UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Hal Cruttenden is at truly at the top of his game, in his skilled and polished new show Hal Cruttenden: Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It. The comedy is focused on schadenfreude, in terms of rawness and pain, by being brutally honest about the effects of heartbreak. ...

Ballet lovers will all have their own relationship with Sir Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker....

Falling snow, a rapidly-growing Christmas tree and an army of sword-fighting rats: it can only be Sir Peter Wright's The Nutcracker. Birmingham Royal Ballet's opulent, charming and whimsical production returns to Birmingham Hippodrome - where Wright's version received its premier in 1990 - and bring...

If you’ve ever worked a remote job, and been strapped for cash, you’ll recognise the temptation to take on additional casual work on the side. Isley Lynn and Libby Rodliffe take this concept to its extreme in their one-woman show, Jobsworth....

Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas, written by Humphrey Ker and David Reed with original songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Price, has the iconic duo of Sherlock Holmes (Ker) and John Watson (Reed) solving a string of mysterious murders on the West End in Victorian England....

Santa has lost his Christmas spirit, and it’s up to you to save it! That’s the main theme of Humbug - a three-hour long experience inside of The Vaults, which has been transformed into a holiday-themed wonderland. But that’s not the only thing audience members have to save - After a long wait ...

When a night is all about the music, and the music isn't for you, things aren't going to go smoothly. A case in point is Marking Time at Sadler’s Wells. The triple bill uses and celebrates the work of composer Nico Muhly, and features choreography by Jules Cunningham, Maud Le Pladec and Michael K...

If you only see one circus show this year, you should try and get out more but Sophie's Surprise Party at Underbelly Boulevard is an excellent choice for people who don't mind having their jaws occasionally scrape the ground....

With End, David Eldridge completes his triptych of modern relationships. Beginning saw  Bleary-eyed flirtation in the early hours, to the introspection of mid-life melancholy in Middle. Now the final chapter. In that sense, End feels destined to sag with sentimentality, and despite admirable moment...

Here are all the hallmarks of any good Shakespearean comedy: love polygons, gender trouble and a shipwreck to get things going. However, in Handel’s Partenope there is one crucial difference: everyone here is self-aware....

London City Ballet have been winning fans across the country since their reforming under the direction of Christopher Marney in 2023, and in their current eclectic programme, Rebirth, it’s easy to see why....

This is Ivo van Hove’s triumphant return to the West End. He reunites with Bryan Cranston (whom he worked with on Network at the National theatre in 2017) for Arthur Miller’s All My Sons – famously, the playwright’s last attempt at writing a commercial success. Van Hove assembles a tremendou...

Ardent Theatre Company focuses on Britain's forgotten twentysomethings - and not just for the plot...

Six teenagers are killed in a freak rollercoaster accident and find themselves in a competition in which they must sing a song to prove that they are the person that should be brought back to life by a mysterious fortune-telling machine. Quite the wild tale, no? But that’s only the beginning of Ri...

What do we do when the world is falling apart around us? We sing. Cloying though that sentiment may be, in the hands of the team of five devisers behind Precipice, it’s anything but....

The stories about the latest entry in the Royal Albert Hall’s Film In Concert series are insane. There was the intense secrecy over that moment, Daniel Craig’s secret cameo, Mark Hamill’s perma-beard and then the issues with Harrison Ford’s long hair and broken foot. With a sky-high budget n...

A poetic response to a remarkable work of anti-theatre....

A touch of Grand Guignol and a soupçon of French farce can't land a show whose style swamps its substance...

The Royal Ballet season continues with Perspectives: Balanchine, Marston, Peck. A triple bill that will supposedly “ignite the imagination” - stir, perhaps; ignite, not quite. ...

You’d be hard pressed to find a more striking opening outfit in a play than #FATKARY: The Corrido of a Tragic Ex-Fat Woman. Performer and writer Caridad Gómez dons a fat suit exaggerated to comical absurdity, her face mostly covered in the manner of a lucha libre fighter and her body obscured by ...

Ani has a problem. Well, two problems, but they are on very friendly terms: she’s addicted to hardcore porn and her boyfriend Liam has had enough of seeing it when they're in bed. She doesn’t care so she cums, he goes, and - even before the door slams - she’s back on her phone scrolling throug...

Lou Wall: Breaking the Fifth Wall is one of those shows that is difficult to describe (and review!) without giving away the performer’s secrets. The show, directed by fellow comedian Zoë Coombs Marr, is essentially a follow-up to a bit of Wall’s that went viral, in which they sing about how the...

Sharon Eyal and her S-E-D Dance Company return to Sadler's Wells with a UK premiere of INTO THE HAIRY, but if honest, I've definitely seen the material before. The programme info is clear; “parts of the creation were originally created in the frame of THIS IS NOT A LOVE SHOW (January 2022)”, the...

Based on the original Hunger Games story, this gripping tale of courage, defiance and unbreakable human spirit, follows the fearless heroine Katniss Everdeen on her journey of self-discovery, as she emerges as a beacon of rebellion and hope. Multi award-winning playwright Conor McPherson (Girl from ...

They may be strangers on a train but, in Tom George Hammond’s two-and-a-bit-hander, Shirley and Kieran are not here to swap murders but to discover what real happiness looks like....