UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Juan Diego Flórez gave an orchestral recital which failed to display his superlative assets....

When Bea meets Aaron, she thinks she's found the one. He's handsome, smart, has a good job and, most importantly, his genetic profile is spotless. While she's slowly but surely getting to the top, her best friend Char is given the death sentence that will inevitably change her life....

In February this year, historian Hallie Rubenfold brought out a poignant book describing the backstories of the five women killed in 1888 by a murderer nicknamed Jack the Ripper. It has always seemed a poor reflection on society that the victims of such horrific crimes have been almost forgotten in ...

New York. August 1965. Young men in America are being called up to fight in Vietnam and the burning of draft cards has just been made illegal....

You never imagined Margaret Thatcher could be so vulgar, but then, it seems weirdly plausible. Like all good drag, Margaret Thatcher: Queen of Soho is outrageous and unreal, and sometimes fun....

Enda Walsh and Cillian Murphy team up again after a streak of collaborations started with Disco Pigs that saw them working together on award-winning and career-defining productions throughout the years. Now, they bring Grief is the Thing with Feathers to the Barbican after it first premiered in Galw...

Berenice is something of a forgotten delight, its tortuous plotting more than offset by its splendid arias and delightful characters, with plenty of contemporary resonance on hand if you need it....

Fiddler On the Roof brings the Menier Chocolate Factory to the Playhouse Theatre. As the audience enters, the walls are bedecked with hangings as drab as most of the costumes - the wardrobe is black, save for prayer shawls and wedding garb....

Playwrights, directors and producers gathered at the May Fair Hotel on Monday for the third annual Tonic Awards, celebrating the achievements of women in theatre. In attendance, in addition to the aforementioned artists, were some of the theatre world's top movers and shakers, eager to show their ...

During the latter part of this winter season, Shakespeare's Globe has been concentrating on Voices in the Dark: Pride, Then and Now, with a production of Marlowe's infamous Edward II running alongside a range of different events. The latest is a piece of new writing from Tom Stuart, which is a respo...

The White Crow focuses on Rudolf Nureyev's life from birth until his sensational defection at the age of 23....

Wolfie glows with the energy and hope of youth, even as it paints a grim picture of a world stacked against it by the alienating forces of a society retreating from its obligations to its children....

As far as play texts go, Company jumps off the page from the word go - carefully crafted and delicately complied, to result in a magic mixture of New York grit and Broadway schmaltz. It's a delight to read....

Mary Barton founded one of the first fertility clinics. She pioneered artificial insemination and worked within the confined of tabooed subjects, coming in aid of those married couples who were unable to conceive a child and going as far as destroying medical records in order to help them. Her husba...

“We are only as powerful as the stories we tell.” So proclaims poet and activist Emilia Bassano, as she wrestles back her own story in Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's 2018 Globe hit – its raw, feminist, revolutionary power just as potent in this West End transfer....

Not since a memorable La traviata in 2008 have superstars Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann appeared together at the Royal Opera House. Small wonder, then, that their pairing as fate-thwarted lovers Leonora and Don Alvaro in Verdi's sprawling tragedy La Forza del Destino sent the Royal Opera House bo...

I Is A Strange Loop pits X against Y as the world described mathematically butts up against the world described theatrically - and they discover that each needs the other to be whole....

Sheffield's Richard Hawley-based musical is a spectacular piece of theatre that is full of humour and love - without dodging difficult social issues....

Pulitzer-winner Bruce Norris once again challenges audiences with a play built around a difficult topic – in this case, asking whether paedophiles are irredeemable, how they should be punished, the distinction between justice and vengeance, and whether an empathetic response betrays our support of...

Othello remains as relevant today as ever it were, Phil Willmott's adaptation setting it in the Raj of 1919, but it's as much in the White House and Palace of Westminster of 2019....

A bold and often beautifully staged production that makes women men and men women to throw light on the often brutal text. What emerges is plenty of new insight, but the nagging doubt persists that the play just isn't very good....

Over 30 years after it first premiered at the National Theatre, David Hare's The Bay at Nice is back in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory....

...

Best known to many as Mr Banks in Mary Poppins, actor David Tomlinson actually had a quite extensive career on stage and screen - as well as more than his fair share of personal dramas. James Kettle's new play sees Tomlinson taking a trip down memory lane, recounting the challenges and successes of ...

In June 1953 after a brutal trial lasted over two years, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for allegedly providing the Soviet Union with nuclear weapon designs, espionage, and conspiracy....