5,590 stories by "Mark Shenton"
New Wimbledon Studio, London: This new British musical shows a degree of confidence and spirit that has a bit too much of everything, but also has promise and some flair. It features a stron…
Twenty-seven former and current Billy Elliots will perform a specially choreographed mash-up finale of Billy Elliot the Musical when a performance is broadcast live from the West End…
An interesting development: the Almeida held two press performances directly after each other on the same day for its new production, Alecky Blythe’s latest verbatim play Little Revolu…
Ben Forster, who previously starred in the title role of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar on its U.K. arena stage tour after winning the TV talent show "Sup…
La Soirée, last seen in London in 2011, is to return to the capital following a world tour that included a residency at New York's Union Square Theatre. It will begin performa…
One of the great things about fringe theatre is that you might be seeing future stars for the first time. The cover star on last weekend’s Culture section in the Sunday Times, for inst…
Royal and Derngate, Northampton: This centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War has compelled us to look again at the sacrifices and repercussions of that deadly conflict, even a…
Dogfight, the new musical that has arrived at Southwark Playhouse from Off-Broadway where it was originally premiered in 2012, is a challenging and provocative show that packs a surprising p…
The late Milton Shulman reviewed theatre for the Evening Standard until he was well into his 80s, a run of some 38 years. Michael Billington, now 74, has been at it even longer: he has…
Park Theatre, London: Richard Bean is as ubiquitous in UK theatre as beans on toast. Wedged between his new play Pitcairn and his book for Made in Dagenham is this reminder of where it all b…
I've often had cause to pause here and speculate here about the future of theatre criticism: in a world where everyone is a critic, or at least has the ability to disseminate their opinions …
Minerva, Chichester: Pitcairn is the middle of three new shows, all by Richard Bean, that are being presented across a little over three months, in between the surprise late June premiere of…
Size, they always say, doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it that counts. And it’s just as true in theatre as it is in other areas of life. I’ve just seen, for the…
During the dark days of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, which controlled British theatrical output between the years of 1824 and 1968, all new plays were read for “unfavourable or…
Some critics clearly do not read their programmes closely enough. (And yes, that includes me: I've occasionally miscredited actors and other creative personnel.) But sometimes the billing ca…
My Sunday Telegraph colleague Tim Walker recently asked aloud why the West End is such a wasteland in August when it comes to the opening of new shows. There was just one significant new ent…
The British premiere production of Theresa Rebeck's 2011 Broadway play Seminar at London’s Hampstead Theatre has now announced the full cast as well as an extension to its run.
The West End production of Shakespeare in Love, a stage version of the 1998 Oscar-winning film of the same name that is currently running at the Noel Coward Theatre, is to extend booking thr…
Chichester Festival Theatre: The style and panache of Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows's distillation of Damon Runyon's classic story and characters, set to Frank Loesser's tuneful…
Critics don’t usually set their own timetables. We go to shows when we’re asked to, unlike members of the public who typically go at a date of their own choosing (or when they ca…
It has just been announced that Miss Saigon will mark the 25th anniversary of its original 1989 premiere with a gala performance on September 22 of the current, almost entirely re-staged ver…
Just recently I was writing how I'd seen three consecutive musical gems in London with three American musicals, but that week wasn't over yet. By the time it was over, I had seen one more…
Full casting has been confirmed for the new West End production of Ayub Khan Din’s 1996 comedy East Is East, which begins performances Oct. 4 at the Trafalgar Studios, prior to an offi…
Miss Saigon is to mark the 25th anniversary of its original opening with a special gala performance Sept. 22, in which the cast of the current new production will be joined by members of the…
Last week the National Gallery in London confirmed that it had dropped its no photography policy, with the Evening Standard reporting that gallery staff found it "increasingly difficult" to …
