Theatre
Our prison culture is more barbaric than it was in 1823: Elizabeth Fry ‘The Angel of Prisons’ reviewed
The Angel of Prisons dramatises the life of the penal reformer Elizabeth Fry, who lived near Canning Town. She married…
The show works a treat: Globe's The Tempest reviewed
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run…
The Dane gets an interpretive dance makeover: Ian McKellan's Hamlet reviewed
Ian McKellen’s Hamlet is the highlight of Edinburgh’s opening week. In this experimental ballet, Sir Ian speaks roughly 5 per…
I can't recommend this Cole Porter musical highly enough: Anything Goes, at the Barbican, reviewed
The Barbican’s big summer show is billed on the website as ‘the sold-out musical sensation, Anything Goes’. The term ‘sold-out’…
Stupendously good: Much Ado About Nothing, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed
Simon Godwin’s Much Ado About Nothing is set in a steamy Italian holiday resort, the Hotel Messina, in the 1920s.…
An entertaining display, clearly destined for Netflix: Patriots, at Almeida Theatre, reviewed
Patriots, by Peter Morgan, is a drama documentary about recent Russian history. And though it’s a topical show it’s not…
Hytner hits the bull's eye: The Southbury Child, at the Bridge Theatre, reviewed
The Southbury Child is a comedy drama set in east Devon featuring a distressed vicar, Fr David, with a complex…
Right play, wrong place: The Fellowship, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
Roy Williams’s new play is a wonky beast. It has two dense and cumbersome storylines that aren’t properly developed. Dawn…
If you see this show you’ll want to see it again – directed properly: The Glass Menagerie, at the Duke of York's Theatre, reviewed
The Glass Menagerie directed by Jeremy Herrin is a bit of an eyeball-scrambler. The action takes place on a huge…
Bloated waffle: Jitney at the Old Vic reviewed
The Old Vic’s new show, Jitney, has a mystifying YouTube advert which gives no information about the play or the…
Joyously liberating: Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] reviewed
Harry Hill’s latest musical traces Tony Blair’s bizarre career from student pacifist to war-mongering plaything of the United States. With…
Gandhi’s killer is more loveable than his victim: The Father and the Assassin reviewed
Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on…
Newcomers will need to read the play in advance: Julius Caesar, at the Globe, reviewed
Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed…
Hard to believe this rambling apprentice-piece ever made it to the stage: Almeida's The House of Shades reviewed
The House of Shades is a state-of-the nation play that covers the past six decades of grinding poverty in Nottingham.…
The playwright seems curiously detached about rape: The Breach, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
Hampstead’s latest play is a knotty rape drama by Naomi Wallace set in Kentucky. Four teenagers with weird names meet…
Two hours of bickering from a couple of doughnut-shaped crybabies: Middle, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed
‘I fink I doan luv yew any maw.’ A marital bust-up drama at the National Theatre opens with a whining…
Angry diatribes and amusing pranks: Donmar Warehouse's Marys Seacole reviewed
The title of the Donmar’s new effort, Marys Seacole, appears to be a misprint and that makes the reader look…
Muddled, tricksy and cheap: The Corn is Green at the Lyttelton Theatre reviewed
The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams is a sociology essay written in 1938 about a prickly tyrant, Miss Moffat,…
This Trump satire is too soft on Sleepy Joe and Cackling Kamala: The 47th at the Old Vic reviewed
Trump is said to be a gift for bad satirists and a problem for good ones. He dominates Mike Bartlett’s…
Could the Arts Council pay Americans to keep this stuff in America? Daddy and The Fever Syndrome reviewed
The Fever Syndrome is a dramatised lecture set in a New York brownstone occupied by the super-brainy Myers family. The…
Shakespearean directors could learn from this: the National Theatre’s Hamlet for 8- 12-year-olds reviewed
The NT has rejigged Hamlet for 8- to 12-year-old children. It’s a decent attempt to cover the highlights at a…
A play for bureaucrats: David Hare's Straight Line Crazy reviewed
It’s good of Nicholas Hytner to let Londoners see David Hare’s new play before it travels to Broadway where it…
It’s years since I saw anything as nasty as this: Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre reviewed
Cock was written by Mike Bartlett in 2009 while he was in Mexico at a drama conference. The title suggests…
A must-see for Westminster obsessives: Riverside Studios' Bloody Difficult Women reviewed
Bloody Difficult Women is a documentary drama by the popular journalist Tim Walker, which looks at the similarities between Gina…
Stands alongside Under Milk Wood: Shedding a Skin, at Soho Theatre, reviewed
Shedding a Skin opens with an office nightmare. Amanda is a mixed-race employee in a predominantly white firm who gets…
