UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

The Cherry Orchard retains its power to reach across decades and tell us harsh truths about a changing world....

Edinburgh's Southern Light Opera Company rises to the challenge of staging Maury Yeston's award-winning musical, in an ambitious production with a cast of 90 and orchestra of 27....

The Sorrows of Satan delights from beginning to end, packing in witty songs, wonderful performances and a laughs per minute ratio as high as any in the West End....

This seasons offering from Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory is a story of politics, love and being an outsider in a world that mistrusts you....

The 2012 National Theatre adaptation of Mark Haddon's best-selling novel embarks on its second UK tour, and is compelling, thought-provoking and exceptionally well-performed....

Tim Firth can't keep away from the Calendar Girls. Following the 2003 film and 2008 play, he's back again adapting the real-life story of Yorkshire WI heroines stripping off for a charity calendar after one of their number loses her husband to cancer - this time in a musical adaptation with Gary Bar...

Directed by Russell Lucas and brilliantly presented in the round in a room that isn't really designed for a production as such, The Understudy sees a brilliant U.K. premiere as part of Canal Cafe Theatre's American Season....

Deep in the belly of the Vault Festival, among the dark red lights, tinsel, and old, dirty vaudeville atmosphere Who Shot Wayne Sleep? finds fertile ground to shine too dimly to be relevant. The smells of humid basement and aged liquor only heighten the cheap middle-age entertainment that The Martin...

The Wild Party is plenty wild enough, but its overly ambitious book and parade of cookie-cutter characters means that it never lands a knockout punch - or song....

It is 30 years since Clare McIntyre's Low Level Panic premiered at the Royal Court. Focusing on a snap shot in the lives of three flatmates; Mary has found a pornographic magazine in the bin and wants to talk about it. Jo is in the bath, wondering how her life would be if she were that bit taller an...

Awards season is in full swing now, so this weekend was the turn of the 17th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards. Held at the Prince of Wales Theatre, it prides itself on being the only event where winners are voted for exclusively by theatregoers....

Max Gill's clever adaptation of this classic play brings it right up to date, into the world of Tinder and Grindr and fluid sexual identities....

Ventoux captures two very different men going mano a mano against each other, against the Tour de France's most fearsome mountain and, ultimately, against history's insistence that they pay a full price for their sins....

'See Me Now' is a one act performance piece that leads us through the lives of sex workers of all sexualities, genders and ages and explains how they each came to be part of the industry....

'What did you do during the war, Dada?' Somewhere underneath the relentless punning and the pastiche, the whistle-stop wit and the whirling theoretical debate, there's a seriousness to Tom Stoppard's 1974 Travesties that feels horribly prescient. The intellectual hijinks are genuinely hilarious, but...

Action To The Word are celebrating what would have been Anthony Burgess' 100th birthday with the London return of their production of the notorious A Clockwork Orange. It has previously run at the Edinburgh Festival and at venues worldwide, and takes over from Raising Martha at the Park Theatre....

Intense and focused, this adaptation of Dostoyevsky's celebrated novel ratchets up the tension without losing the material's intellectual heft....

It's 1922, and young Millie Dillmount arrives in New York from a small town in Kansas, ready to take control of her destiny and make her fortune by marrying well. After all, the modern marriage is a business affair. Skirts get shorter, heels get higher and hair is bobbed flapper style, making Millie...

This new musical from Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MacRae fizzes with energy and warmth - a must-see!...

It is no secret that acclaimed film director Mike Leigh has a passion for Gilbert and Sullivan; his 1999 film Topsy-Turvy was an outright celebration of them and their music. In this first revival of his version of Pirates of Penzance, Leigh maintains and expands on that celebratory spirit in a col...

Anyone Can Whistle is a rare combination of a well-deserved flop and a must-see show. Swallow the myriad flaws, and its an entertaining, sharp and eerily prophetic show....

The Strictly Tour has now been an annual fixture in fans' calendars for ten years. Each time the casual enthusiast mentally prepares themselves for a some full on fluff and scripted joviality but on this opening night at Wembley, this relentlessly joyful show was full of heart which is exactly what ...

The show has bags of potential, passion to burn and excellent singing, but is let down by a pedestrian book and sprawling subplots....

For anyone who had been wondering, seven and a half years on from the demise of Pina Bausch, what was the point of her company's continued trawl through her back-catalogue, this visit is reason enough. It's not just that Masurca Fogo, which takes its inspiration from Portugal and Cape Verde, brings ...

Based on the 1948 film of the same name, starring Moira Shearer, Matthew Bourne's production of The Red Shoes tells the story of ballerina Victoria Page and her tragic struggle between love and duty. Both the film and Matthew Bourne's production are inspired by Han Christian Andersen's fairytale of ...