hungarian dramatist Ödön von Horváth, Youth Without God was written in exile after he fled Anschluss Vienna and published in 1938, shortly before his death. Read more... |
The Permanent Way, The Vaults review – devastating resurrection of play tackling corporate greedFriday, 20 September 2019
The Permanent Way first roared its way into the national consciousness in 2003 when, after a triumphant opening in York, it toured the UK before transferring to the National Theatre. Read more... |
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, Wilton's Music Hall review - klezmer revue is moving and inventiveFriday, 20 September 2019
Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s “refugee musical” – now there’s a phrase you don’t expect to write – is a treat. Read more... |
Big the Musical, Dominion Theatre review - sweet if wildly overstretchedWednesday, 18 September 2019
The work isn't finished on Big, if this stage musical of the beloved 1988 Tom Hanks film is ever to, um, make it big. Read more... |
Faith, Hope & Charity, National Theatre review - a grim compassionWednesday, 18 September 2019
Alexander Zeldin continues his devastating analysis of modern Britain in this culminating play of a (very loose) trilogy that started with 2014’s Beyond Caring, followed by LOVE two years after that. Read more... |
Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), Bristol Old Vic review - Jane Austen as shallow romcomMonday, 16 September 2019
It is a truth perhaps not quite but almost universally accepted that Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, beloved of GSCE English Lit examiners, and often adapted for the screen, is a part of the canon, waiting to be re-interpreted according to the fashions of the day. Read more... |
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.
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Josefowicz, LSO, Mälkki, Barbican review - two old favourite...
Every now and then a concert programme comes along that fits like a bespoke suit, and this one could have been specially designed for me. Two...
Mr Swallow: Show Pony, Richmond Theatre review - magic trick...
Nick Mohammed invented his Mr Swallow character – camp, lisping, with an inflated ego and the mistaken belief that he has creative...
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a feast of...
Photographer Finetime and I have our first pints outside Dalton’s, a bar on...
Parsifal, Glyndebourne review - the music flies up, the dram...
There’s a grail, but it doesn't glow in a mundane if perverted Christian ritual. Three of the main characters have young and old actor versions...
The Bombing of Pan Am 103, BBC One review - new dramatisatio...
The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s ...
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works, Royal Ballet review - th...
Ballet is hardly a stranger to Broadway. Until the late 1950s every other musical had its fantasy ballet sequence – think Cyd Charisse in ...
Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries
“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during Strawberries' “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however,...
Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos
Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on...
Songlines Encounters, Kings Place review - West African and...
Songlines Encounters is your round-the-world ticket to great...