Review Roundup: Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA at The Old Vic
by Aliya Al-Hassan - Feb 5, 2026
Arcadia is set in April 1809 in a stately home in Derbyshire. Thomasina, a gifted pupil, proposes a startling theory, beyond her comprehension. All around her, the adults, including her tutor Septimus, are preoccupied with secret desires, illicit passions and professional rivalries. Two hundred years later, academic adversaries Hannah and Bernard are piecing together puzzling clues, curiously recalling those events of 1809, in their quest for an increasingly elusive truth.
Review: ARCADIA, The Old Vic
by Aliya Al-Hassan - Feb 5, 2026
Of all Tom Stoppard's work, Arcadia has always stood out. Touching on sex, Fermat's last theorum, the second law of thermodynamics, landscape gardening with a detective story thrown in, it is a mixture of subjects that few playwrights could attempt to combine. Does it matter if you don't understand the complex scientific and mathematical theories? Not at all. Carrie Cracknell's magnificent revival has huge amounts of humour and heart, which is not always a given with Stoppard's work.
Review: DEAD MAN WALKING, London Coliseum
by Gary Naylor - Nov 6, 2025
A confession. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine to read the death notices on Wikipedia - I am my mother’s son after all and, without the columns of classifieds in the Liverpool Echo, where else is there to look?
Full Cast Set for COW I DEER at Royal Court Theatre
by Chloe Rabinowitz - Jul 3, 2025
The Royal Court Theatre has revealed the cast for Cow I Deer, a one-of-a-kind collaboration between Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson. See who is starring and learn more!
Review: THE GRAPES OF WRATH, National Theatre
by Cindy Marcolina - Aug 1, 2024
The piece is heavy in topic and method, but Carrie Cracknell’s quiet direction smooths out the nearly three hours of running time. It’s by any means not an easy-breezy show to experience, but it sinks into your soul in a way that only an epic does. The problem is that it’s so, so slow.
Review: PORTIA COUGHLAN, Almeida Theatre
by Cindy Marcolina - Oct 18, 2023
Marina Carr’s award-winning play returns to London directed by Carrie Cracknell and starring Conversations with Friends starlet Alison Oliver (who trod the same boards earlier this year in Women, Beware the Devil). A compelling analysis of toxic dysfunction and female pain, Portia Coughlan is a jarring family drama shackled by tragedy. It propels Oliver into theatre stardom.
BWW Review: OLEANNA, Arts Theatre
by James Ayles - Jul 29, 2021
An unflinching examination of power and gender roles told through the perspective of a student-teacher relationship that is unafraid to pose difficult questions of its audience.