Theatre
Rhapsodic banalities: I, Joan, at the Globe, reviewed
‘Trans people are sacred. We are divine.’ The first line of I, Joan at the Globe establishes the tone of…
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…
