UK REGIONAL THEATER REVIEWS

At Theatre Royal Winchester this holiday season, Play to the Crowd is bringing one of the classic pantomimes, Puss in Boots, to life in a pawsome new production, written and directed by Robin Belfield. Audiences join Puss (Bekah Selina), who must not only battle the evil Fluella Frostbite (Emma Fenn...

For their Christmas show this year, The Mill at Sonning is putting on My Fair Lady, the 1956 Broadway musical written by Alan Jay Lerner (Lyrics and Book) and Frederick Loewe (Music). For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is an intimate, 217-seat theatre in the semi-round that operates as a dinner...

There are some stories that never grow old, and The Sound of Music is definitely one of them. Sixty years after the movie premiered, and sixty-six since the stage show first hit Broadway, this tale of love, family, the healing power of music, and resistance against persecution in 1930s Austria is as...

Hal Cruttenden is at truly at the top of his game, in his skilled and polished new show Hal Cruttenden: Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It. The comedy is focused on schadenfreude, in terms of rawness and pain, by being brutally honest about the effects of heartbreak. ...

Falling snow, a rapidly-growing Christmas tree and an army of sword-fighting rats: it can only be Sir Peter Wright's The Nutcracker. Birmingham Royal Ballet's opulent, charming and whimsical production returns to Birmingham Hippodrome - where Wright's version received its premier in 1990 - and bring...

Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas, written by Humphrey Ker and David Reed with original songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Price, has the iconic duo of Sherlock Holmes (Ker) and John Watson (Reed) solving a string of mysterious murders on the West End in Victorian England....

If there is one message that those who were in attendance at More Than One Story LIVE on 9 November absorbed through their skin, it is that “The arts don’t belong to a few, they belong to everyone.” The sentiment was declared proudly by Rory Kinnear in his opening speech and echoed warmly by ...

Patricia Highsmith's psychological thriller The Talented Mr Ripley was published 70 years ago, but remains fascinating due to her brilliant writing, but also movie and Netflix versions that have kept the story alive. This excellent new stage adaptation, written and directed by Mark Leipacher, stri...

Romeo a Juliet does not make any of its political points overtly, and this is an occasion where some things are better left unsaid, without cheap gimmicks. With nothing made explicit, the audience comes away reflecting on their own use of language and dialect in their daily life, as well as on how o...

Here & Now arrives at New Wimbledon Theatre with all the sparkle, nostalgia and high-camp energy you’d expect from a show built around the hits of one of Britain’s most beloved pop groups, Steps. Set in a seaside supermarket, the musical blends tongue-in-cheek humour with heartfelt moments, deli...

Theatre beyond London proves varied and interesting...

Directed by Daniel Raggett, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s brings a new version of Macbeth to the small studio space in Stratford-upon-Avon. Starring Sam Heughan, best known for his role in the series Outlander, and Lia Williams as Lady Macbeth. This staging imagines the play in a gangland pub i...

Bleak, yet hopeful, drama/dance hybrid gives food for thought...

Something wicked this way comes: it’s another exciting high-concept Shakespeare. Director Daniel Raggett moves the action of the Scottish Play to a safe-house pub in the midst of a racketeering war. Succession meets Sons of Anarchy with a hint of The Sopranos in this daring, new production. With a...

Sir Peter Hall's iconic production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream has achieved legendary status since its premiere in 1981. In 2025, it has lost none of its magic, with the Glyndebourne audience still wide-eyed at the visual feast on stage....

PucciniAs the nights draw in, it seems highly appropriate to return to Glyndebourne for the start of its Autumn season and the chilly streets of Puccini’s La bohème. Floris Visser’s production, beautifully revived by Rachael Hewer, has the spectre of death ever-present. In this case, quite li...

How many extended metaphors does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, please, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Commissioned by Ralph Fiennes to come up with a new play for the Ralph Fiennes/Theatre Royal Bath Season, Lenkiewicz's Small Hotel offers way too many exciting ideas – alas, none of which string t...

Four years on from its premiere at the Noel Coward Theatre, 2:22 A Ghost Story continues to unsettle audiences across the UK and internationally. The celebrity casting in this iteration of the UK tour adds a new dynamic in the form of real-life couple Stacey Dooley and Kevin Clifton....

Glamorous and mythic, the Mitford sisters often feel like untouchable figures of the past, central to the tumultuous politics of the interwar period and yet forgotten amidst the rollcall of far more significant names. They seem like the sorts of characters who would be impossible to bring to life, a...

Talented by name, talented by nature: Ed McVey is a perfectly cast Mr Ripley, deftly juggling paranoia, wild optimism, self-pity and bouts of violence, while never losing either his sense of humour or the audience's tolerance. It's a demanding role requiring seemingly endless reams of dialogue as Ri...

James Phelan’s latest production, The Man Who Was Magic, arrives at the Adelphi Theatre for one night only after a triumphant Edinburgh run and confirms his reputation as a magician with both flair and heart. The show opens to the smooth sounds of the Rat Pack and swing, the stage bathed in the wa...

Micaela Prada has built her career on both artistry and discipline, combining the vision of a producer with the presence of a performer....

Will lovers of Louisa May Alcott's semi-autobiographical novel Little Women, published more than 150 years ago, be content with Anne-Marie Casey's stage adaptation first performed in 2022 and now running at Salisbury Playhouse?...

If it ain't broke, don't fix it - but by all means develop it into a one-show-does-all situation, which is very much the case for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe currently showing at Sadler’s Wells. The production is geared towards a younger audience, however anyone who goes won't be able to ...

What did our critic think of AS YOU LIKE IT, STARRING HARRIET WALTER, THEATRE ROYAL BATH at Theatre Royal Bath?...