UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

After a staggering 60 years in the business, theatre producer Paul Elliott recently announced that he will be retiring from his company, Paul Elliott Ltd. However, he's leaving in style, releasing his memoir, Keeping My Balls in the Air, to celebrate his time in the industry....

Ned Bennett's production is a gruelling watch, and has contained within it many moments that shock, enlighten, provoke and surprise. Despite its transfer to the National Theatre, the production is still, as Ken Nwosu states to the audience, 'surrounded by white people.'...

SPACE SHAMBLES, hosted by astronaut Chris Hadfield and comedian Robin Ince, was part of the Royal Albert Hall's inaugural Festival of Science on Friday 15 June. Verity Wilde was there....

Based on a true story, The Little Pony examines how two parents react to their child who clings to his pink backpack as the bullying, physical and psychological, piles up....

The summer and fall of 1960 saw Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller struggle with a deteriorating marriage on set of The Misfits. Her crippling drug abuse and illicit affairs with her co-stars lead the two to divorce officially right before the film's premiere in 1961....

Cardiff is currently playing host to the Festival of Voice. The event itself is an eclectic programme featuring theatre, cabaret, spoken word, live music and performance art. Within it there's something for everyone to enjoy, at every time of day. The vibe around the Wales Millennium Centre is poppi...

Masculinity, monstrosity and mental health are explored in Sheffield Theatres' new adaptation of this well-loved classic....

English National Ballet's Emerging Dancer Award is now in its ninth year. It's an invaluable resource to balletomanes and dance critics, allowing the opportunity to focus on the rising stars, to put faces to names and glimpse their vibrant personalities for a unique evening that highlights the dept...

As children, we are brought up on fairy tales set in far faraway lands. A boy-meets-girl story, typically helped by dancing animals or singing furniture....

'Omigod You Guys!', Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin's 2007 musical adaption of the hit 2001 comedy film starring Reese Witherspoon is in Brighton as part of its second UK tour since the West End production closed in 2012....

The bells, the bells! They're ringing out at the Donmar - ushering girls into class, and nuns into cloister. It's one of the creative ways in which director Polly Findlay reframes this beloved classic, although a new adaptation from David Harrower also rings the changes....

A curious tone in this bold adaptation that doesn't get everything right, but it's Chekhov, so there's more than enough to enjoy!...

RashDash's Three Sisters, after Chekhov is thrillingly irreverent: to rules, to theatrical form, and even to reviews, but it's their irreverence that's so deserving of reverence....

Machinal, written by Sophie Treadwell, is based on the sensational 1927 trial of Ruth Snyder, a housewife who murdered her husband. It is a play largely about a woman attempting to find her own agency, with little success, despite the restraints of being a wife and mother. While the Almeida producti...

In an age of Instant Messenger, Snapchat and Twitter, many of us may have never experienced the quiet thrill of receiving a handwritten, personal letter. 84 Charing Cross Road is James Roose-Evans' adaptation of Helene Hanff's charming and very personal book of letters. It goes back to a time wh...

Oh, what a beautiful evening in West Horsley! Grange Park Opera open their 2018 summer festival season with Rogers and Hammerstein's vintage musical (the first of its kind in 1943), set in the farming heartlands of America....

Jonah (Jonathan Chambers) has been sent on a mission to convince wealthy Claudia (Sandra Dickinson) to sell her huge art collection to a university archive. The exuberant socialite has turned into a recluse and the young man might be the key to find out what her collection actually contains. King's ...

Polly Stenham's updating of Strindberg's Miss Julie moves the action to contemporary London, and finds both contempt and sympathy for this new version of the idle rich. But, shorn of its 19th-century context, the play struggles to make the class transgression feel dangerous, nor does this 85-minute ...

The Daughter-in-Law bristles with working class reality buoyed by dialect and accent rooted in the Nottinghamshire pits - but the characters never emerge from that backdrop and the play leaves one with an unsatisfying sense of disbelief....

In her West End debut, Laura Linney proves that she is one of the greatest actresses in the theatre industry today. She stars in My Name is Lucy Barton, Rona Munro's adaptation of Elizabeth Strout's award-winning novel at the Bridge Theatre. This ninety-minute monologue showcases Linney's talent as ...

Paterson Joseph's homage to a forgotten person, indeed, a forgotten people, has its moments but ultimately falls short of the drama required for it to really fly....

A timely and important new play that blends movement, comedy and pathos into a compelling mix that says much about how we value life in 2018....

In the space of just a brief recital, Joyce DiDonato brings World History to Covent Garden (and makes some)....

After spending several months as the Trafalgar Fair, a Texas trailer park takes root at Trafalgar Studios as a new production of Tracy Letts' Killer Joe begins its run. It is directed by Simon Evans, who previously helmed a production of Letts' Bug at the short-lived venue Found111 - the show also m...

In many ways, the timing of the European premiere of American playwright Emily Schwend's award-winning play Utility could not be more prescient. The portrayal of a quotidian Texan family trying to live an ordinary life and having to battle to stay afloat in challenging economic circumstances is an a...