Theatre
Branagh can’t quite banish the spirit of Noel Edmonds: King Lear, at Wyndham’s Theatre, reviewed
Branagh vs Lear. The big fixture in theatreland ends in a win for Shakespeare’s knotty and intractable script which usually…
Comedy of the blackest kind: Boy Parts, at Soho Theatre, reviewed
There’s something mesmerising about watching a good mimic. And Aimée Kelly, who plays fetish photographer Irina Sturges in Soho Theatre’s…
Real women do not behave like this: Lyonesse, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Lyonesse by Penelope Skinner takes a while to get going. The central character, Elaine, is a washed-up British actress (Kristin…
If only Caryl Churchill’s plays were as thrillingly macabre as her debut
The first play by the pioneering feminist Caryl Churchill has been revived at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Owners, originally staged…
Scherzinger is superb but why’s the set so dark and ugly? Sunset Boulevard, at the Savoy Theatre, reviewed
Sunset Boulevard is a re-telling of the Oedipus story set in the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Pick a side in…
Director’s cut
The unlovely Rose Theatre in Kingston is a modest three-storey eyesore. The concrete foyer looks like an exercise area on…
Godot with gags: It’s Headed Straight Towards Us, at Park200, reviewed
It sounds like a barking-mad student sketch but the final product is marinated in wisdom and maturity. It’s Headed Straight…
Cheesy skit
The playwright Sam Holcroft likes to toy with dramatic conventions and to tease her audiences by withholding key information about…
Gone girl
Anthropology is a drama about artificial intelligence that starts as an ultra-gloomy soap opera. A suicidal lesbian, Merril, speaks on…
The weasel under the cocktail cabinet
Macbeth at the Globe wants to put us at our ease and make us feel comfortable with the play’s arcane…
Germ of an idea
Bleach and germs are the central themes of Dr Semmelweis, written by Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown. The opening scene,…
Love and other drugs
Lucy Prebble belongs to the posse of scribblers responsible for the HBO hit, Succession. Perhaps in honour of this distinction,…
Clueless
The Royal Court’s new topical satire, Word-Play, opens with a gaffe-prone Tory prime minister giving a TV interview in which…
Comic relief
The boss of the Royal Court, Vicky Featherstone, will soon step down and she’s using her final spell in charge…
Bad blood
In the 1990s, the BBC had a popular flat-share comedy, Men Behaving Badly, about a pair of giggling bachelors who…
Omission accomplished
Beneatha’s Place, set in the 1950s, follows a black couple who encounter racial prejudice when they move to a predominately…
More cuddly than cutting
Nothing demonstrates the inanity of profanity like an undercooked comedy. The famous Spitting Image puppets have returned in a political…
Penalty points
James Graham’s entertaining new play looks at the England manager’s job. Everyone knows that coaching the national side is just…
Not tuned in
When Winston Went to War with the Wireless is the clumsy and misleading title of a new play about John…
Rocky peaks
One of the earliest jukebox musicals has returned to the West End. When the show opened in 2002 the author,…
Weird and wonderful
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
The ex factor
Mrs Doubtfire is a social comedy about divorce. We meet Miranda, a talentless, bitter mother, who tires of her caring…
Brief encounters
Brokeback Mountain, a play with music, opens in a scruffy bedroom where a snowy-haired tramp finds a lumberjack’s shirt and…
