UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Following its sold out run in 2023, Boys from the Blackstuff has returned to Liverpool’s Royal Court, before the show transfers to the National Theatre in London and Garrick Theatre in the West End....

A person’s life can be dictated by many things - career, relationships, decisions made… In the case of Andrée Bernard’s What (is) a Woman it seems that men have dictated the protagonist’s life....

Walking into Shelf: Teenage Men, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Based on the show’s description, there would be “anecdotes, songs, jokes about performing for kids, the Instagram algorithm, confronting your toxicity, and more.” How was all of this going to fit into an hour-long show? Luckily, ...

“This way, you win, no matter what.” The Women’s Cricket World Cup Final in the present day, and eighteenth century Calcutta – on the face of it there’s the barest of connections, but when you drill down a bit deeper you can see how the relationship between England and India was first forg...

Is there anything similar to The Sleeping Beauty overture? With Tchaikovsky filling the theatre with full-blown fairy tale drama - it's quite the opener. ...

Ghost Stories of Antiquary, a “seated site-specific show with immersive elements” directed by Nicholas Benjamin and co-devised by Benjamin, Niamh Handley-Vaughan, Nadia Lamin and Miles Blanch, takes place in Longfield Hall, a building that survived the bombings of World War II, the very rads tha...

A show dripping in pretension performed by a naked man? An impenetrable work obsessed with having a sex toy deep inside one’s backside? A meditation on “existential anxiety” that does little of note with an hour of precious life? There’s enough irony in You Are Going To Die to power an Alani...

“Old friends in the morning, then wanting us dead in the afternoon”, says one of the men in Silence, repeating the line over and over. Decades after the event, he still can’t understand the speed at which hate and violence ignited in the wake of the 1947 Partition of India....

What is the difference between a house and a home? And who gets to write history? Interactive experience 1884 provokes challenging answers to these questions in the context of an almost-forgotten historical event that had significant consequences for two continents....

Unlike Firth’s decision to stretch out the film’s first half for the musical, confusingly ending it on the long-awaited calendar photoshoot, his play adaptation allows the audience to see the impact the calendar has on the outside world and the women’s personal lives....

Returning to the brand new King’s Head Theatre, Ned Campbell takes on award-winning Scottish playwright Kieran Hurley’s Beats in an adaptation that champions our imaginations and emphasises the power of collective gathering....

Nadine Sierra’s enthralling central performance helms this nerve-jangling revival....

We begin with Kaelan Trough (Doherty) gleefully repeating the word “Love,' grinning as he wanders around the stage. Kaelan and his partner, Jeremy, are having a gender reveal party for their baby. There is a black balloon hanging from the ceiling. Once popped, if the baby is a boy, blue rose petal...

Tamsyn Kelly: Crying in TK Maxx is a show about the men in Kelly’s life, starting with her father growing up and ending with a man who works in her local chicken shop. Kelly grew up on a council state, the only one with a father, ironically wishing that he would leave as he was causing nothing but...

Somewhere in King’s Cross, a middle-aged woman sits at a piano and plays an original piece with surprising fluency. There begins Samuel Adamson’s tumultuous tale of two teenage musical prodigies whose lives become thoroughly entangled....

Spring brings renewed energy into the year. There isn’t a better moment for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recently appointed Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey to launch their vision for the organisation. Led by a big name that will attract new audiences who are probably youn...

Between the contradictions of her age group and the difficulties of navigating a life where everyone is too busy, yet your ex is already moving on, Brooke is crumbling. It’s unfortunately relatable for a large chunk of chronically online public. ...

“People don’t pay to see Reginald Dwight, they pay to see Elton John!” In the sea of ubiquitous biopic-by-numbers that is modern cinema, one film really stood out from the crowd. Dexter Fletcher and Lee Hall’s Rocketman is the epitome of ‘What Would Elton Do?’, as it veers from one multi...

A cathartic and powerful moment, a veinous fist unclenching....

This is a fantastical and entertaining production and a great way to honour the icon herself....

Given the emotional investment required on stage and in the stalls, one feels somewhat shortchanged by a production that invites sympathy for a character with few redeeming features...

As any fan of this art form will tell you, the first rule of cabaret shows is: never sit in the front row. The second rule is: never tell cabaret virgins the first rule....

A mixed bag of productions united by wonderful acting and committed writing...

Dante or Die are back with another site-specific venture. Burrowed underneath the cold dome of Stone Nest, Kiss Marry Kill feels right at home within the harsh and unholy environment of the venue. Set in a prison against the backdrop of violence, it reframes homophobia and imagines the first same-se...

Aesthetically malnourished, London Tide lacks the lustrous life blood that so warmly floods through the veins of Dickens’s literary world....