BARBICAN

by Alexander Cohen - May 09, 2026

Peter Grimes hinges on balancing the duality between its chorus and Grimes as an individual. In one corner the spectacle of the mob, bustling and boiling with rage in their witch hunt for Grimes, and in the other corner is lonely fisherman Grimes himself, whose mental breakdown demands gutturally in...

by Aliya Al-Hassan - May 09, 2026

Titas Halder's new play Foal is named after some of the night terrors that visit his protagonist as he sinks into a mental black hole. A study of personal relationships and a fight to find compassion in an often hostile world, we follow A.K., a man recalling and reliving sections of his life as his...

by Cindy Marcolina - May 09, 2026

An awkward school reunion between childhood friends turns into a seething, horrid thriller in Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play The Wasp. The long-term effects of bullying and the despair of the economic gap gather to deliver an ever-turning, slow-burning, stomach-churning piece of theatre. Director Jam...

by Clementine Scott - May 07, 2026

The Anti “Yogi” (heavy on the quotation marks) is one of those shows where the tagline tells you everything you need to know: “liberation, not Lululemon”. This is less a play than a call to arms, reminding the audience emphatically that the yoga classes they attend are not just another fitne...

by Matthew Paluch - May 08, 2026

A Good Man is Hard to Find could be the title of a very inoffensive romcom, but in fact it's the latest work from the avant-garde duo BULLYACHE.Coined as a “brutal breakdown of power and the elite” the work is a journey in itself…from crawling slug men to snuff movie style sacrifice. With so m...

by Clementine Scott - May 06, 2026

Shakespeare veteran Dame Harriet Walter talks about the Bard in a reverent tone, but she doesn’t let him off the hook. After all, the Succession and Killing Eve star has built her latest book – She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said – around the idea that despite being a great ...

by Cindy Marcolina - May 07, 2026

Caryl Churchill meets ‘il dolce far niente’ in this reimagined production of her 2016 play Escaped Alone. Italian companies lacasadargilla and Piccolo Teatro present a timid adaptation written by Monica Capuani and directed by Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli and Alessandro Ferroni. It’s a pity that the q...

by Matthew Paluch - May 06, 2026

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, otherwise known as the Trocks, are back at Sadler’s Wells as part of their National tour of a mixed bill until 6 May. Post-show I think I might be losing my sense of humour…but thankfully most of the Sadler’s Wells audience seemed happy!...

by Franco Milazzo - May 05, 2026

With yet another highly-anticipated series of The Celebrity Traitors on the horizon, entire streaming channels dedicated to murder mysteries and absolutely no shortage of true crime podcasts (and TV shows about true crime podcasts), it appears we live in a nation completely insatiable when it comes ...

by Cindy Marcolina - May 04, 2026

It takes just under ten hours to appreciate J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpiece if you watch Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy one film after the other. For many fans, it’s a yearly occurrence to gather with friends to re-watch Frodo and his band of brothers fighting evil to save the Shire. This year yo...