UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Debbie Tucker Green's latest work, a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun) has its premiere with an unexpected staging in the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs....

Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight had its premiere in Richmond Theatre in 1938 and so it seems suitable for it to end its UK tour in the same setting. Set firmly in an era of Victorian melodrama; Bella Manningham is increasingly convinced that she is going mad. She loses jewelry and finds photo frames in ...

Ionesco's absurd theatre brought to life in a handsome production that is full of wit and humour, but never loses its avant garde character....

Snow in Midsummer is a modern retelling of an ancient Chinese drama, which marks the start of an ambitious cultural project translating Eastern classics into English, and Shakespeare into Chinese. The original 13th century play, by Guan Hanqing, bears all the hallmarks of traditional Chinese drama, ...

This year's triple bill marks Ballet Black's sixteenth year since Cassa Pancho founded the company in 2001. Their message remains the same as their fan base continues to grow: diversity. This small company of only eight dancers can now comfortably sell out London's large Barbican theatre for several...

Arthur Pita returns to The Place with the dark but thrilling double bill Stepmother/Stepfather. Stepfather is a revisit of the work Pita first created in 2007 for CandoCo Dance. He was approached by HeadSpaceDance to support a full evening's work and felt it would be the perfect time to resurrect th...

In a space as small and potentially claustrophobic as The Hope Theatre, all you need to make a play with such a heavy theme go wrong is getting even a minimum detail wrong. It's not the case at all for In Other Words, a play written (and performed) by Matthew Seager and directed by Paul Brotherston....

The final Wonder Noir production to play in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is one of Shakespeare's tragedies: Othello. Running in tandem with Webster's The White Devil, it concludes the winter season in suitably dark fashion, as befits Emma Rice's vision. This tale on the consequences of letting rumour...

Following an acclaimed premiere Off-Broadway in 2015, I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard sees its UK debut at the Finborough Theatre directed by Jake Smith....

Jess strolls through fresh powder. Behind her is a gleaming glass lake, ahead snow-capped mountains dotted with handsome fir trees. More snow twinkles in the inky heavens like jewelled stars, or falls from the sky in soft, fluttering feathers....

Swifties examines the obsessive nature of fandom, as dress-up and role play turns into something much more sinister in this reinvention of Jean Genet's The Maids....

Last night Wicked officially welcomed its new West End cast, including the return of Willemijn Verkaik to the role of Elphaba. The show has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in London, welcomed its 8 millionth audience member, and won its 10th WhatsOnStage Award; its longevity is almost unhea...

Hamlet anew in this technology infused but oh so human production of Shakespeare's great tragedy in which Andrew Scott gives us a warm, flawed, and eventually mad Prince....

Now playing in rep with The Pitchfork Disney, Killer is Philip Ridley's newest work; a darkly comic piece (quite literally) that pushes the boundaries of fear and suspense. It stands alone from everything on offer at the moment - you will not find anything else quite like this....

Previously performed at The Gate in 2013 after a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival, Grounded returns to Notting Hill by popular demand. It is immediately apparent why....

If a sad tale really is best for winter, then we've certainly been blessed this year. For months the news has croaked out its nightly stories, each blacker than the one before, and though blossom is already on the trees there's not been so much as a whiff of a happy ending. Certainly not at English ...

The misfits shall inherit the earth. This enjoyably offbeat play from Stephen Karam (whose The Humans won the Tony for Best Play last year) opened Off-Broadway a decade ago, but the arrival of a film adaptation in April is a decent indicator that its portrait of adolescent isolation and sexual hypo...

Federico Fellini's Oscar-winning film La Strada has earned its place as a cinematic classic. As a film, it is a visual feast and so therefore a huge challenge to put on the stage. In a world of extreme deprivation and poverty, a widow sells her daughter, Gelsomina, to travelling strongman Zampano...

What could be more cheering in a dank dark London February than a blast of Spanish flamenco? Answer: a Sadler's Wells flamenco gala, a fistful of stellar talents for the price of one....

A rock musical about a suspected Victorian murderess - not your average night at the theatre, by any stretch of the imagination. Enter Lizzie, making its UK premiere at Greenwich Theatre. Tim Maner's book takes the infamous real life case and draws on several of the theories that have been devised o...

The wonderful thing about fringe theatre is the variety and quality of what can be produced in a tiny space, with very little budget. Creativity is key to make an audience return to what is essentially the back room of a pub with slightly uncomfortable seating. Madam Butterfly is the latest creative...

'The course of true love never did run smooth.' A famous line from one of Shakespeare's most well known and well loved plays - and when Joe Hill-Gibbins is at the helm, you can be certain that the production won't be straightforward either....

Suffused with grief and unrequited love, Twelfth Night is often played as an anti-comedy - more melancholy than mirthful. Not so in Simon Godwin's brash, gender-bending, utterly joyful rendering, which takes loss as a cue to embrace life....

Gary Naylor sees an energetic, loud and often charming tale of love in a wartime POW Camp....