★★★★ THE MAIDS, JERMYN STREET THEATRE Master and Servant, poison & procrastination Class, in its 21st century manifestation, colours much performed play There ar…
★ TITANIQUE, CRITERION THEATRE Celine! Tina! Jack and Rose! But no wit at all Affectionate piss-take set for cult status at best This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in …
BEST OF 2024: THEATRE The classics reclaimed afresh, the acting often astonished The classics were reclaimed afresh, and the acting more often than not astonished It's the images that linge…
The classics were reclaimed afresh, and the acting more often than not astonished
★★★ TWELFTH NIGHT The winter comedy provides more chills than chuckles despite a funny fool Too much thinking; not enough laughing It is not just Twelfth Night, it's Twe…
This latest incarnation of the show is a wild, spinning ride through different forms of reality This feels like the theatrical equivalent of being in a centrifuge " a wild, spinning ride thr…
Magic is minimised in Jamie Lloyd's pared-back version Shakespeare must have relished the opportunities brought by the indoor Blackfriars Theatre in 1611: sound magnified in a way impossible…
★★★★ NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812, DONMAR WAREHOUSE Broadway show takes eight years to traverse the Atlantic, but proves worth the wait War and Pe…
Tom Stoppard's classic evocation of Victorian golden age Oxford stars Simon Russell Beale Can men really love each other " without sex? Or, to put it another way, how many different forms of…
Matthew Bourne's masterly reinvention has become a classic itself How do you refresh a masterpiece? Bringing back his first and still greatest hit, Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne seems to have ch…
Lillian Hellman's family feud set in 1900 Alabama doesn't survive a confused updating The Young Vic has opened under a new artistic director with a puzzle play. The puzzle is, why stage this…
Gig theatre piece about the pain and redemption of a pioneer reggae artist I live in Brixton, south London. To get to the tube, I have to cross Windrush Square. Since 2021, I go past the Ch…
Relaunch of Elton John musical needs further tinkering still It's second time only quasi-lucky for The Devil Wears Prada, the stage musical adaptation of the much-loved Meryl Streep film fr…
This psychedelic mashup conveys a sci-fi-style alternate reality Hermia is a headbutting punk with a tartan fetish, Oberon looks like Adam Ant and Lysander appears to have stumbled out of a …
Director Patrick Marber does Mel Brooks's 1967 musical proud There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers' arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these twitc…
★★★ HANSEL AND GRETEL, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE More wicked witch, less sunny siblings please Songs and sweeties, but insufficient sourness and sadism for fans of fairytales …
Oscar Wilde speaks just as strongly to the 21st century as he did to his own If Harold Pinter's work represents, as he slyly joked, the weasel under the cocktail cabinet, then Oscar Wilde…
Shakespeare's comedy of identity confusion benefits from a 1940s setting It's all too easy to underplay the melancholy of Shakespeare's comedy of divided twins, misplaced " sometimes narciss…
★★ THE LIGHTNING THIEF, THE OTHER PALACE One for fans of the franchise Myths and monsters make for a curiously bland and bloodless musical Percy Jackson is neither the missing…
New play about a paedophile ring foregrounds the voices of British-Pakistani women British theatre excels in presenting social issues: at its best, it shines a bright light on the controver…
Dan McCabe's play about ageing hiphop stars makes a winning European debut Watching Dan McCabe's 2019 play, older folk might be reminded of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's indelible lyrics, "Ca…
Joyce's great short story fully realised for 'invited guests' by a perfect ensemble James Joyce's Misses Morkan have gone up in the world for their Christmas gathering this year, from the up…
★★★ ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE Despite its compansations, the play is hard to watch New production lands on shaky ground in 2024 "All's well that…
★★★★ KING JAMES, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Two Cleveland lads bond, break and bond again in perceptive dramedy Beautifully crafted play tracks two men's relationship, as LeBr…
Musical theatre behemoth becomes an outsized film - and this is just part one "No one mourns the wicked," we're told during the immediately arresting beginning to Wicked, which concludes tw…