fri 25/07/2025

Theatre Reviews

The Emperor, Young Vic

David Nice

She gave us the most moving King Lear years before the news broke that Glenda Jackson would be playing the role. Only Mark Rylance has recently matched the malicious wit of her Globe Richard III.

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Labyrinth, Hampstead Theatre

aleks Sierz

Ever since Lucy Prebble’s hit masterpiece, Enron, opened our eyes to the possibilities of staging plays about global finance in a thrillingly theatrical way, the hunt has been on for another story that can be as informative and as well staged. Step forward Beth Steel, whose Wonderland, her previous play at this address, looked at Yorkshire miners in the 1980s Miners Strike.

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Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again., Shoreditch Town Hall

aleks Sierz

Alice Birch is one of the most exciting playwrights to have arrived in the past five years. This restaging of the brilliantly titled Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. – which was first put on as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Midsummer Mischief festival in June 2014 – demonstrates not only the power of her theatrical imagination, but also her enormous technical skill and sense of emotional truth.

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The Entertainer, Garrick Theatre

aleks Sierz

For the final show in his year-long stay at this West End address, Kenneth Branagh has chosen to revive and star in John Osborne’s 1957 play. By doing so, he finds himself once again treading in the footsteps of Sir Laurence Olivier, who originally created the role. It’s not the first time he’s shadowed the legendary actor. In 1989, he played Henry V on film, and then also the great man himself (in the 2011 film Marilyn and Me).

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They Drink It in the Congo, Almeida Theatre

aleks Sierz

Do you carry a small part of the Congo every day on your person? Probably. Your mobile phone will contain coltan, aka columbite tantalum, which is used to make your electronics work better. And this is mined in the Congo. The trouble is that fluctuating prices for this mineral, as well as competition for such resources, encourages conflict between militia groups, which is one reason for the constant wars in this region of Africa. Another reason is the legacy of colonialism.

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Edinburgh 2016: Angel by Henry Naylor/ Horse in Careful/ Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat

Veronica Lee

Angel by Henry Naylor, Gilded Balloon ★★★★

Rehana tells us what her hometown Kobane, in Syria, is like – “A small border town where nothing happens … like Berwick-on-Tweed” – a typically wry and smart line in Henry Naylor's final instalment of his “Arabian Nightmares” triptych (following The Collector and Echoes).

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Edinburgh Festival 2016: Alan Cumming/ The Glass Menagerie/ Mark Thomas

David Kettle

Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs ★★★★★

 

Is this even theatre? Hardly – cabaret, more like, as Scottish actor-author-provocateur Alan Cumming sings his way through songs by Sondheim, Weill, Lady Gaga and more, interspersing them with anecdotes about tattoos, Liza Minnelli and a less than happy childhood.

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Groundhog Day, Old Vic

Matt Wolf

The New York theatre is so consistently awash in "star is born" moments when one or another British actor crosses the Atlantic to copious praise that it's lovely for a change to be able to reverse the kudos. And as Phil Connors, the jaded weatherman for whom February 2 threatens to become a personal Waterloo, Broadway veteran Andy Karl in his London stage debut sends the stage musical adaptation of Groundhog Day soaring.

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Allegro, Southwark Playhouse

David Nice

Southwark's golden triangle – the Menier, the Playhouse and the Union – has given us so many "lost" musicals which only a decade or so ago would have been lucky to get in-concert airings.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2016: Alix in Wundergarten/4D Cinema/Bucket List

David Kettle

Alix in Wundergarten ★★★★

Think Alan Ayckbourn on acid: a commonplace (well, almost) set-up, exaggerated further and further beyond what we’d ever anticipate.

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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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