UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

David Tennant and Cush Jumbo lead a first-rate cast in a raw, visceral, brutal and ultimately hopeful show filmed live at the Donmar Warehouse in London....

Erik Kahn’s play tested very positively in the States early last year and has gained even more resonance since then. Reviewing it on the day of the United States Presidential Inauguration, where Elon Musk gave a hasty Roman salute to Trump’s rapt audience, hit differently. In front of us, Charlo...

A case of never being more than the sum of its parts, even if those parts have promise in themselves....

Polish production is powerful theare-making, but lacks heart and conviction in its storytelling...

Have you ever really stopped to consider the significance of sound, of speech, on everyday life… on theatre? Many of us take these things for granted, yet Ad Infinitum’s new play throws the realities of being deaf into sharp relief....

Comedians may have told Chloe Petts that comedy is subjective, but Petts is determined to prove them wrong. In How You See Me, How You Don’t, Petts wants every single person in the world to enjoy the show, whether they’re a young queer person or a Crystal Palace football fan - or both!...

A spectacular that puts the “fun” into funeral, Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo is their finest London outing in over a decade. ...

Roy Williams’ tight adaptation of Sam Selvon’s 1956 rather meandering novel The Lonely Londoners continues that education. It was a hit when it played at the diminutive Jermyn Street theatre last year. Ebenezer Bamboye’s adaptation now comes to the Kiln Theatre, transporting you to a Bayswater...

It’s a mistake to dismiss Claus Guth’s production of Janacek’s Jenůfa as symbolically overwrought and interminably grey. Look closer and you’ll discover a duality to each beguiling appearance....

After a stellar run in Stratford-upon-Avon, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s RSC-fuelled project takes hold of London. Flashback to 1997, the United Nations are desperately trying to draft up an arrangement that might save the Earth. The deadlock on global warming hadn’t eased for years: each repr...

Fusing together puppetry, live music and projections, MimeLondon’s opener La Manékine brings to vivid life one of the more gruesome of the Brothers Grimm’s tales....

Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Lionel Bart’s iconic musical, OLIVER!, which he has fully reconceived with director and choreographer Matthew Bourne, has now opened at the Gielgud Theatre....

Intimate, clever staging enhances a tearjerker of a show...

After blowing audiences away in Chichester, Matthew Bourne’s addictive version of Lionel Bart’s beloved OLIVER! lands in the West End in truly glorious form....

The American production of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil's Disciple was, famously, the first financial success for the Irish writer. Though originally set during the Revolutionary era, Director Mark Giesser adapts it to a later war, perhaps in an attempt to modernise its themes and draw a parall...

French dramatist Jean Genet is a rarity on British stages, and I can see why. There are more popular writers that do what he does, only better. Genet’s 1947 The Maids is never stark enough to match the claustrophobic brutality of Beckett, nor darkly comic enough to out menace Pinter....

Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts are getting a foothold in London’s East End. Shylock, here a single parent, requests a pound of flesh from Antonio, part of Mosley’s aficionados, in order to clear his debts. The demands of the Jewish moneylender who’s endlessly abused in public by the same people...

This world premiere, directed by Dadlow Lin, strips away theatrical artifice to focus on the raw humanity of its characters, delivering a powerful commentary on how schools struggle to adapt to evolving understandings of gender identity....

When the music of Céline Dion makes sweet Canadian love with the eleven-time Oscar®-winning film Titanic, you get Titaníque, New York’s most award-winning splash hit that turns one of the greatest love stories of all time into a hysterical musical fantasia....

Colin Hoult: Colin is a show in which Hoult tells the audience the story of his life, beginning with the origins of his name (he was named after his father, referred to as “Big Colin”) and leading to having children of his own (not named Colin). We learn about his childhood obsession with Elvis,...

What started as one-night showing in Los Angeles, after docking on Broadway, in Canada and Australia, Titaníque has now sailed into London. Based on the idea that global pop icon Céline Dion was actually the hero of the 1997 James Cameron film, Titanic, the absurdity of this dazzlingly camp and f...

A comedian, a musician, a nature-lover, a philosopher. Bill Bailey has now surely also cemented his status as national treasure. His latest show, Thoughtifier, is about his intriguing thought processes, channelled through music. So nothing new there then. However, Bailey ensures that a show that run...

Rob Copland: Gimme (One With Everything) begins with quite the introduction, with Copland not actually beginning the storytelling of the show for several minutes. Before the show, I had seen Copland doing some warmup stretches, which quickly made sense once he ran onto the stage, jumping around and ...

And so yet another Fascinating Aïda tour comes to a close. Having already dipped into their latest extended jaunt around the UK a couple of times already, one thing has become abundantly clear: the second best thing about going to see this celebrated cabaret outfit has been experiencing the reactio...

When I first saw The Nutcracker, I was convinced one of these things must be true: either someone had spiked my drink, the cast were all on drugs or we were all in some kind of baffling nightmare. No other explanation seemed plausible to my young mind....