sun 17/08/2025

Theatre Reviews

G, Royal Court review - everyday realism blitzed by urban myth

aleks Sierz

I live in Brixton, south London; in my street, for many years, a pair of trainers were up in the sky, hanging over the telephone wires. They were there for years, getting more and more soggy, more and more decayed. Urban myth called them a tribute to a dead gangster.

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A Night with Janis Joplin: The Musical, Peacock Theatre review - belting Blues singing in an oddly sanitised format

Helen Hawkins

The signs in the Peacock’s foyer warn that this show features "very loud music”. Exactly what Janis Joplin fans want to hear. This is an evening for them, more a concert than a piece of musical theatre.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: L'Addition / Long Distance / The Sun, the Mountain and Me

David Kettle

L’Addition, Summerhall  

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Shifters, Duke of York's Theatre review - star-crossed lovers shine in intelligent rom-com

Gary Naylor

Pete Waterman, responsible (some might prefer the word guilty) for more than 100 Top 40 hits, said that a pop song is the hardest thing to write. Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back – all wrapped up in three minutes. Benedict Lombe’s Shifters takes longer – 33 Kylies longer – but it pulls off the same devilishly difficult trick and, as with the best earworms of the 1980s, it’s likely to stay in your head for years.  

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The 39 Steps, Trafalgar Theatre review - return of an entertaining panto for grown-ups

Helen Hawkins

Before the Plays That Went Wrong and the multi-role six-hander Operation Mincemeat, there was Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of The 39 Steps: four actors on a collision course with feasibility.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: REVENGE: After the Levoyah / Puddles and Amazons

David Kettle

REVENGE: After the Levoyah, Summerhall  

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Òran / This Town

David Kettle

Òran, Pleasance Courtyard  

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The Fabulist, Charing Cross Theatre review - fine singing cannot rescue an incoherent production

Gary Naylor

On opening night, there’s always a little tension in the air. Tech rehearsals and previews can only go so far – this is the moment when an audience, some wielding pens like scalpels, sit in judgement. Having attended thousands on the critics’ side of the fourth wall, I can tell you that there’s plenty of crackling expectation and a touch of fear in the stalls, too. None more so than when the show is billed as a new musical.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Ni Mi Madre / Bi-Curious George: Queer Planet

David Kettle

Ni Mi Madre, Pleasance Dome  

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Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's Globe review - Egypt in sign language, Rome in pale force

Tom Birchenough

More surely than any other London stage, the Globe has opened up our theatrical perspective on different languages. Its triumphant “Globe to Globe” 2012 season presented the Shakespeare canon in 37 different linguistic interpretations.

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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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