2,878 stories by "Lyn Gardner"
Vaudeville, LondonSo silly it's just one long joke, Potted Panto is the latest offering from the duo who gave us Potted Pirates and Potted Potter. The latter was a deceptively simple but wit…
Queen Elizabeth Hall, LondonFerrets down trousers, a Greek chorus of fluffy bunnies and a couple of puppet hens who come to a sad end may not sound like the usual ingredients for Hansel…
BAC, LondonThink Alexander Rodchenko meets Tim Burton, Charles Dickens meets Fritz Lang, and the early 20th-century silent movie meets the 21st-century graphic novel, and you have …
It's been a cracker of a year for both heartwarming and creepy Christmas shows " so end it with a bang by going to the theatreIt's been a really exceptional year for Christmas shows across t…
Barbican, LondonFlyboy is exactly that: half-boy, half-fly. He lives in a small English village " and he's not the only mutant there. His best friend is Mothboy, who Flyboy clearly loves. At…
Roundhouse, LondonSomething has gone badly awry in Michael Boyd's modern-dress revival of Shakespeare's tragedy of passion, politics and performance, which is reduced to farce " a very dull …
Brewhouse, TauntonIt's a great pity that the Somerset County councillors who voted to cut arts funding by 100% weren't at the Brewhouse with me to see a full house of schoolchildren enjoy th…
Riverside Studios, LondonNothing to do with Christmas, and everything to do with Noël Coward, Alistair McGowan's compilation show of songs and verse does well if you like your theatre to …
Ustinov, BathJustine and Michael are flatmates inclined to bring their jobs home with them. Justine, whose life is all work and no play, is in a permanent state of rage, and driven to drink …
Curve, LeicesterImperialism and the imperious meet head-on and clash in Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical about a 19th-century schoolteacher teaching Victorian values at the court of the Kin…
Theatre companies join forces for a Christmas Fayre in Leeds and the RSC gives Roald Dahl's Matilda a musical twistFour of British theatre's most ingenious companies, Unlimited, Slung Low, B…
Soho, LondonBea's body is useless to her. For eight years she has laid marooned in her bed, surrounded by the evidence of the life she once led as a student before illness struck. Now she is…
Rose, KingstonClaude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil took a big fat French novel and turned it into musical-theatre gold with Les Misérables; George Stiles clearly aims to do the same w…
Old Vic Tunnels, LondonA journey into the heart of darkness, the storm-tossed oceans of sleep and perhaps even into death itself, Living Structures's theatre-cum-installation piece is certai…
Criterion, LondonThe appeal of Peppa, an over-excitable, oddly shaped pink pig may well be lost on anyone over the age of five, but she's created an epidemic of swine fever among the pre-sch…
Hackney Empire, LondonLike poor old Dame Daisy Trott and the citizens of Hackneydale, Hackney Empire has recently fallen on hard times, and although it has never gone officially dark, has ba…
It's battle of the pantos this week, but if you're looking for something darker, head down into the Old Vic TunnelsIt's a busy old week, not least in the seasonal shows department. Hackney E…
BAC, LondonMary Norton's much-loved novel The Borrowers, about the small people who live under the floorboards in the homes of "human beans" and "borrow" whatever they need, is the inspirati…
Birmingham RepHearty but a little bit stodgy, playwright Garry Lyons and composer Tim Sutton's ambitious musical never quite persuades that this Edwardian tale is in need of 23 songs. With i…
Award-winning shows like You Me Bum Bum Train don't arrive fully formed, but require time and money to developIt's good to see a piece of non-traditional theatre triumph in the London Evenin…
Arcola, LondonIdiosyncratic, defiant and distinctive are all words that apply to this agit-prop musical, and they might also be used to describe the Arcola and director Mehmet Ergen, who sta…
New End, LondonThe week draws to a close with the earliest significant snow for some years, and the first Christmas turkey, appropriately American, crash-landing in Hampstead on Thanksgiving…
With the panto period yet to kick off, there's a Scottish invasion in London and plenty of non-Christmas-related shows elsewhereIf I were you, I'd go to Bristol this week for the brilliant I…
Theatre503, LondonTheatre503's Coalition season brings together 10 playwrights with other artists " among them musicians, choreographers, dancers and illustrators " in a programme of work ab…
Union, LondonBrought to you by the same team who created the award winning, all-male The Pirates of Penzance, this absurdly silly but sweetly touching version of Iolanthe is a comic pleasure…
