UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Since the 7th of October 2023 nearly 20000 children have been killed in Gaza. This number doesn’t include the kids who are still buried under the debris, or maimed by the bombs, or missing. Israel’s strikes on the innocent are ongoing, even after the so-called ceasefire came into action last yea...

What do World War II, dishwashers and beef have in common? They all play an important role in Pierre Novellie’s newest hour of comedy, Pierre Novellie: You Sit There, I’ll Stand Here. The show has a short and sweet description that tells it exactly like it is - “It's time for Pierre to do stan...

MAGA womanhood is a curious paradox, observed with interest across the pond after a third of women under 30 voted for Trump in 2024. How can so many women not only tolerate but actively promote policies that seek to harm them, and how can the general public recognise their grift for what it is?...

Theatre has to work extra hard in January to get people away from cosy duvets and into venues. Thankfully, Dante or Die’s I Do (created by Daphna Attias and Terry O’Donovan) has a doozie of a premise....

The story of how an international military effort was cobbled together at the last minute to save Kurdish lives in the afternath of The Gulf War...

The sad end and glorious high points of the still much-loved cheeky chappie are explored in a worthy two-hander...

Life doesn’t stop when 15-year-old Ollie’s mum dies suddenly. Ollie Maddigan’s autobiographical one-man play returns to London after a shower of praise around the country. The Olive Boy tells the story of a young boy attempting to navigate grief and an estranged father against a tsunami of ado...

Haven’t we all wanted to have a chat with our inner child at some point? And what if the inner child is not quite as faultless and innocent as we may think?...

The stage is immediately set for a confrontation. We the audience are looking down the length of a Victorian dining table, lit from beneath, poised perfectly for domestic rows to erupt before the meal is even served....

Let’s get the essentials out of the way. Ovo — Portuguese for “egg” — catapults you into a bug-infested universe where creepy-crawlies are given the Cirque du Soleil treatment as they jump, flip, dance and contort around a giant inflatable egg. The oval centrepiece is about 28 feet wide an...

Set in the American West of the 1800s, High Noon rides on themes as relevant now as they were then. Courage vs. Cowardice. Justice vs. Peace. Duty vs. Desire. And at its heart, is the bond between Will Kane and Amy Fowler – a love tested by impossible choices as the clock ticks down to the return ...

Denise Gough and Rosa Salazar also excel in unexpectedly deeply moving stage version of the much-loved movie...

Opera as a whole may be too reliant on museum pieces, on endless identikit revivals designed to secure bums on seats. But in the case of Richard Eyre’s 1994 La traviata, the old adage might be true: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it....

Walking down an ominous red-lit corridor and being asked to put on over-ear headphones isn’t your typical start to a night at the theatre – but then A Ghost in Your Ear isn’t your typical play. Jamie Armitage’s second show as both writer and director (after last year’s An Interrogation) is...

Lyle Kessler’s Orphans was first performed in 1983, but you wouldn’t know that from this production. The tiny stage feels overcome by Sarah Beaton’s design, retro but not too retro, a space immune to the passing decades....

Directed by Michael Longhurst and starring Sheridan Smith as Susan and Romesh Ranganathan as Dr Bill, the show is now open at the Duke of York's Theatre. What did the critics think?...

There are many times you catch yourself, as a parent, doing things you never thought you would do - worse, that you would scoff at if reported by others. I recall looking at one, probably both, of my sons in their crib and becoming aware that I couldn’t see or hear them breathing. You walk away (�...

NT Live's filmed screening of Hamlet, featuring Hiran Abeysekera (Olivier award-winner for Life of Pi) in the title role, will be released in UK cinemas on January 22 and soon after around the world....

Chloe Petts: Big Naturals might take its name from one of the things comedian Chloe Petts loves the most (it is quite unfair how early a show has to have a title, isn’t it?), but it’s more about the life of Petts, less about one of her favourite things - but more on that later. For now, Petts is...

Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 play Woman In Mind is a darkly comic look about mental disintegration and a mid-life ennui that would have rarely been spoken about forty years ago. In the first major West End revival since 2012, director Michael Longhurst presents a startling portrait of a woman who ret...

After staging a charming version of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer two years ago, the Orange Tree's Tom Littler brings us Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 250-year-old comedy The Rivals. Like She Stoops to Conquer, Littler, along with associate Rosie Tricks, has almost rewritten the play, ...

Looking back over 2025, it appears I sat in a dark room and wrote barely legible thoughts into a notebook on about 150-odd occasions. By the grace of God and the BroadwayWorld UK editor, I saw a real smörgåsbord of delights, everything from highly anticipated West End theatre to opera, dance, circ...

What did our critic think of A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES at Vimeo?...

Belle and her feathered friend Pigeon, along with the fabulous dame, Mrs Ringer, the flamboyant Jacques Le Plop and many other hilarious characters must work together to save the Beast from the spell… can Belle see beyond the Beast’s fearsome face? And can Pigeon save the day without getting in ...

​​​​​​​Operation Ouch: Quest for the Jurassic Fart! arrives at the Royal Festival Hall with all the confidence and chaos audiences have come to expect from television’s favourite medical mischief makers. Dr Chris and Dr Xand van Tulleken deliver a high energy family show that balance...