UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

After a time spent apart, two brothers reunite in an attempt to understand one another. Charting their differences and uniting via their similarities, they laugh, dance, sing, fight, and slowly begin to recognise that everything they once knew has forever changed....

Our current political climate is unpredictable, to say the least. Old orders are collapsing, and new regimes are emerging. Masculinity is in crisis, and young males find themselves searching for an identity and sense of belonging. Riding high from his Fringe First winning success, Javaad Alipoor bri...

Bruce is an everyday run of the mill Geordie lad who desires more for his life. Living with his Nan he is unemployed and moping over a childhood sweetheart that has upped sticks and gone off to university. Unsure of his life's direction, he discovers Silk Road; a backdoor to the dark web where all s...

There is an intoxicating cabaret currently residing in the VAULT Fest Pit. Actor and dancer Peter Groom has created a blend of theatre, cabaret and drag to produce a show that questions one's own ethical and moral compass. A story detailing the life of Germany's most famous woman, Dietrich: Natural ...

'Heads.' One word, and one coin toss, decides which roles Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams will play on the night: the titular Mary, or her rival Elizabeth I. Last night Williams took the latter - the company immediately bowing to her. It was a comic moment that underlined a key theme: fortune is f...

Mary stands alone on stage and tells a story of loss, betrayal and conspiracy. With her ex-wife she had a child, and then lost it, causing a state of harrowing posttraumatic stress disorder to ensnare her. But when random body parts start appearing on the beach, she considers that perhaps Miriam isn...

Peter Pan is a story that the majority of us will know and love. It's a tale of a boy who never grew up, and instead lived the rest of his days in Neverland leading the fearless Lost Boys. Following their 2017 hit with The Great Gatsby, The Guild of Misrule return to the VAULTs with Neverland....

Pulitzer-winning American playwright Annie Baker returns to the National where The Flick was a quiet triumph in 2016 with another work that is epic in form (three hours and change), but similarly spellbinding in its ability to draw an audience close. Though Baker flirts with horror tropes here, ...

The original production of Miss Saigon ran for more than ten years at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane throughout the 1990s, and a revised version - billed as the 25th Anniversary production - opened at the Prince Edward Theatre in 2014. Following its closure in May 2016, it's this version which ha...

Golem! takes part in Vault Festival with Tomorrow Creeps, a new play that features sixteen works of Shakespeare. A mashup of quotes and circumstances that, in the eerie and humid atmosphere of The Vaults, isn't always coherent, but promising nonetheless....

Though Sacha Guitry is largely unknown in the UK, this production weaves five extracts of his plays into a single narrative and shows that the tag of 'The French Noel Coward' was not undeserved....

What do you do when you meet someone that completely knocks you off your equilibrium, causing you to challenging everything you once thought to be true? When your life direction is on the toss of the coin, do you fight or flee? Following it's hugely successful premiere at the National Theatre, Begin...

Jermyn Street Theatre kicks off their Scandal season with Woman Before a Glass, in which Peggy Guggenheim tells her own story. Written by Lanie Robertson and staged by Tom McClane in a recreation of Austin Pendleton's New York production, the piece is as gossip-filled and sleek as its main character...

Sex, equality, morality and fidelity are all issues currently in the forefront of many people's minds. As part of a year-long celebration of Oscar Wilde, Dominic Droomgoole's Classic Spring theatre company now turn to Lady Windermere's Fan after A Woman Of No Importance. It is something of a relief ...

One for fans of Jane Austen and for anyone who likes to see an intelligent production performed with technical skill and rewarding wit....

After a short stay at the Bristol Old Vic, and an award-winning run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Daniel Jamieson's play about the life and love of Marc and Bella Chagall begins a UK/US tour at Wilton's Music Hall in east London. Directed by Emma Rice, it follows in the wake of Romantics Anonymo...

Fabricate Theatre is debuting at Tristan Bates Theatre with Bunny, Jack Thorne's 2010 play. Directed by Lucy Curtis and performed by Catherine Lamb, the piece is sharp and eye-opening, and as relevant now as it was when it first premiered at Edinburgh Fringe Festival if not even more....

The Railway Children is a delightful show with beautiful music and a wonderful message about the importance of kindness. The concert staged at Cadogan Hall featured lyrics and a book by Katie Lam and music by Alex Parker, who also conducted....

Marianela Nu ez celebrates her 20th year with the Royal Ballet this year. For a prima ballerina you may believe her peak years of performing are behind her. However, nothing could be further from the truth in this divine production of Sir Peter Wright's mystical Giselle, in which a stellar cast brin...

Swan Lake was Tchaikovsky's first ballet, but it is arguably his best known and well loved. The bewitching and ultimately tragic story follows Prince Siegfried as meets the beautiful but cursed Odette, condemned by the evil Von Rothbart to be a swan except for a few fleeting hours a day. Only a vow ...

A fine production that grapples with the play's tricky structure to bring home Brecht's political points with a relevance for today that can hardly be missed....

It's 60 years since Harold Pinter's play premiered - and flopped - at Lyric Hammersmith, baffling critics (with one exception) and audiences alike. Now, we expect the sinister subversion of both the seemingly mundane setting and the dramatic form that Pinter the jobbing actor knew from rep: that of ...

Doodle - The Musical starts with an unlikely idea that's spun out for nearly three hours - even some decent songs prove insufficient to rescue its poor script and dull characters....

Shrek The Musical tells the tale of an ogre trying to get his swamp back. And David Lindsay-Abaire's adaptation has certainly managed to turn the famous Dreamworks animation into a real life spectacle....

Greeted by rapturous reviews in 2016, Peter Shaffer's acclaimed production of Amadeus makes a triumphant return to the National Theatre this week. The enthralling story of a fictional confessional from an Italian musician called Antonio Salieri, as he recalls his obsessional jealousy and subsequent ...