UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Sadler's Sampled is Sadler's Wells' annual parade of varied dance offerings - although this year proved somewhat of a disappointment from previous iterations. The selected work felt unbalanced in favour of contemporary performances, and for this traditionalist, the lack of any classical work weighe...

Ana Luiza Ulsig brings the result of a nervous breakdown to VAULT Festival. In The Journey of a Warlike Mind she takes on the character of Eva, a young woman who's struggling with the societal pressure she feels compelled to give into while harbouring the desire to break free....

After an acclaimed debut in Edinburgh last summer, Nathaniel Hall is bringing his autobiographical one-man show First Time to VAULT Festival before heading off on tour to tell his story of shame and acceptance....

Young property developer Frankie Foxstone has her eyes on the Waterloo area. With an over-the-top personality, a politician's attitude, and sharp ruthlessness she takes her audience on a walking tour of Leake Street explaining how she's working on gentrifying it even more than it already is....

Watermill Ensemble's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (directed by Paul Hart) offers up a wonderful reimagining of one of Shakespeare's most well-loved plays....

Soph (Natalya Martin) and Jel (Monica Anne) love sitting in the dark reading creepypasta on the internet. Ellie (Melissa Parker) has just moved to their school and, while they welcome her in their group, she comes with some baggage and her own scary stories....

Rendezvous with Marlene started with a letter. A young Ute Lemper explodes onto the French stage playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret and the next day the French press proclaimed her, a?oeLa nouvelle Marlene!a??....

An acclaimed classical actor is struggling with his terminal diagnosis while preparing for the role of a lifetime. When Lunga Kunene shows up to take on the job of live-in nurse, they're forced to settle their differences through their only shared passion: Shakespeare's works. Written by John Kani l...

How do you see yourself? What seems like a fairly straightforward question can actually be far more complex than you might think a?" and if your own lived experience deviates even slightly from what other people expect, you may find yourself repeatedly fielding the same queries as both sides seek to...

On paper, the story of Puccini's La bohème veers towards sentimentality, but witnessing a live production rarely fails to stir deep emotion. Continuing their series of live screenings, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House presents a version of the opera that is both captivating and utterly heart break...

Persona transfers somewhat uneasily from screen to stage in Paul Schoolman's new adaptation, but retains its intellectual heft and eerily subversive quality....

If like many you find yourself wishing you could change the world right now, you might want to first pop down to the Lyric Hammersmith to see Chris Bush's Faustus: That Damned Woman. Taking Christopher Marlowe's Renaissance play and bringing parts of it into the twenty-first century, Bush's new wo...

It's always a tough choice, at this annual Ballet Icons Gala, to know whether to review the performances on stage or the extravagant antics of it's animated Russian audience. It's a starry evening, where the glamorous attendees don floor length gowns, the men wear tuxedos and although it's meant to ...

Back in 2003, before writing the superb Enron, A Very Expensive Poison and the Emmy Award-winning TV series Succession, Lucy Prebble's first play The Sugar Syndrome made its debut at London's Royal Court. It now comes to Richmond's Orange Tree in its first major revival, in a darkly funny and thoug...

a?oeWhat is a true book?a?? Cormac McCarthy's early attempts to distinguish the nature of fiction in The Sunset Limited are, at the very least, ironic. A programme essay from Joe Penhall suggests the difficulty of the play form is the reason McCarthy has only ever had two performed. To be blunt, it ...

When Romantics Anonymous originally premiered at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2017, it received wonderful reviews and there was such a joyful buzz surrounding this show that I unfortunately didn't get to experience for myself. How lucky then, that the collaboration between Wise Children and Plush...

The curse struck again on press night of The Watermill Theatre's London transfer of Macbeth, with Lauryn Redding (allegedly) dislocating both knees during Paul Hart's energetic opening. A hero was lying low in the audience. Emma Barclay, former Lady Macduff of the project when it was touring the cou...

This is an Vanya for 2020 that loses nothing in Conor McPherson's sublime update....

A and B meet to recreate the feats of a famously homosexual serial killer who's haunting the streets of London. A, who's providing the service for a price, creates the scenarios of choice while B gets off on the pain and shame that comes from it. After a successfully sold-out run at The Glory, Alexi...

How can we know more about a comet in outer space than we do a woman's body? So queries Lucy Kirkwood's superb new history play a?' a feminist courtroom drama that's equal parts Twelve Angry Men, The Crucible and The Vagina Monologues, plus a dash of searing, up-to-the-minute political and social co...

a?oeIt was human tapioca.a?? An unusual way to describe a party, perhaps, but a stickily accurate one. That's just one of many effective lines in Miriam Battye's Scenes with girls at the Royal Court. Knowing references, squeals of delight and animated gestures confirm the hilarious familiarity share...

A nameless woman starts writing a novel in Mexico City. She is regularly interrupted by her family as she tells about a younger version of herself living wildly in New York and little known poets in need of translation. Her reality interweaves with memories from different, distant lives as she trans...

Everybody's Talking About Jamie tells the heartwarming story of an outgoing young man with a dream to be a drag queen which cannot fail to move and delight in equal measure....

Daniel Ward's autobiographical tale, told as gig theatre, has plenty to say and says it well - we would be wise to listen....

Every Tuesday night, four volunteers gather in a drab branch of Brightline taking phone calls from strangers facing hardship. Outside, the world is falling apart. As they try to help the callers, they attempt to conceal their anxieties and fears while trying to deal with their own personal catastrop...