Farrago of jabber
The Doctor is an acclaimed drama from the pen of writer-director Robert Icke. We’re in a hospital run by a…
After the fall
Clunk, clunk, clunk. John Gabriel Borkman opens with the obsessive footfalls of a disgraced banker as he prowls the attic…
Is Liz Truss a real grown-up?
Tough call today for Liz Truss. She had to relaunch her premiership at her very first conference as leader. She…
Worthy of Wilde
Eureka Day is a topical satire set in a woke school in America. An outbreak of mumps has led to…
The sound of silence
Look at this line. ‘I’m 80 years old. I find that unforgivable.’ Could an actor get a laugh on ‘unforgivable’?…
Redemption songs
Rehab: The Musical opens with a boyband star, Kid Pop, getting busted for possession of cocaine. The judge sentences him…
For the state funeral mourners, the endurance is part of the ritual
The queue snakes for miles along the South Bank. Thousands of ordinary people are giving up hours of their time…
Why is the BBC using Paddington to remember Her Majesty?
Here comes Paddington – again. Earlier this year, to celebrate her platinum jubilee, the Queen agreed to be filmed taking…
Rhapsodic banalities
‘Trans people are sacred. We are divine.’ The first line of I, Joan at the Globe establishes the tone of…
Cell division
The Angel of Prisons dramatises the life of the penal reformer Elizabeth Fry, who lived near Canning Town. She married…
The script is the star
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run…
Doctor doctor
In a new hour-long monologue, Burn, Alan Cumming examines the life and work of Robert Burns. The biographical material is…
Send in the clowns
Ian McKellen’s Hamlet is the highlight of Edinburgh’s opening week. In this experimental ballet, Sir Ian speaks roughly 5 per…
Hitting the high seas
The Barbican’s big summer show is billed on the website as ‘the sold-out musical sensation, Anything Goes’. The term ‘sold-out’…
All that jazz
Simon Godwin’s Much Ado About Nothing is set in a steamy Italian holiday resort, the Hotel Messina, in the 1920s.…
Divine comedy
Patriots, by Peter Morgan, is a drama documentary about recent Russian history. And though it’s a topical show it’s not…
The unedifying spectacle of Boris’s last PMQs
Today Boris gave his last performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. But was it his last? He left the House hanging…
The real winner from last night’s debate
Last night Channel 4 held a 90-minute live event starring Rishi, Liz, Tom, Penny and Kemi. Not a manufactured pop-band…
Chekhov in a straitjacket
The Southbury Child is a comedy drama set in east Devon featuring a distressed vicar, Fr David, with a complex…
Boris is finally free
A curious atmosphere in the Commons today. Relaxed. Jovial. Almost like a party. There was a bit of aggro at…
Bleak, vapid and banal: why are the Tory leadership videos so awful?
The Tory candidates have released a set of videos presenting their claim to become Britain’s next prime minister. Frontrunner Rishi…
Location, location, location
Roy Williams’s new play is a wonky beast. It has two dense and cumbersome storylines that aren’t properly developed. Dawn…
Boris skewered – for one last time?
A brutal encounter at the Liaison Committee this afternoon. Boris was grilled for two hours by a gang of aggressive…
PMQs was a blue-on-blue bloodbath
Knife crime beset PMQs. It was a horrific blue-on-blue bloodbath as Tory backstabbers queued up to play the role of Brutus…
How to get it all wrong
The Glass Menagerie directed by Jeremy Herrin is a bit of an eyeball-scrambler. The action takes place on a huge…
