UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Prince is in his late twenties, lives by the sea, and still goes by the old nickname his mum gave him when he was little. He was raised to be a sensitive and delicate man, one who - by his own admission - always had the tendency to become 'one of the girlsa??. Duarte Bandeira writes and plays a swee...

Online pornography addiction, debt collectors, unhappy marriages and acute boredom. This is the bleak world in which Australian playwright Declan Greene's play Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography is set. As part of the Orange Tree's Directors' Festival, Gianluca Lello directs the UK premiere of...

As part of the Orange Tree Theatre's Directors' Festival, Elinor Cook's lyrical play Pilgrims looks at masculinity, mountains and myths. Friends Dan and Will scaled Everest when they were just teenagers. This incredible achievement comes to overshadow their adult lives in a variety of destructiv...

The Orange Tree Theatre's Directors' Festival is always an exciting opportunity to see emerging talent. This is the third cohort of directors who have been studying the Orange Tree Theatre and St Mary's University MA Theatre Directing Masters course. Georgia Green takes the directing reins here ...

Veteran stage actor Malcolm Rennie steers the ship with intensity and poise in this retelling of the life of a forgotten hero....

Cancelling a press night is never a decision that's to be taken lightly. Holding a press night with a replacement actor in the main role could be catastrophic. When Daniel Benzali became incapacitated to perform at the opening night of Park Theatre's The Time Of Our Lies, director Ché Walker invit...

As someone who has never quite realised the appeal of going clubbing, imagine my fear as I walked into the auditorium of the Young Vic, where a central island was occupied by audience members dancing. Memories of my first night of Freshers at university sprung to mind, where I awkwardly stood in th...

Grimeborn sees a condensed version version of the early part of Wagner's Ring Cycle that packs a punch in its intense 100 minutes running time....

The Dorfman stage at National Theatre transforms into Lamonic Bibber for the summer break. Mr Gum - a grumpy man who hates children and any kind of fun - traps Padlock the bear, Polly's new, unexpected friend and forces him to dance to entertain Gum's crowds of sailors and scallywags. Aided by her l...

In his introduction to the play in the programme, David Hare remarks that: a?oeit's not just that Vanya soaks up a bewildering variety of interpretation... it's also, that, in the theatre, it's often hard to discern exactly what it's about.a?? This elusiveness characterises this specially commiss...

The vivacity of this production of Kiss Me, Kate hits you even harder than the gifts of the multi-talented cast. Just what you need to escape these troubled times....

Four people wake up in a locked room, almost naked. They couldn't be more different from one another but right now they're all equally confused as to what's going on. Concept Theatre's debut show starts off with a strong premise but it doesn't, unfortunately, fulfill its capacity at the present stag...

Fresh from its UK tour, Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel's adaptation of Paula Hawkins' bestselling novel The Girl on the Train comes to the West End....

Never before has there been a show filled with such exuberance, or has there been a play that fires the audience up in such a way. Before the action even starts, people are up dancing and laughing along with the 12-strong ensemble. There's so much joy happening in the centre, and the buzzing enthusi...

There's always a buzz of excitement when a film crew come to your home town but is it always a positive impact on the community? Marie Jones' multi-award winning comedy, Stones in His Pockets, is currently touring the UK and is making its stop in Brighton's Theatre Royal this week....

Violetta kicks off the Grimeborn Festival with a perfect example of how to pare back a grand opera and make a fine chamber piece that is played and sung beautifully....

From having a mundane job to stay on top of bills to having to deal with agents who show no respect whatsoever, starting a career in the entertainment industry isn't for the easily impressionable. The life of the budding actor swarms with clichés on its own but Lucio Veronesi amps up the struggle a...

The new Troubadour White City Theatre becomes Neverland as the timeless tale of Peter Pan flies into West London....

Art dealer Richard has a long-term partner named Jane. He has also entered into an affair with Thomasina, a blind woman. When he suddenly loses his sight, Richard's relationships with both women are tested as he struggles to make sense of his new reality. Returning to the home of its original run i...

Move over, Hogwarts a?' Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches is in town! Fresh from a UK tour, Emma Reeves' adaptation of Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch comes slipping and sliding into the West End for a summer residency at the Vaudeville Theatre. This musical stage version of the much-loved books is di...

1969. The year of the moon. But that was far from all; Woodstock, the Stonewall riots, Monty Python's Flying Circus and the Battle of the Bogside were but a snapshot of life in the last year of the sixties - The Beatles' career came to an acrimonious end just as David Bowie's started its ascent to s...

This year's rendezvous with King's Head Theatre's Queer Season kick's off with Southern Belles, a double bill of one-act plays written by Tennessee Williams. Jamie Armitage, fresh off his multiple Olivier Awards nominations for Six, directs Something Unspoken and And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths o...

Girl in a Crisis is a brand new one-woman musical that premiered in November 2018, as part of the Live at the Zedel season at Crazy Coqs in London. Starring award-winning West End performer, Lorna Want, the show was developed and directed by Simon Greiff with Andrew Fisher providing the book, music ...

At first glance, Enid Blyton's Malory Towers seems an odd choice for the second outing of Emma Rice's Wise Children theatre company. A genteel tale of a privileged girl's boarding school in Cornwall with mild peril and even milder themes doesn't seem like classic Rice....

It's only natural that, after its original 2016 run in Chiswick, a revised version of Greg Freeman's Sherlock Holmes and the Invisible Thing should land at the Rudolf Steiner Theatre, just down the road from 221B Baker Street itself....