UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Fantastical fairies and pompous politicians collide in this sweet satire, one of Britain's favourite operas....

The National Theatre kicks off its post-lockdown season with a brainteaser: what is the most meaningful or precious moment of your life? The question is central to After Life, Jack Thorne’s stage adaptation of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s acclaimed 1998 film, co-produced by Headlong, which unfolds in a p...

Lockdown legends burst into the real world on a night of fun underpinned with a message to the government about the Arts....

From Any Dream Will Do to a dream come true, Lee Mead took to the London Palladium stage for one night only, to celebrate his 40th birthday and his twenty-year career. Mead talked of walking past the theatre as a boy and his joy at being able to hold his own concert there....

Twenty years ago, the world fell in love with a quirky young woman by the name of Amélie Poulain. The French waitress stuck in her own little universe slowly starts to help people find their happiness, finally reaching hers. The stone-skipping and crème brûlée-cracking character played by Audrey...

Hampstead Garden Opera bring a slice of 17th century Venetian sensibility to our Covidy times....

Alfred Fagon’s overlooked play is given a revival at the Hampstead Theatre, following its premiere at the same space in 1975. 46 years ago it was the first play by a Black British writer to be presented there. Quite a shocker back then, the play in Dawn Walton’s new production seems to aim to re...

The boundaries of immersive theatre have always been fairly blurry in London. From shows that happen around a crowd rather than on a frontal stage to properly participative ones, the label started to be linked to the inclusion of the audience in some way or another. Well, The Money doesn’t subscri...

Amy Trigg performs in her own award-winning debut play at The Kiln Theatre. Winner of the inaugural Women’s Playwriting Prize from Paines Plough and Ellie Keel Productions, the play is a joyous and poignant look at a woman’s experience of spina bifida. Directed by Paines Plough co-artistic direc...

To use any other word than ‘crisis’ to describe what is happening with today’s climate is ridiculous. Temperatures rise, natural resources dwindle and human beings waste more than ever. Is our planet saveable? Can we heal mother earth, or is it better to admit defeat and divert all resources i...

In September 2006, all people with an internet connection and a valid email address aged 13 and above were able to sign up to a website that was going to change the world. A year later, Facebook was worth 15 billion dollars. Around the same time, another platform by the name YouTube started to becom...

She's one of the biggest pop stars of all time but many of us are aware of the conservatorship battle Britney Spears has been locked in for over half of her career, essentially depriving her of her freedom. Inspired by the #FreeBritney movement and the recent documentary, Saving Britney is a hilario...

The Bush Theatre has reopened its doors with a timely exploration of social media and the negative impact it can have on our wellbeing. We've all been forced to spend far more time on our home computers, and social media can be a consuming distraction we perhaps lean on too much. A hiding place for ...

Intimately confessional stand-up shows are not new for Jessie Cave. Her 2015 show, I Loved Her, detailed her relationship with fellow comic Alfie Brown after she became pregnant after their one-night stand. In 2018 she returned with Sunrise, about the aftermath of their breakup. Filmed in an empty S...

One of London’s most venerated theatres, Shakespeare's Globe has re-opened its doors with Sean Holmes’s gaudy 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With staggered entrance slots and social distance protocols in place, the Globe itself feels it too. The groundlings are masked now (as is...

What must it feel like to perform to a socially distanced auditorium of masked audience members? Well, if the other night’s 1000th performance of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is to be used as a benchmark, nothing could possibly mask the sense of joy and unity felt in the room for those 2.5 ho...

It will come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the output of Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre that Bernard Shaw is the first pick for what the theatre is calling their Recovery Season. Artistic Director Paul Miller has directed several Shaw plays here, most recently Candida in 2019. In t...

Knowing me, knowing you, it does exactly what you'll expect!...

Southwark Playhouse reopens this week with in-person performances of You Are Here. Originating in the US, this is the UK premiere of a new musical by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill, presented by The Grey Area Theatre Company and directed by Matthew Rankcom. The show is of a pleasant length to ease o...

As the likes of classic hit favourites Wicked and The Lion King reopen round the corner, the West End also returns with a more alternative offering, in the form of Jack Holden’s Cruise – the story of a gay man in the 80s embarking on one last hedonistic purge. Diagnosed with HIV, and given only ...

Lucinda Coxon's 2010 play stretches across the Atlantic Ocean, but pulls us back to London's tiny flats and intimate arrangements....

Continuing the week that dance returned to the UK, the Royal Ballet favoured a contemporary focus with a mixed bill under the banner title, 21st Century Choreographers. As if the occasion needed further anticipation, earlier that day both immediate and upcoming promotions were announced, with First ...

Before we get to the main business of the dancing, let’s focus on what tonight is really all about: the moment the lights go down and there is an announcement, “Welcome to this performance of Reunion by English National Ballet”, and followed by that unique sound of applause and cheering from a...

Collaborating with Watford Palace Theatre on their latest offering, Romeo and Juliet, Creation’s ninth digital production is a first as they endeavour to tell the beloved tale of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers through a variety of platforms and technologies: live performance, filmed scenes a...

SimG Records are releasing a compilation of composer and lyricist Andrew Fisher’s original musical theatre material on 21 May, aptly named The Andrew Fisher Songbook....