THE COURTYARD

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Two technically brilliant performances illuminate a play interesting in form and content , but can't quite rescue its outdated approach to its key issues...

by Gary Naylor - April 24, 2026

The Beatles' first manager flies too close to John Lennon's sun and falls to earth...

by Cindy Marcolina - April 26, 2026

A corrupt lot steeped in scandal puppeteers the economy. Unreasonable taxes are plaguing the people. Violence is rampant. All the while, a megalomaniac is gaining more traction by the day. Did we turn on the news, or are we watching Bertolt Brecht’s merciless satire? Seán Linnen transforms the al...

by Clementine Scott - April 21, 2026

Virginia Woolf isn’t the easiest author to adapt for the stage, and her lesser-known 1931 experimental novel The Waves presents a particularly interesting dramaturgical challenge. Six friends meet at school, and undergo the typical trials of a bildungsroman, all within an ambitious stream of multi...

by Aliya Al-Hassan - April 21, 2026

First seen at last year's Edinburgh fringe, Jules Coyle's semi-verbatim play, Managed Approach, now comes to Riverside Studios for a short, but important run. Between 2014 and 2020, a local government initiative in Holbeck, Leeds allowed sex workers to operate under certain regulations and was know...