mon 18/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

All About Eve, Noel Coward Theatre review - less a bumpy night than an erratically arresting one

Matt Wolf

Women spend a lot of time gazing at themselves in the mirror in the Belgian auteur director Ivo van Hove's latest stage-to-screen deconstruction, All About Eve, which is based on one of the most-beloved of all films about the theatre: the 1950 Oscar-winner of the same name.

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The Price, Wyndham's Theatre review - David Suchet stands supreme

Tom Birchenough

There’s a rather sublime equilibrium to Arthur Miller’s 1968 play between the overwhelmingly heavy weight of history and a sheer life force that somehow functions, against all odds, as its counterbalance.

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The Good Person of Szechwan, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - slick Russian Brecht

David Nice

"In our country the capable man needs luck," belts out Shen Te, the Good Person of Szechwan in the most powerful song of Brecht's epic "parable play" of 1941.

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Blue, Chapter Arts Centre review - heartbreak in the family home

Owen Richards

What's worse than grieving? That all-consuming loss. For those that have experienced it, nothing really comes close. It starts to bug Thomas (Jordan Bernarde, main picture second right) during his visit to the Williams household. Recently bereaved himself, he senses the fragility in the air but no-one seems to give a straight answer.

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Pinter Seven, Harold Pinter Theatre review - elaborations of anxiety

Tom Birchenough

It was back to the very beginning for this final instalment of “Pinter at the Pinter”, with its pairing of A Slight Ache and The Dumb Waiter.

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Home, I'm Darling, Duke of York's Theatre review - Katherine Parkinson rules the roost

Tim Cornwell

The Fifties? They were terrible: bone-cold houses where people huddled round the fireplace for heat, empty Sundays that lasted a month, drawn-out rationing, bread you could build houses with.

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The Cherry Orchard, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - stunning absurdist Chekhov

Rachel Halliburton

There is no doubt that this Cherry Orchard, whirled into town by Roman Abramovich from Moscow, is going to be divisive.

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Beast on the Moon, Finborough Theatre review - drama of familial displacement packs a quiet punch

Tim Cornwell

In the history of early photography in the Middle East, it was the Armenian Christian traders and their descendents who became the pioneers of the new technology.

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Superhoe, Royal Court review - smart, sassy, and full of feeling

aleks Sierz

Titles matter: they send out messages. So, in the current #MeToo climate, isn't it a bit provocative that there's a rash of plays with titles which might be seen to offend: The Hoes, Superhoe and, coming soon, Inside Bitch? Not to mention the suggestive Hole. All strong titles, tough and spiky. But maybe not offensive at all. These plays are, after all, all written by women, and nowadays it's not what you say, but who says it that really matters.

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Cost of Living, Hampstead Theatre review - tough but tender

Tom Birchenough

The Off Broadway production of Cost of Living two years ago brought Martyna Majok the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the height of acclaim of which most new writers – Majok, with four...

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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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