Jonathan Bailey makes a petulant stage return in Shakespeare's most luxuriant play Screen stardom is generally anointed at the box office so it's a very real delight to find the fast-rising…
Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie shine in a multifaceted portrait of motherhood The theatre director Anna Mackmin has written and directed an extraordinary play about a mother and daughter relat…
Bush's writing is as fresh as a sea breeze and as lyrical as birdsong "Who'd be a woman?... Who in their right mind would choose all that?" The question comes towards the end of a conversat…
Diamond-sharp banter and an endorphin fizz make this one of the best parties in town Over the last few months, celebrity-driven West End productions have suffered some inglorious crashes - n…
★★★★★ HAMLET, ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE Rupert Goold's staging lends a gnawing, troubling, transatlantic relevance The iceberg cometh The date, projected be…
House of Cards writer tackles AI and religion, but without the necessary clarity Our humanity is defined not only by our use of language, but also by our sense of the spiritual. Whether you…
New West End drama about spicing up marriage is oddly lacking in passion Since when has new writing become so passionless? Mike Bartlett is one of the country's premiere playwrights and his…
A new sci-fi gothic horror about life after death is intriguing, but flawed I always advocate in favour of more sci-fi plays, and over the past decade there have been a gratifying number of …
★★★★★ THREE SISTERS, SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE Souls dissected in brilliantly conceived and executed production Russia - but also here, there and everywhere Russi…
Howard Brenton's new play about Winston and Stalin is both intelligent and fun Playwrights who work for decades often acquire a moniker. In the case of Howard Brenton, who began his career …
The Almeida's all-women hit transfers to the West End Annie Ernaux's semi-autobiographical book Les Années charts a woman's life across time and space, history and memory, through wha…
Brie Larson makes a brave West End debut that, alas, misfires We live in tragic times given over to cataclysmic events that require outsized emotions in return. That may be one reason to ac…
Is it a dance piece with added text, or a stripped down play with excess choreography? The opening scene of the Old Vic's Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes …
Kandinsky Theatre co-creator on a new play tethering technology to existence It started with a Guardian long-read. I'm ashamed to admit it since so many shows could say the same, but that w…
★ MRS PRESIDENT, CHARING CROSS THEATRE A widow, a photographer but no soul Curious play that fails to mobilise theatre's unique ability to tell a story The phenomenal global success o…
★★★ SECOND BEST, RIVERSIDE STUDIOS First-class performance in a second-class play Martin is not Harry Potter in the movies, then might be in real life, but proves to be the…
New play about mental breakdown is a mix of acute distress and poetic writing In a world tainted with racism and homophobia, the Bush theatre is something of a refuge from prejudice. As one …
★★★★★ PLAY ON!, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH The Bard and The Duke in perfect harmony! Super performances deliver magnificent entertainment If you saw Upstart Crow on tele…
Still inventive and fun but short on sharp shocks How excited Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton must have been to learn that the venue for their Inside No 9 stage show was haunted, by an …
★★★ AN INTERROGATION, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Detective gets her man, but at what cost? Rosie Sheehy and Jamie Ballard shine in Edinburgh Festival import In a dingy room with …
★★★ CYMBELINE, SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE Patriarchy defeated! A new, if not as radical as once it were, take on Shakespeare's cross-dressing call to arms There's not much…
★★★★ THE LONELY LONDONERS, KILN THEATRE A beautifully realised stage adaptation Memories, frustrations and hopes in a city emerging from post-war austerity As som…
The script turns dry-as-dust diplomatic detail into nothing less than an adrenaline sport It took a while for journalists to identify the chain-smoking, Machiavellian figure who was a perman…
South African satire about racism, sexism, home ownership and community politics Most Brits don't know much about South Africa today, but we do know about house values, so this new comedy b…
An intimate staging and superb casting make this a superior West End production Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes …