Our UK / West End Critics
View All »
Aliya Al-Hassan
Critic
Amber-Rae Stobbs
Critic
Caroline Cronin
Critic
Cheryl Markosky
Critic
Cindy Marcolina
Critic
Debbie Gilpin
Critic
Franco Milazzo
Critic
Gary Naylor
Critic
Guest Author
Critic
Kat Mokrynski
Critic
Matthew Paluch
Critic
Mica Blackwell
Critic
Michael Higgs
Critic
Vikki Jane Vile
Critic
Review: MAN AND BOY, National Theatre
If anyone still thought Terence Rattigan a staid drawing room playwright, his 1963 play Man and Boy ought to put an end to that. Anthony Lau’s version doesn’t always elevate the source material to its full potential, but it presents a case for giving the text another look....
Review: DEAR LIAR, Jermyn Street Theatre
Showbusiness is rife with affairs; it’s the reason tabloids exist. While these days paramours trade in texts and DMs, epistolary correspondence used to be the currency of illicit romances. It was the case for one George Bernard Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell (née Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner)....
Review: THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY, Theatre Royal Haymarket
First seen in Chichester last summer, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry now makes its joyful arrival into London. Based on the 2012 novel by Rachel Joyce which became a 2023 film, the show is a musical that cleverly acts as a snapshot of modern Britain and a study into the complexities and darkn...
Review: MILES, Southwark Playhouse
The opening tableau of Miles sticks in the mind: a man writhes atop a piano, as though something long-dormant within him is being woken up. Similar sequence recur throughout the show, conveying a man both at one with his music and at war with it....
Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, London Coliseum
Phelim McDermott directing Così fan tutte is a bit like asking a Catholic priest to do Mass in full drag. You know something deliciously outrageous is going to happen. You also know, whether people will like it or not, that it might be exactly what this masterpiece out of step with modern attitudes...
Review: MAGGOTS, Bush Theatre
If you input “what does death smell like?” into Google, you’ll get a variety of results saying that it depends on the conditions of the body. That’s what Linda searches after she hasn’t seen her neighbour in some time. Life at Laurel House will never be the same; loneliness kills in Farah ...
Review: THE VIRGINS, Soho Theatre
Featuring two of the most awkward sex scenes you'll ever see, this acerbic comedy is a merciless meditation on teenage fumblings....
Review: DANCE OF DEATH, Orange Tree Theatre
Hatred, desolation and disappointment run deep through August Strindberg's Dance of Death. Marriage is a prison from which the only escape is death. With Valentine's Day rapidly approaching, director Richard Eyre's adaptation may remind you that your other half isn't quite so bad after all....
Review: CLASSICAL MIXTAPE: A LIVE TAKEOVER, Southbank Centre
Classical Mixtape: A Live Takeover is part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary programme. Aimed at the under-30s audience, who are underrepresented at the venue, the event offered a casual, relaxed and social approach to classical music. However, a brilliant concept sadly fell short in organ...
Review: MONSTERING THE ROCKETMAN, Arcola Theatre
Despite its title, Elton John is far from the central focus of Henry Naylor’s blisteringly paced one-man show, Monstering the Rocketman. Instead, the target of Naylor’s pen is British journalism, and specifically the thriving 1980s tabloid press....
Review: DEBATE: BALDWIN VS BUCKLEY, Wilton's Music Hall
Confronting issues that echoes down the decades, american vicarious resurrects the 1965 Cambridge Union debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr at Wilton’s Music Hall....
Review: THAT'LL BE THE DAY, London Palladium
If it's not quite as slick as it might be, this oldies show can still push a lot of the right nostalgia buttons...
Review: ALL IS BUT FANTASY starring Whitney White, RSC, The Other Place
Whitney White collapses time and space to insert new perspectives into old plays...
Review: THE GAMBLER, The Coronet Theatre
Japanese company Chiten Theatre returns to the Coronet with an energetic adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel The Gambler. Directed by Motoi Miura with a translation by Ikuo Kameyama, it’s accompanied by experimental rock trio kukangendai. It’s an entertaining, fascinating production, presented in...
Review Roundup: Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA at The Old Vic
Arcadia is set in April 1809 in a stately home in Derbyshire. Thomasina, a gifted pupil, proposes a startling theory, beyond her comprehension. All around her, the adults, including her tutor Septimus, are preoccupied with secret desires, illicit passions and professional rivalries. Two hundred year...
Review: THE OPHIOLITE, Theatro Technis
When Penelope’s father passes away in England, the family divides: where should he be buried? His Greek Cypriot sister thinks ancient tradition should take over, but his wife refuses to move his body abroad. An ugly feud erupts. The plot of The Ophiolite has a lot of potential. Philip de Voni’s ...
Review: ARCADIA, The Old Vic
Of all Tom Stoppard's work, Arcadia has always stood out. Touching on sex, Fermat's last theorum, the second law of thermodynamics, landscape gardening with a detective story thrown in, it is a mixture of subjects that few playwrights could attempt to combine. Does it matter if you don't understand ...
Review: LOVE LIFE: WEST END UNITES AGAINST CANCER, Theatre Royal Drury Lane
On 1 February, some of the West End's most esteemed stars gathered for Love Life: West End Unites Against Cancer - a concert performance raising money for One for the Boys. The charity aims to raise awareness surrounding male cancers, encouraging men to speak up when they notice a change in their bo...
Review: LOST ATOMS, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre
There’s nothing like a great love story. Jess and Robbie met and instantly fell head over heels for each other – well, almost. Then, it was bliss until it wasn’t. Stuck in a liminal space, they disclose their own versions of the facts. Frantic Assembly take on romance and loss in their new pro...
Review: THE RAT TRAP, Park Theatre
“Domestic matters are more your domain than mine,” a husband says to his wife in the middle of her working day, echoing a thousand gaslighting, supposedly liberal men who’ve come before and since. There are audible gasps from the audience....
Review: THE TEMPEST, Shakespeare’s Globe
The Tempest is perhaps the most metatheatrical of Shakespeare's plays: the plot takes place in real time, and Prospero asks the audience to “free” him with their applause. So who better to direct than the king of theatrical deconstruction himself, Tim Crouch?...
Review: BORIS GUDUNOV, Royal Ballet And Opera
If Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov were a dinner party, Richard Jones’s Russian-language revival at the Royal Opera House would be the dinner date where you arrive bright and curious and leave questioning your life choices, nursing a neat whisky in a corner. This is not an opera that gives up its sec...
Review: AMERICAN PSYCHO, Almeida Theatre
Make no mistake, the writing is dated and it’s far from being a masterpiece, but the production does something that’s so specifically disturbing that it’s difficult to ignore. Bateman’s raison d’être is unnerving to begin with. Once you combine this archetypal psychopath with a jaunty syn...
Review: BALLAD LINES, Southwark Playhouse Elephant
A journey through time and memory, Ballad Lines must be one of the most exciting new musicals to hit the stage in some time. We follow Sarah, an American queer woman, as she dives headfirst into her family’s roots. Through the centuries, the same melodies come back to link the women who came befor...
Review: BIGRE / “FISH BOWL” COMPAGNIE LE FILS DU GRAND RÉSEAU, Peacock Theatre
BIGRE/'Fish Bowl' is a glorious, inventive display of comedy clowning with the ability to engage and surprise. The timing is impeccable and the reactions sublime. It's quite silly, but it also has an emotional heart running through it as these three characters find a way to coexist in the same space...
Videos
TICKET CENTRAL
Tickets From $101
Tickets From $59
Tickets From $59
Tickets From $139
Get UK's #1 Theatre Newsletter
Get the best news & discounts for UK Shows & beyond.
