sun 10/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Kneehigh on tour review - sweetest musical Chagalliana

David Nice

Time flies so much more beguilingly in Daniel Jamieson and Emma Rice's 90-minute musical fantasia than it ever has, for me, in Bock and Harnick's Fiddler on the Roof – and the songs aren't bad, either.

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Beginning, Ambassadors Theatre review - funny and richly moving comedy about loneliness

Tom Birchenough

Awkwardness is a challenging effect in drama, and one so rewarding when it works. When the movement isn’t easy, when the dialogue doesn't flow; when, with emotional revelations broken and coming with difficulty, the pauses speak more powerfully than the words.

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Lady Windermere's Fan, Vaudeville Theatre review - Wilde abandoned

David Benedict

Imagine, if you will, discovering a ninth-rate old melodrama about upper-class nonsense, hiring a bunch of actors including a couple of starry friends big in comedy and putting it on stage. And then realising there’s a paying audience so, to make it work, they’re going to have to ham it up to the hilt… Hang on a minute, Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan isn’t ninth-rate melodrama.

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The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter Theatre review - starry cast create a stunning masterpiece

aleks Sierz

Is modernism dead and buried? Anyone considering the long haul of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party from resounding flop in 1958 to West End crowd-pleasing classic today might be forgiven for wondering whether self-consciously difficult literary texts have had their day.

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All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - feisty, prickly and topical, as well

Matt Wolf

It's the people who are problematic, not the play. That's one take-away sentiment afforded by Caroline Byrne's sparky and provocative take on All's Well That Ends Well, that ever-peculiar Shakespeare "comedy" (really?) whose title is in ironic contrast to its emotional terrain.

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Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Royal Court review - iconic 1980s title makes a welcome return

Matt Wolf

The revival that almost didn't make it into town has got the Royal Court's 2018 mainstage offerings off to a rousing start.

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Girl from the North Country, Noël Coward Theatre review - Bob Dylan fuels a dreamlike drama

Marianka Swain

The rolling stone is now at home in the West End, as Conor McPherson’s inimitable dramatic take on Bob Dylan transfers from the Old Vic, where it premiered last summer.

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Cirque du Soleil - OVO, Royal Albert Hall review - fantastical creatures, heart-in-mouth thrills

Katie Colombus

For their eighth debut at the Royal Albert Hall, mesmerising French-Canadian performance art company Cirque du Soleil takes the audience on a journey into the world underfoot.

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My Mum's a Twat, Royal Court review - Patsy Ferran shines in a solo play that looks back in anger

Matt Wolf

That ages-old dictum "write what you know" has given rise to the intriguingly titled My Mum's a Twat, in which the Royal Court's delightful head of press, Anoushka Warden, here turns first-time playwright, much as the Hampstead Theatre's then-press rep, Charlotte Eilenberg, did back in...

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Best of 2017: Theatre

Matt Wolf

Year-end wrap-ups function as both remembrances of things past and time capsules, attempts to preserve an experience to which audiences, for the most part, have said farewell.

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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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