The West End gets a much-needed shot in the arm Rarely has a play's opening been so opportune. Just when it looked as if the West End was slipping into decline, along comes the smart, shrewd…
Richard Bean's new comedy about old age occasionally glows, but stays lukewarm There's only a couple of things you need to know about playwright Richard Bean: he started out as a stand-up c…
Princess Diana's BBC soul-searching makes for a slender docu-drama Journalism is a despised profession. And when you consider the story behind the interview that Diana, Princess of Wales, g…
A Faustian fable of online influence crackles with energy and attitude You can almost feel the energy blazing off the stage in this fast, furious and fiercely funny two-hander from writer Ra…
Shakespeare meets Game of Thrones in an efficient but emotionally stilted production Few would have imagined that Kenneth Branagh's return to the West End would see him garbed in fur-lined, …
The immersive experience makes us both victims of, and perpetrators in, an all too familiar perversion of truth The day after I saw the show, as went about the mundanities of domestic life,…
Simon Stephens' take on Max Frisch's classic play can hit and miss, but when it hits, it hits hard A dystopian present. Sirens ring out across the city. Firefighters rush to the wrong locat…
New adaptation of Eliza Clark's highly praised novel lacks a genuine heart of darkness We've all heard of the male gaze, but what about its subversion? Overturning masculine dominance is on…
★★★ MANIC STREET CREATURE, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE Songs in the key of a traumatised life Maimuna Memon sings of the pain mental illness brings, and not just to the person it a…
Lynn Nottage and Lynette Linton reunite to deliver a rollicking evening Lynn Nottage's second London opening this year, the Donmar premiere of Clyde's, is a comedy about a sandwich, the p…
Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James star in misfiring drama involving divas, film execs and dead parrots Penelope Skinner's new play is one of the most eccentric things I've seen in a long t…
Alexander Zeldin creates a complex portrait of a woman's struggle for self-esteem How to describe Alexander Zeldin's latest, The Confessions? It is almost a kitchen-sink drama, but also a pi…
James Graham's play works like a big joke that a whole nation is in on It was interesting, in the same week that the England football team trounced Italy 3-1 in a Euros qualifier, to see Dea…
Haunted by the ghost of her brother, Alison Oliver's depressed Portia is on a path to self-destruction In 1994, the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin commissioned Marina Carr to write a …
Mustapha Matura's 1981 play set in modern Trinidad is superbly served up Mustapha Matura's 1981 play, Meetings, is still a knockout. Supply the characters with mobile phones and it could be…
★★★ THE FLEA, THE YARD THEATRE Hotchpotch of influences and tones derails production that exposes hypocrisy in high places Victorian scandal meets Ziggy Stardust with a…
Maggie O'Farrell's inventive retelling of the Shakespeares' love story needs a more inventive production The RSC apparently has a hit on its hands with its West End transfer of Hamnet. Box o…
An all-female spin on Stoker's classic horror from the National Theatre of Scotland dares to challenge stereotypes An all-female production of Bram Stoker's Dracula " well, kind of " that tr…
★★★★ DEAD DAD DOG, FINBOROUGH THEATRE Nostalgia rather than political satire drives charming revival A play that will speak to any middle-aged Londoner with roots…
Monsters and a demonic Nanny make for an eye-popping evening There were shrieks, gasps, and nervous laughter in the Nöel Coward Theatre during press night of a kind rarely heard in the thea…
Director Jamie Lloyd is at the height of his powers in this stark, sublime reinterpretation of a modern classic Jamie Lloyd has the gift that keeps on giving. Hot on the heels of recent prod…
Energetic new play about South Asian Muslim men challenges stereotypes Multiculturalism, according to the Home Secretary, has failed, so where does that leave British Black and Asian commun…
★★★ THE CHANGELING, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE Wild ride proves too bumpy to land all its points An excess of gimmicks and uneven tone unbalance an innovative take on a Jacobean e…
Immigration madness given a panto makeover The starting point of this musical comedy " using a panto format to take a deep dive into the UK's immigration law " comes from such a good place …
Triumphant climax to Roy Williams and Clint Dyer's brilliant tetralogy about race It's closing time somewhere in the East End. Nah, not the pub, but at a small local shop. Inside, Denise is …