fri 15/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

Poet in da Corner, Royal Court review - mind-blowing energy plus plus plus

aleks Sierz

There was once a time when grime music was very angry, and very threatening, but that seems a long time ago now. Today, Dizzee Rascal is less a herald of riot and revolt, and more of a national treasure, exuding charm from every pore, even if his music has become increasing predictable and safe.

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Eyam, Shakespeare's Globe review - plague drama, dark and loose

Tom Birchenough

The end-of-season contemporary writing slot at the Globe must be a proposal as full of promise for playwrights as it is perhaps intimidating.

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Henry V, Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol review - the pity of war

mark Kidel

Henry V is a play shot through with martial energy and the terrible chaos of war.

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The Outsider, Print Room at the Coronet review - power in restraint

Rachel Halliburton

As the Syrian conflict enters its final convulsions, renewing memories of how the Sykes-Picot agreement – between an Englishman and a Frenchman – would cause more than a century of political resentment in the Arab world, The Outsider seems particularly piquant.

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Heathers The Musical, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - a sardonic take on teen angst

Marianka Swain

This London premiere of Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s 2010 musical (based on Daniel Waters’ oh-so-Eighties cult classic movie, starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder) had a development period at The Other Palace – no critics allowed – before cruising into the...

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The Human Voice, Gate Theatre review - unrelenting and sad

Katherine Waters

It’s night, and the woman (Leanne Best) is waiting for a phone call. She’s desperate for the voice of her lover  or rather ex-lover: they split three nights ago. Both have secrets they will disclose over the course of their final conversation. Both have positions to defend. The scene is set for a coupling of melodrama and banality.

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The Prisoner, National Theatre review - Peter Brook's latest falls sadly flat

David Kettle

Of the Edinburgh International Festival’s three productions by 2018’s resident company, Paris’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, The Prisoner is the most gnomic, the most baffling, and, frankly, the most disappointing.

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An Adventure, Bush Theatre review - epic but flawed

aleks Sierz

Director Madani Younis, who since 2011 has transformed the Bush Theatre in West London into one of London's most outstanding Off-West End venues, is leaving in December, on his way to becoming the creative director of the Southbank Centre.

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Foxfinder, Ambassadors Theatre review - too ponderous by half

Matt Wolf

A sizeable Off West End success nearly eight years ago looks more than a little exposed in a new, scaled-up production that is one of several shows on now, or imminently, to feature a Game of Thrones actor in a leading role.

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The Woods, Royal Court review - Lesley Sharp triumphs again

aleks Sierz

Blackout. Dark, the colour of childhood fear. Black, the colour of despair. Black. No light visible; no colours to see. Just pitch black, maybe even bible black. This is how Robert Alan Evans’s The Woods, which stars the brilliant Lesley Sharp and which opened tonight in the Royal Court’s theatre upstairs, begins – in total darkness.

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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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