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Aliya Al-Hassan
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Review: BIRD GROVE, Hampstead Theatre
George Eliot’s Middlemarch was, and is, radical for its acknowledgement of how society places limits on even the most ambitious and idealistic of its inhabitants. In his new play, Alexi Kaye Campbell explores how that notion of compromise may have affected Eliot herself, both to her own benefit an...
Review: TO MAURY WITH LOVE, Theatre Royal Drury Lane
To Maury With Love at Theatre Royal Drury Lane celebrated composer Maury Yeston’s 80th birthday with songs from Titanic, Nine, and Grand Hotel. Featuring the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, the charity concert supported Bowel Cancer UK, delivering strong performances despite limited context and ...
Review: LA BOHÈME, in Cinemas
What did our critic think of LA BOHEME IN CINEMAS at Cinemas Across The UK?...
Review: WHAT I’D BE, Jack Studio
The premise of What I’d Be is disarmingly simple: two estranged sisters sit on a bench in a small town, and talk. In one unflinchingly cathartic hour of theatre, they’ve ricocheted from outright resentment to reconciliation....
Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, Leeds Playhouse
Innovative take on familiar comedy proves hit and miss as lovers and fairies fight...
Review: THE STORY OF PEER GYNT: AN EVENING WITH KÅRE CONRADI, The Coronet Theatre
f we’re speaking technically, a dramatised lecture is an educational performance that joins drama and academia in order to make the topic more entertaining to the public. In this case, Conradi offers an engaging one-man show that makes the bulky five acts of Peer Gynt accessible and smooth. He lig...
Review: SAUL at LONDON HANDEL FESTIVAL, Sinfonia Smith Square
Opening the London Handel Fetsival, this flawless presentation of Saul was a celebration of Handel that set the tone of the performances to follow. The acoustics in the hall were exceptional, with clear enunciation throughout and a sense of occasion....
Review: THE BATTLE, Birmingham Rep
Before Taylor Swift versus Charli XCX - but after The Beatles versus The Rolling Stones - came Blur versus Oasis. David Niven's debut comedy at Birmingham Rep takes us back to the summer of 1995, when temperatures and egos both soared and the nation was gripped by the chart battle between Oasis’ �...
Review: SPANISH ORANGES starring Maryam d'Abo, Playground Theatre
#MeToo and cancel culture needs a new angle sadly lacking in humdrum new play...
Review: DEEP AZURE, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
While most people knew Chadwick Boseman for his blockbuster appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as T’Challa/Black Panther, the actor was also a playwright and director. His early career was spent treading the boards in New York, where he became a Drama League Directing Fellow at 24 years ...
Review: DRACULA, Starring Cynthia Erivo, Noël Coward Theatre
Multi-award-winning Cynthia Erivo is having a pretty good year: still riding high on the success of the Wicked films and nominated for an MBE in the 2026 New Year Honours list, she is now going back to her stage roots in Kip Williams's adaptation of Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece, Dracula. Antici...
Review: THE SINGING MERMAID, artsdepot
Set beneath a vibrant circus tent filled with sparkling multicoloured lights and fluttering flags, the production opens with a jovial instrumental atmosphere that immediately invites children into the world of the show....
Review: 1.17AM, OR UNTIL THE WORDS RUN OUT, Finborough Theatre
Two best friends, the ghost of Katie’s brother, a secret. When Roni shows up at Charlie’s old flat, she finds Katie rummaging through his things while a party is in full swing upstairs. When Charlie died months prior, Katie disappeared from Roni’s life, leaving her without a place to stay and ...
Review: GISELLE, Royal Ballet And Opera
Giselle is a difficult ballet to get right. The balance between the “reality” of Act 1 and the Gothic otherworldlyness of Act 2 can be extremely hard to find, and the responsibility falls on all those involved.
...
Review: THE SHITHEADS, Royal Court Theatre
The Shitheads is the perfect example of the importance of the Royal Court to London’s present day new theatre scene. The debut play from poet Jack Nicholls, this is a show that swings big... and the result is unlike anything else currently playing in the city....
Review: JOSH SHARP: TA-DA!, Soho Theatre
Josh Sharp’s ta-da! is a million miles a minute ride through everything from queerness to quantum theory, told through 2000 powerpoint slides. And despite being exactly as mental as it sounds, it really works....
Review: AFTER MISS JULIE, Park Theatre
War is over. The Labour Party has won a historic majority and will form a government anchored by socialist principles (fancy that), the NHS about to be born - and financed. The world was turning upside down and, so too, was the humble kitchen of the not so humble manor house of a peer who took the n...
Review: SWEETMEATS, Bush Theatre
Delicious comic timing carries the humour with an effervescent pace, while the cultural aspect of the script adds a bittersweet layer to it. It’s genuinely funny, with a quick sting in the tail. Natasha Kathi-Chandra’s direction is unhurried, leaning into Khan’s deliberate restraint in buildin...
Review: I'M SORRY PRIME MINISTER starring Griff Rhys Jones, Apollo Theatre
The two old favourites are no longer in Whitehall, but need each other just as much...
Review: SHADOWLANDS, Starring Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Siff
In his book, A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis wrote, 'The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal'. It's that deal that William Nicholson's poignant play explores in the true story of Lewis's late-in-life love, marriage and loss. Thoughtful, tender and touching, Shadowlands examin...
Review: CHICOS MAMBO: TUTU, Sadler's Wells East
Philippe Lafeuille’s TUTU arrives at the Peacock with the air of a sugar rush and the spine of a manifesto. Beneath the sequins, beneath the tulle, beneath the knowing smirk, there is something else at work: lineage....
Review: THE BOY AT THE BACK OF THE CLASS, Rose Theatre
Today we are wearily familiar with the terms 'Stop the Boats' and the narrative that all refugees are coming to Britain to take 'our' jobs, scam us for benefits and prey upon young girls. Nick Ahad's adaptation of Onjali Q. Raúf's beautiful book, The Boy at the Back of the Class, takes much of th...
Review Roundup: THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY, Starring Mark Addy & Jenna Russell
Harold Fry was never meant to be a hero. An ordinary man in an ordinary life until a letter from a long-lost friend sends him out the front door… and he keeps on walking. From Devon’s quiet lanes to the windswept streets of Berwick-upon-Tweed, his journey becomes a pilgrimage of love, redemption...
Review: HERE THERE ARE BLUEBERRIES, Stratford East
Sometimes a play is far more valuable than what the four walls of a theatre can hold. 2007: history will never be the same after the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gets a hold of a photo album from 1940s Germany. As the archivists leaf through the pages, the day-to-day routine of Nazi officers stati...
Review: PIERROT LUNAIRE, Royal Ballet And Opera - Linbury Theatre
Marcelino Sambé currently stars in the revival of Glen Tetley’s Pierrot Lunaire at the Royal Ballet and Opera's Linbury Theatre and is supported by a very strong cast of Mayara Magri and Matthew Ball. And an even stronger presence in the soprano Alexandra Lowe.
...
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