LIGHTHOUSE, POOLE

by Clementine Scott - April 30, 2026

A few scenes into Emily Lim’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Globe stage undergoes a transformation. Austere statuary gets wheeled away, the columns are swathed in plastic flowers, and Michael Grady-Hall as Puck blows bubbles to make more flowers emerge from the floorboards. The effec...

by Sarah OHara - April 30, 2026

Written by Aron Julius and directed by Mark Womack, Conteh is a powerful and emotive drama about the life of one of Liverpool’s sporting icons. Julius stars as boxer John Conteh, who at 24 years old became the light heavyweight champion of the world. Julius’ script tells Conteh’s story, both i...

by Franco Milazzo - April 30, 2026

A band of bohemians pitching up in Kensington would normally have the locals reaching for a bottle of smelling salts. Happily, the only thing being upended here is expectation, as Lost Estate’s Chat Noir slips its latest slice of elegant decadence discreetly into this West London enclave....

by Cheryl Markosky - April 30, 2026

At the end of Mass, currently celebrating its world stage premiere at London's Donmar Warehouse, my visibly moved son says, 'That's the best play I'll see this year.' And he's absolutely right. Director Carrie Cracknell's incredible interpretation of American actor-turned-writer Fran Kranz's stage s...

by Cheryl Markosky - April 29, 2026

Heartsink, a bittersweet medical comedy by Unequal Productions that's premiering at Riverside Studios, is a little gem. In only 85 minutes (no interval) writer Farine Clarke, a former GP, deftly deals with weighty issues such as an overstretched NHS, technology versus humanity, racism, assisted dyi...

by Clementine Scott - April 27, 2026

For a play ostensibly about wildlife photography, we don’t actually see too many photographs in Firewing. Instead, this is a story about truth: our relationship to it, how we represent it, and what it can cost us....

by Clementine Scott - April 27, 2026

Much like All My Sons, the virtuosic Arthur Miller tragedy revived in the West End earlier this year, Miller’s lesser-known 1967 play The Price holds a mirror up to the American Dream and finds people varying degrees of broken by their desire to succeed. “I want money,” declares a character e...

by Gary Naylor - April 26, 2026

Zeb Soanes captures the voice perfectly to give us the life and times of a huge figure in 20th century acting on stage and screen...

by Vikki Jane Vile - April 25, 2026

Carlos Acosta’s favourite ballet full of Spanish sun and slapstick humour is a very silly story. But with an audience who’ve braved tube strike misery Don Quixote (Don Q) is just the ticket for a bit of carefree escapism, transporting us to an exotic and colourful land and danced with great reli...

by Gary Naylor - April 27, 2026

Two technically brilliant performances illuminate a play interesting in form and content , but can't quite rescue its outdated approach to its key issues...