UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

The original version of Rodney Ackland's provocative work, The Pink Room, had a bruising reception back in 1952, losing thousands for investor Terence Rattigan amidst furious reviews. Since salvaged by the Orange Tree in the Eighties, its rebirth was cemented by a Judi Dench-starring production at t...

When Bea (Jade Anouka) and Aaron (Rory Fleck Byrne) meet, they both think they've found happiness. He's intelligent, handsome, and with a high rating, she's a phlebotomist in a centre dedicated to blood testing. Char's (Cherrelle Skeete) existence is on the line because of the test, so she turns to ...

Moormaid takes on a contemporary issue - the return to Europe of young men who fought in Syria - but fails to build characters in whom we can believe despite some fine acting....

There's an old rocking chair with a threadbare cushion in the corner of small living room near Brooklyn Bridge, New York. In it sits Eddie Carbone, our tragic hero, reading the paper. He smells of coffee from the sacks he's been unloading at the docks. A hard-working man providing for his wife Beatr...

Love is in the air, and revolution too. Baz Luhrmann's beloved 1992 film (originally a student play, now back on stage as a musical) is even more adamantly anti-establishment in this latest incarnation, opening out a delicious satire of 1980s Australian competitive ballroom into a more universal sto...

Ella Hickson premieres The Writer, a new momentous play about the patriarchal cage of the theatre business. After the success of Oil in 2016, she challenges the status quo through a young writer who wants to change the world. While her character is being kept down by the narcissistic tendencies of t...

How much are we willing to sacrifice for the pursuit of truth and justice? Terence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy explores this thorny question....

At a time when anti-Semitism appears dangerously current and desperate refugees flee their homelands, a revival of Diane Samuels' engrossing play Kindertransport could not be more timely. Anne Simon directs the remarkable true story of a series of rescue efforts that brought thousands of refugee Jew...

Historically, Richmond's Orange Tree Theatre was a well-known champion of new talent. However, until now, Artistic Director Paul Miller and Executive Director Sarah Nicholson were yet to stage a debut play. Joe White is an alumnus of the Orange Tree Writers Collective, and his first play has clearly...

When Rasheeda Speaking first premiered in the US, it was met with critical divide on all ends. It's the second play I've seen this week that's theatrically dissected race, culture and class. What makes this play different is that it throws office politics into the mix, placing focus on racism in a m...

Jermyn Street Theatre's Artistic Director Tom Littler brings to the stage Noel Coward's cycle of one-act plays in three ravishing triple bills. Tonight at 8:30 marks the biggest and most ambitious project in the theatre's life, but Littler makes it look like a walk in the park....

This play touches on pretty much everything. Politics, race, religion, womanhood and class are just a few of the notions investigated in Selina Fillingers tightly written Faceless, inspired by true events, and currently running at the Park Theatre....

Recently released CALENDAR GIRLS (Original London Recording)cis just perfectly nice. Based on the charming and quaint 2003 film by the same title written by Tim Firth, the musical itself garnered warm notices from London media. So, it is no surprise that the music and this cast was recorded for pres...

After a run at the London Coliseum last year and a subsequent tenure in Toronto, Jim Steinman's Bat Out of Hell is back in town - and it puts rock well and truly back into the West End....

The Golden F**king Years is a beautifully observed and acted farce that finds plenty of comedy in the tedium of ageing and the sudden opportunity of a bit of excitement - and the consequences that inevitably follow....

Every now and then you see a piece of theatre that lights a fire under you. A play that is so brilliant, it shows how special performance can be. Something so meticulously precise and genuinely unique. Education, Education, Education is that show. Riding high from their sensational run at the Edinbu...

Chicago's hit West End revival ­- which featured a constant revolving door of big names - closed in 2012 after almost 15 years. Now, it returns with the requisite stunt casting (Cuba Gooding Jr), but also with a cast of triple-threat stalwarts who illustrate the enduring strengths of this whip-smar...

A play and accompanying exhibition about a renowned Indian singer, the eponymous Gauhar Jaan, and 'an incident' that gained infamy across India in the early 20th century....

The premise sounds promising: a brand new jukebox musical featuring the music of Dusty Springfield. Written by Warner Brown and directed and choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood, Son of a Preacher Man opened in Bromley in September 2017 and is currently touring the UK....

Let's face it, we never turn into the person our parents hope we'll be. Most of the time, our maternal up-bringers learn to adjust to this fact, and accept their offspring for who they are. Granted, it's harder to do this when the son you've raised ends up using drugs, blowing money left right and c...

To kick off its 10th anniversary season, the Rose Theatre turns to Shakespeare to give it a needed boost. This new production of Much Ado About Nothing is not quite a hit, but still an entertaining if slightly manic evening....

Pop music and musicals make good bedfellows for two main reasons. Firstly, pop music has a kind of duality - a song can mean entirely different things in different contexts. Secondly, pop music normally has just the right amount of sentimentality. The Band is a demonstration of how to harness both t...

Tennessee Williams' 1947 classic A Streetcar Named Desire explores the visceral side of human nature: violence, desire, power, loneliness and guilt. Winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1948, it's been adapted multiple times for stage and screen and is widely held as one of the greatest plays of the 20th ...

Following several years of development, Tina, the new musical about Tina Turner, has opened at the West End's newly restored Aldwych Theatre. If the electrifying Saturday night audience I was part of is anything to go by, this show is set to have a long run in London....

The Royal Ballet's latest offering is a rather curious mixed bill containing contemporary, classical and carnivalesque works from three of its resident choreographers. On the surface each of them are tried and tested Opera House hits but together the programme feels confused with no common thread th...