UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Possession, power and control, with climate change thrown in. Cougar is a new play by Rose Lewenstein which is essentially a series of 80 snapshots into the lifespan of a dysfunctional relationship between younger ex-barman John and older, highly successful executive Leila set in the confines of a ...

West End favourite Jenna Russell made a surprisingly belated solo concert debut at Leicester Square Theatre, but, judging by this entirely winning performance, she's a natural. Seth Rudetsky, unparalleled master of the format, was on hand to accompany and guide her through a superlative set-list, as...

Nuffield Southampton Theatres celebrates the first birthday of its modern city-centre venue with the return of The Shadow Factory; the first show performed at NST City which proved to be a sell-out in 2018....

Hampstead hosts the UK premiere of Polish-American playwright Martyna Majok's 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, which explores - with thoughtful tenderness and a refreshing lack of schmaltz - the relationships between two people with disabilities and their carers....

Bertie is living a hectic life in London. When everything starts to go wrong, she moves to the seaside for the Summer to clear her head and figure out what her next step should be. When she bumps into Violet, her world slows downs and begins spinning again at a different speed....

Part of VAULT Festival and performed at the Network Theatre, Ringmaster is introduced as being vaguely based on La Ronde. Schintzler's subversive 1900 play, banned and censored by his contemporaries, presents an analysis of the sexual costumes of the time....

The Orchestra digs into the hearts of the six women and one man stuck playing light classics in a hollowed out French spa town and finds bleak, Chekhovian humour in their plights....

Tom dreams of being a famous actor. But it's hard to break into the industry and a day-job waiting tables takes its toll. Then, while cast in a fringe play he's met with a huge opportunity that goes against his beliefs and borders the inappropriate. The next step is up to him....

Sally (Madeleine MacMahon) is celebrating her 16th birthday seeing her favourite band playing live. Everything seems to be going well in her life and she looks happy as she can be, especially on that night. Except that she's not feeling that great on the inside. Olivier Award winner Jon Brittain wri...

The Tango Fire Company of Buenos Aires have returned to London. This night of surprising variety, offers awe-inspiring escapism from the winter's chill and seems to be scheduled just in time for Valentine's Day....

Mark and Marichka Marczyk fought in the Kiev Uprising in 2014. They witnessed life and death, injustice and dictatorship first hand before they decided to tell their story....

Courage, friendship, determination and hope, War Horse is a love story like no other. After the auction purchase of a foal by a foolish father bidding to save his pride, the Narracott family must work out what to do with a bay thoroughbred horse on their Devon farm. Glasgow born actor Scott Miller ...

Christopher Adams and Timothy Allsop draw on their real-life experience to paint a vivid picture of an open couple. They tell their tale aided by the audience, who are called on multiple times to read transcripts from their conversations, Grindr messages, and personal texts from the pair....

A man and his daughter move into Ann's block of flats, except that he says there's no little girl with him. The woman, addicted to watching people's lives through her window, grows an obsession with the mystery. A vision that's too-quickly deteriorating and a penchant for seclusion lead her to go a ...

Written by David Thame, Kompromat was inspired by the still-unsolved murder of a GCHQ agent and sees young Zac (Max Rinehart) coming to terms with his action. Arriving to London from a sex-trafficking circuit based in Budapest, his only goal is to either get cryptographer Tom to work for the mob or ...

Anima Theatre Company present Blue Departed, a show marketed as a re-imagination of Dante's Inferno. On paper, it sounds interesting but on stage it becomes a vague exploration of love and drug abuse....

'Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people' writes Angela Carter in her 1992 book Wise Children and that is the starting point for Emma Rice's furiously fast adaptation in this, the first outing for her newly formed theatre company of the same name....

Danielle Walker: Bush Rat takes on the tricky task of examining a largely happy family for comic material and, aside from a few references to the strange ways of Outback Australia, inevitably comes up short....

American Idiot brings Green Day's much-loved album to life in a punk-rock production that rebels against the musical archetype and vigorously sticks its middle finger up to everything and anything that gets in its way....

This brilliant new staging has taken the world by storm and has been hailed 'Les Mis for the 21stCentury'. With scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo, the magnificent score of Les Miserables includes the songs I Dreamed a Dream, On My Own, Bring Him Home, One Day More, Master Of The Hous...

The Other Palace was intended to be a 'space where writers and producers can try out and refine new work'. Showstopper! The Improvised Musical only seems to be aiming for half of this ethos. Alas, it seems doubtful that last night's Cream of Yorkshire will ever be further refined. Yet, the performer...

It's the end of an era at the Lyric Hammersmith, as it is Sean Holmes' final season as artistic director - but it has begun in terrific style with the premiere of a new play with music, written by Matt Jones and Bloc Party singer-songwriter Kele Okereke. It is directed by Southpaw Dance Company's ar...

Step away from the returns queue. The rare presence of Hollywood star Cate Blanchett on a London stage has caused a box office frenzy, but sadly this would-be provocative vehicle - Martin Crimp's loose variations on Samuel Richardson's 1740 proto-novel Pamela, directed by Katie Mitchell - isn't wort...

Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, two of America's most brilliant poets, wrote over 800 pages of letters to each other. They were best friends, platonic soulmates who rarely met but exchanged such soulful and heart-wrenching words between each other....

Kieran Hodgson dissects the history of the UK's relationship with Europe in this funny, poignant and wonderfully well-informed show....