UK / WEST END THEATER REVIEWS

Chris Yarnell directs an energetic cast. The plot is channelled through effortless movement and expressive music by Paul Freeman. A smooth figurative choreography establishes a creative attitude to physical theatre. Their tale isn’t obscure or cryptic in any way, but entertaining and utterly magne...

Despite the recent focus on metaverses and 3D gaming, digitally-rendered worlds – and the hype around them - have been in the public consciousness for decades. ...

A monologue that comes alive with photographs of the carnage of war but never quite settles its underlying moral ambiguity...

Tonally bombastic and unapologetically queasy...

While Hide and Seek can be further polished, Tobia Rossi has impeccable aim as a playwright. He paints a touching picture before he violently snatches away all prospects of happiness and joy in a bid to prove the horrifying nature of homophobia....

When Brexit went from theory to reality, Clare Fraenkel looked into her German heritage and found out she was entitled to a German passport. Due to the restoration of German citizenship granted by Article 116 of the Basic Law, her grandfather’s epic escape from Nazi Germany in 1933 had a domino ef...

All in all, the concept is good but unfocused. The vignettes might need stronger intention and substance, as having roles with the same name is hardly enough to tie them together at this stage....

It’s A Motherf**king Pleasure is a brilliant commentary on disabilities and the arts and fully deserves the recommendation made by Lyn Gardner, even though she hasn’t even seen the show. As one of the actors comments, “They didn’t know it was good, but they knew it was disabled.”...

The Sodomite is a fun show that will amuse audience members through song and story, especially those who grew up Catholic and feel ostracised from the religious community....

“A sad tale’s best for winter.” There may be moments of poignancy and outright tragedy in this late Shakespeare play, but Sean Holmes’ vibrant production ensures that the audience is given more than their fair share of comedy and levity throughout. ...

Lovely to look at, funny and clever, a perfect tonic for these miserable days full of bills and empty shelves...

A fish out of water tale that reflects our uneasy relationship with nature...

Owens scratches the surface of Welsh underdevelopment and economic deprivation, going as far as giving Julie a perfunctory invective against posh kids, but refraining from digging deeper into the issues. It’s disheartening to see such a big platform being under-exploited to the benefit of a silly ...

In a landscape dominated by a dearth of lesbian stories, it’s refreshing to find one that doesn’t deal with sexuality at all, but focuses on the negotiations of parenthood and the complications of personal connections....

Diana Nneka Atuona’s Liberian Girl was a hit at the Royal Court in 2015. In her second play, she shifts away from the African continent to 1940s Cardiff for her second play Trouble In Butetown....

Akedah won the 2019 Bruntwood Prize Original New Voices Award, and is Michael John O’Neill’s first full length play. It’s a tricky show in every sense of the word: the themes are very heavy, with little levity, and the plot is often hard to keep track of, as new details about the characters’...

Say what you like but little beats the thrill of live circus. Featuring motorcycles speeding around a Globe Of Death and incredible displays of acrobatics, balancing and knife-throwing plus one of the loveliest clowns in the business, Cirque Berserk returns to London for another run....

A moving exploration of loss and grief for ages 4 to 8, infused with funky beats from the seventies....

Opening the Spring season at Polka Theatre is a new musical adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk from the team behind We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Co-written by Polka's outgoing Artistic Director, Peter Glanville with music by Barb Jungr, and directed by Roman Stefanski, Jack v Giant offers a gender-...

A luminous production glistening with chutzpah and armed with a fresh new translation....

Sophie Okonedo adds flavour to a strong but otherwise vanilla production of Euripides' tragedy....

Although the script is generally articulate and well-written, there are a few passages that might need some TLC as they come off as rushed and remain unexplained. Running at just over an hour, a longer show would certainly patch up any kind of doubts we have at this point. Compositor E has the poten...

Nothing’s what it seems in Olivia Foan’s new play, but a sluggish build-up and even weaker ending don’t make The Tinker as exciting as it could be....

A fully formed, mature play about the intricacies of navigating young love and mental health....

Ultimately, Powell is asking who helps the people whose job is to help others. He correlates the ideas of protective isolation and arbitrary family connections, blame and regret, death and survival. The play is thought-provoking in all the right spots, but somehow the text has an unfinished feel to ...