UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

And then there were three. The last Mike Bartlett-penned show has opened in London. Scandaltown joins Marianne Elliott’s revival of Cock and the Trumpian drama The 47th spearheaded by Bertie Carvel under Ruper Goold. Directed by Rachel O’Riordan, this one’s a cheeky, boisterous contemporary co...

Graeae aims to address the problem of disabled representation by spotlighting the so-called 'Blind Enchantress' Maria Theresia von Paradis, and also to make the theatre a truly inclusive place for the disabled community....

Pulitzer Prize winning play fails to overcome its insularity and engage its audience...

Clare Latham is sensational in Ché Walker's masterful reassessment of the Reagan years...

The Tiger Lillies return to the Soho Theatre with a vicious and viscous re-imagining of the classic Brecht and Weill opera, thick with murderers, thieves and all manner of villainy....

Zorro the Musical has lived many lives before its latest engagement at the Charing Cross Theatre. From the West End Production of 2008-09 to this production’s first outing at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, which was cruelly cut short just two previews in by the pandemic. It bursts into its n...

Another America meanders through its two hours plus running time continually introducing promising material before shutting it down and moving on...

When a group of friends from university get together after years of being apart, their reunion swiftly descends into a dinner from hell. They’ve grown up, some quicker than others, and now all have real jobs and responsibilities....

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe was the first of C.S. Lewis’ much-loved books to be written in his series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Since its publication in 1950 there have been numerous adaptations. Michael Fentiman’s new version, based on the original production by Sally Cookson, is a ma...

DONOTALIGHT's first production presses hot button topics and augurs well for future projects...

Not to be confused with the 2002 film of the same name, Catch Me If You Can is a small ensemble thriller that debuted on Broadway in 1965. Based on a French play by Robert Thomas, this American version, written by Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, is a potentially entertaining evening, but fails t...

Poul Ruder's 1998 operatic take on The Handmaid's Tale takes flight once again at the English National Opera featuring a new production and the West End debut of Camille Cottin (Killing Eve, Call My Agent)....

See what the BWW critic thought. Aliens live among us in the latest reincarnation of the world-famous Rock Opera....

“For heaven’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings” Richard II famously says. The first part in Shakespeare’s Henriad follows a king who’s quite poetic, vain, and adores adulation....

One for the money, two for the show. The second play written by Mike Bartlett has now opened in London. With a revival of Cock running at the Ambassadors and Scandaltown opening in Hammersmith next week, the playwright is quite the rarity, one of the very few to’ve had multiple productions on at t...

When Lava was first staged, at the Nottingham Playhouse in 2018, its central plot point of an asteroid hitting North London and causing thousands of casualties may have seemed implausible - over-dramatic, even. Now remounted at the Soho Theatre as we move out of a global pandemic, these themes of lo...

String v SPITTA might sound like a court case but is, instead, something far more serious: a battle between two children’s entertainers for supremacy of the London scene....

Tess Seddon mines her own General Election campaign of 2017 for an amusing and punchy musical...

Deconstructing modern black masculinity, 'For Black Boys Who have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy' is a poetic meditation on the discord between expectations of black men and their reality....

An expansive luxurious pool dominates the Almeida stage, and a dripping wet young man stands in nothing but a speedo. A little more than drunk, he looks around at his current setting, taking in the grandeur of this beautiful home. Decorated with luxury art, it’s the home of collector Andre, a 40-s...

There is certainly a gap in the representation of middle-aged women who are confronting ageing and complicated relationships on stage. Victoria Willing’s new play SAD has the potential to fill that hole by exploring a woman-of-a-certain-age’s messy experiences of love, grief and isolation, but f...

A clowning cocktail of Orwell, Beckett, and Kundera, Project Dictator pokes fun at the overdone 'State of the Nation' play, instead crafting something far more unique, intelligent, and disturbing....

Stephen Sondheim's and Arthur Laurents 1964 political satire is given a modern spin by director Georgie Rankom in this high-energy production. Let's see what BWW's critic had to say......

Patrick Ness’ novel A Monster Calls is a sharp and poignant look at loss in childhood and how death is approached by adults and children. First seen at the Bristol Old Vic in 2018, Sally Cookson’s heart-breaking stage production tries to make sense of illness and grief and how lying to children ...

Eyre’s take on La Traviata quite rightly deserves to be seen as a jewel in ROH’s crown but Angel Blue lifts it to a new level. Read our critic's review. ...