Experimental work about nature led by Katie Mitchell is both extraordinary and banal I love irony. Especially beautiful irony. So I'm very excited about the ironic gesture of staging a show…
Staging of Ukrainian-American Ilya Kaminsky's anti-war poems is too meta-theatrical The Ukraine war is not the only place of horror in the world, but it does present a challenge to theatre …
Broadway's acclaimed Cinderella, Louise, and Amalia reaches Soho for a welcome one-night stand Laura Benanti has been enchanting Broadway audiences for several decades now, and London has t…
Thrilling revival of Philip Ridley's cult classic confirms its legendary status Ever wondered if there was one moment when in-yer-face theatre started? Well, yes there was; there was one pl…
Rival Elizabethan playwrights in an up-to-the-minute encounter The title refers to a line in Henry VI, Part III: the future Richard III boasts that midwives cried, "Oh Jesus bless us, he is …
Robert Sean Leonard and Paten Hughes make worthy sparring partners The cult film that director Theo van Gogh left behind when he was killed in 2004, Interview, has already been remade twice;…
★★★★ FAT HAM, RSC A raucous, raunchy Pulitzer Prize-winning re-imagining for our times An entertaining, positive and contemporary blast! $8.2B. That's what can ha…
Mike Bartlett's new state-of-the-agricultural-nation play is beautifully performed Playwright Mike Bartlett is, like many writers, a chronicler of both contemporary manners and of the state …
A cunning ruse leaves audiences facing their own privilege and complicity in Cliff Cardinal's bold theatrical creation There is, let's be honest, a certain self-congratulatory self-satisfact…
The actors skilfully evoke the claustrophobia of family members trying to fake togetherness The Gathered Leaves is set on the tectonic plates of a middle-class family reunion, in which three…
A Ukrainian bin man, an unseen used car dealer and every daddy's dream twink in three contrasting Fringe shows Refuse, Assembly George Square Studios ★★★★
Bringing the Faust legend to comment on colonialism produces bewildering results What new light can the age-old legend of Faust selling his soul to the devil shed on colonialism in Africa, s…
A slippery show about memory and a rug-pulling Deliveroo comedy in the latest from the Edinburgh Fringe Imprints, Summerhall ★★★★
Experimental digital performance art, classical insights and gay shame in three strong Fringe shows The Ode Islands, Pleasance at EICC ★★★★
Two dramas on prison life offer contrasting perspectives but a similar sense of compassion Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ★★★★★ÂÂ
From drag to Japanese erotica via a French cookery show, three of the Fringe's more unusual offerings Kinder, Underbelly, Cowgate ★★★ Drag artist Goody Prostate (yes, …
Two powerful shows consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with mixed results The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ★★★★★ÂÂ
★★★ THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, RSC, STRATFORD Youth-oriented version of youthful play Shakespeare trying out lots of ideas that were to bear fruit in the future I have…
A joyful gay romance and an intimate one-to-one encounter in two strong Fringe shows The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holi…
A visually stunning stage re-adaptation of a recent gay classic plunges the audience into blood and earth As shockingly beautiful as it is horrifyingly brutal, actor Armando Babaioff's deepl…
Nothing less than the history of human civilisation is the theme of FC Bergman's visually stunning show With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across Edinburgh…
Lenny Henry is the ideal ringmaster for this exercise in audience participation The Fringe piece Duncan Macmillan devised with Jonny Donahoe in 2014 has since been round the world and back, …
A deft, epoch-straddling climate six-hander and a celebration (and take-down) of the pantomime dame at the Traverse Theatre The Beautiful Future is Coming, Traverse Theatre ★★â˅
Oscar Levant is an ideal subject to refresh the debate about media freedom Back in the day, when America's late-night chat show hosts and their guests sat happily smoking as they shot the br…
Tabloid excess in the 1980s; gallows humour in reflections on life and death Monstering the Rocketman by Henry Naylor, Pleasance Dome ★★★★