UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

The Watermill Theatre may be small, but this Jesus Christ Superstar is epic on biblical levels. Exuberant, dynamic yet intimate, if you’re on the lookout for an alternative stripped back Andrew Lloyd Webber revival this summer, this one is worth taking a holy pilgrimage...

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that bisexuals are often underserved when it comes to theatre and media. Poltergeist thriller Ivories valiantly sweeps in at the close of Pride Month, but it over-promises and under-delivers. Beyond the messy and exceedingly protracted set-up, lies a great sto...

Turns out that The Revolution is Televised after all - and beamed back into the theatre...

Beautiful writing and strong performances deliver a memorable production...

Forget Arcadian landscapes and Corinthian columns. Oliver Mears’s new production of Handel’s Semele remoulds Greek myth to a 20th century manor house where mortals are servants of Gods who lounge around in velvet ball gowns. Semele is a maid plucked from service by master of the house, a cigaret...

“What does a woman feel like?” Not an easy question for any woman, cis or trans, to answer, and Ugly Sisters, an Edinburgh Fringe transfer from transfemme production company piss / CARNATION, resists giving us any easy solutions, while also making the issue at hand feel more expansive than any r...

You could be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much more to be said about Le nozze di Figaro, the most performed opera in Glyndebourne’s history. However, Mozart’s classic role subversion comedy is deceptive in its simplicity: beneath the farce and improbable plot twists is a complex web ...

Audience members got two for the price of one with English National Ballet School and Rambert School collaborating on a joint show for the continuing Next Generation Festival at the Royal Ballet and Opera's Linbury Theatre. ...

In Intimate Apparel clothes are the nexus between class and communities. Set in 1905 New York, Esther, a solitary seamstress crafts lingerie in a grotty boarding-house. Two of her clients, a sex worker and 5th Avenue socialite, confide in her, gently pulling the thread that unravels cultures and com...

We are in an American provincial backwater. Characters bursting with steamy yearning squashed into the intimacy of the Almedia so close you’d think you can smell the bourbon on their hot breath. A pinch of expressionist flare as garnish and you have the Rebecca Frecknall formula: Summer and Smoke,...

For anyone who loves or even likes the game of tennis, Jimmy is a worthy paean to how harrowing the sport can be at its best. The character it carves out from Connors’ story may need some more depth and refinement, but it’ll certainly be playing at the back of my mind as we head into Wimbledon....

This Bitter Earth, the UK directorial debut of Tony winner Billy Porter, is a play with a lot to say – about race, about activism, and about love. First produced in 2017, the show follows the twists and turns in the relationship between Jesse (Omari Douglas), a Black writer, and his boyfriend Neil...

A thoughtfully selected double bill making up the operetta segment of Opera Holland Park’s summer season shows the genre at its technical best, but also illuminates its troubling shortcomings....

After years in development and several stagings across the globe, Disney’s Hercules has crashed like a lightning bolt into the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The show, with a book by Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Armah, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by David Zippel, is an adaptation of the 1997 Disney f...

Iman Qureshi’s The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs, directed by Hannah Hauer‑King, begins like a buoyant sitcom, only to pivot—sometimes too sharply—into earnest, confessional drama. At its best, it sparkles with wit and warmth; at its most uneven, it feels like two distinct shows blocking one a...

Growing up in the States, the Girl Scouts were a major part of my childhood. I spent the summers going on biking trips and exploring the wilderness at Camp Tweedale, a summer camp out in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. As soon as I heard about Scouts! The Musical, written by Sam Cochrane (Boo...

A tasty unanticipated treat, these potent and entertaining Rodgers & Hammerstein dream ballets are delights to be lovingly unwrapped and enjoyed....

Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller's play has lots of good ideas but needs a more solid structure to succeed fully...

Some matinées can feel endless…and I'm sorry to say that was the case with the Paris Opera Junior Ballet. Performing as part of the ongoing Next Generation Festival at the Royal Ballet and Opera's Linbury Theatre, the recently formed (2024) troupe brought a quad bill of mixed works - both in sty...

On the face of it, three celebrated opera companies joining forces is, without doubt, A Good Thing. This adaptation of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow, on the other hand, decidedly Not A Great Thing....

This Medea feels at one with its ancient origins, with Athens’ strict patriarchy and fractured psyches and desperate quests for glory, while also injecting a risk-taking dose of dread and brutality....

Kieran Hodgson: Voice of America explores Hodgson’s own fascination with America, which began when he was little and reading from a small book of speeches by President John F. Kennedy that his father kept in his office. Ever since then, his passion for America has not diminished, with Hodgson ente...

On 6 January 2021, while the US Congress gathered in Washington DC to confirm Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States of America, a mob waited outside. Demanding that their leader Donald J Trump be returned to power, they stormed the Capitol building to confront the lawmakers....

Sarah Kane is part of the mythology of British theatre. A brilliant mind, unbridled in her explorations of existence. Severely depressed, she hanged herself in the toilets of King’s College Hospital on the 20th of February, 1999. Tragically, it wasn’t a surprise. She wrote and talked about suici...

Days are getting longer, nights are warmer, and we have a brand new musical romantic comedy premiering in East London. Written by the creators of the phenomenon that was the podcast My Dad Wrote A Porno, Jamie Morton and James Cooper, with music by Bryn Christopher and Martin Batchelar, Lovestuck is...