UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Counting credits including We Will Rock You, Wicked, and The Last Ship, Rachel Tucker shows off her vocal range brilliantly, but she is ultimately underwhelming at her limited intimate solo shows at Zedel, giving the impression that a lot more could have been done production-wise....

Naples is brought to London, as we track the extraordinary lives of Lila and Lenu in an adaptation of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels that overreaches itself....

There are few male playwrights who have captured the female psyche as well as Willy Russell. The character of Shirley is both simple and complex. On one hand all she wants is to escape her life of regimented predictability, where her husband Joe demands his steak on a Thursday and the only source of...

Threesome is often crude, sometimes boldly empowering and occasionally shows a glimpse of something more sophisticated emerging, but ultimately falls a little short on laughs....

Extraordinary, astonishing, unmissable five star production that brings three of Shakespeare's plays up to date in an electrifying production that should not be missed....

After Party sees tensions, long since buried, bubble to the surface, as one of the old gang returns from prison to settle old scores and reclaim what he believes to be his....

Seventeen captures a cathartic moment in young people's lives - the last day at school - but does not reach its potential due to a largely lacklustre script....

One will rarely see Sadler's Wells brimming with more anticipation than at the premiere of a Sergei Polunin triple bill. Fans will always flock to see the Ukrainian star alongside his real-life partner, Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova. However, Project Polunin feels sadly like the vanity proj...

Limehouse focuses on the events concerning the founding of the Social Democratic Party (the SDP) and the drafting of the Limehouse Declaration that led to it. Many, many parallels with today's fractured polity....

Not Dead Enough is the third novel by best-selling crime writer Peter James to be adapted by Shaun McKenna and directed by Ian Talbot. Brighton socialite Katie Bishop is found raped and murdered in gruesome circumstances. The evidence points to her husband Brian, who claims to have been asleep in hi...

Stewart Permutt's two-hander is the latest piece to run in Park Theatre's Park90 performance space, running alongside Action To The Word's A Clockwork Orange in Park200. As the play begins it looks like it will be a study on religious intolerance and culture clash, but as it goes on it tries to deal...

Fresh from the success of The Last Five Years at the former St James Theatre, which culminated in a WhatsOnStage Award for Best Off-West End Production, acclaimed composer Jason Robert Brown last night joined a stellar cast for a one-off concert performance of his Broadway hit Honeymoon In Vegas. Ac...

Daniel and Laura Curtis showcase their current album, Overture, and give us a glimpse or two of emerging work, the songs belted out by A list West End performers....

Is it possible that Kasper Holten, Covent Garden's outgoing director of opera, has directed a Meistersinger about himself? It certainly looks a lot like it. This black take on Wagner's sunniest and most humane opera finds doubts and uncertainties at every turn, closing not with a paean to national a...

Much has been written about the snack ban instigated by this Edward Albee revival at the behest of its star, Imelda Staunton. No problems on that score: with performances of such scorching intensity sustained over a shattering three hours, audiences will be unwilling to release a breath, let alone d...

Following stints in Bath and Richmond, Sean Foley and Phil Porter's new adaptation of the Moliere classic is now in the West End's Garrick Theatre for a limited run. Whilst it does retain a satirical edge, its main aim is to entertain - and does so in spades....

Following wildly successful runs in Paris and New York, four-time Tony Award-winning An American in Paris is currently previewing at London's Dominion Theatre and is set to officially open in just over a week's time. It brings with it original cast members Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope to star as...

Known for his strong female characters, from Educating Rita to Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers, Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine stands head and shoulders above his other work as an in depth exploration of what it was really like to be a woman in the 1980s. Transporting the audience from her kitche...

For Eva (Gina Isaac), Aditi (Ulrika Krishnamurti), and Dr Gupta (Syreeta Kumar), the first's desire to have a baby has three distinct meanings: the achievement of a lifetime, a way out of poverty, and capital. Set in a clinic in Gujarat, Western India, these three women come to terms with the politi...

'What a very singularly deep young man that deep young man must be!' You don't have to look very far in selfie-taking 2017 for an equivalent to the narcissism and aestheticism that are so thoroughly sent up in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1881 Patience. So perhaps it's best that director Liam Steel has le...

Wisdom of a Fool resurrects the much loved Norman Wisdom in Jack Lane's respectful and entertaining show that charts his rags-to-riches story....

Fifty years on, Tom Stoppard's absurdist tragicomedy is back in the theatre where it had its professional premiere, and still just as dazzlingly virtuosic. If some of its gags, musings and metatheatrical tricks have since become overfamiliar through imitation, that's surely testament to its enduring...

Handbagged imagines what was said by Mrs Thatcher and The Queen in their weekly meetings to hilarious effect in Moira Buffini's award-winning satire....

Three short plays introduce the writing of BS Johnson, a revered man of English letters whose influence resonates through the last 50 years....

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Alexander Parker and Amy Ewbank's production of The Diary of a Teenage Girl is the latest show in The Little at Southwark Playhouse. This dark, irreverent comedy stands alone in a theatre scene that is largely preoccupied with politics, and as such is a b...