Theatre

Every MP must see this play: Value Engineering – Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry reviewed

30 October 2021 9:00 am

Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry is a gripping, horrifying drama. Nicolas Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor have sifted through the public…

Somewhere in this production lies Shakespeare's tragedy: Almeida's Macbeth reviewed

23 October 2021 9:00 am

Yaël Farber’s Macbeth sets out to be a great work of art. The director crams the Almeida’s stage with suggestive…

A triumph: Young Vic's Hamlet reviewed

16 October 2021 9:00 am

Here goes. The Young Vic’s Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov, is a triumph. This is a pared-back, plain-speaking version done…

A well-meaning but dull Official History: Olivier's Normal Heart reviewed

9 October 2021 9:00 am

The Normal Heart is not about Aids. Larry Kramer’s play is set in New York in 1981 at a time…

Gripping slice of old-fashioned entertainment: Old Vic's Camp Siegfried reviewed

2 October 2021 9:00 am

Boy meets girl. Girl gets pregnant. Then the entire world collapses. That’s the story of Camp Siegfried, which is set…

Jennifer Saunders is brilliant: Blithe Spirit at the Harold Pinter Theatre reviewed

25 September 2021 9:00 am

Blithe Spirit is a comedy with the plot of a horror story. Charles, a middle-aged novelist, lives happily with his…

Sexist, classist and pro-global warming: Frozen, at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, reviewed

18 September 2021 9:00 am

Frozen the musical declares war on woke politics. The 2013 Disney movie has been turned into a song-and-dance show that…

Tsunami of piffle: Rockets and Blue Lights at the Dorfman Theatre reviewed

11 September 2021 9:00 am

Deep breath. Here goes. Winsome Pinnock’s new play about Turner opens with one of the most confusing and illogical scenes…

Is the life of Jimmy Savile a suitable subject for drama?

11 September 2021 9:00 am

Translating the story of Jimmy Savile to stage or screen is a creative minefield, says Jonathan Maitland, who knows from first-hand experience

Glib and snarky: Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella, at Gillian Lynne Theatre, reviewed

4 September 2021 9:00 am

It’s a rum beast the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Cinderella is set in Belleville, a European city of 18th-century…

At last, a dose of up-close culture in London

4 September 2021 9:00 am

In London for the first time in 18 months, I was as excited as a child on a birthday outing.…

Captures the rapturous gaiety of the original: Globe's Twelfth Night reviewed

28 August 2021 9:00 am

The new Lily Allen vehicle opens in a spruced-up terrace in the East End. Allen plays a self-satisfied yuppie, Jenny,…

How we killed comedy theatre: Nigel Planer interviewed

28 August 2021 9:00 am

Lloyd Evans talks to Nigel Planer about the death of comedy theatre — and how he’s trying to revive it

Homeric levels of misery: Paradise, at the Olivier Theatre, reviewed

21 August 2021 9:00 am

The National Theatre has given Sophocles’s Philoctetes a makeover and a new title, Paradise. This must be ironic because the…

The death of the Edinburgh Fringe

14 August 2021 9:00 am

Lloyd Evans finds the newly returned Edinburgh Fringe quieter, more low-key — and all the better for it

The dramatic evolution of ‘actor’

14 August 2021 9:00 am

‘That chap in Line of Duty. That’s what I’d call a bad actor,’ said my husband with vague certainty. He…

Sinatra, Bacon and a YouTube star: Edinburgh Fringe Festival round-up

14 August 2021 9:00 am

Sinatra: Raw (Pleasance, until 15 August) takes us inside the mind of the 20th century’s greatest crooner. The performer, Richard…

Ian McKellen is riveting: Hamlet, at Theatre Royal Windsor, reviewed

7 August 2021 9:00 am

Ian McKellen in his early eighties plays the Dane in his mid-twenties. A production with such a strange innovation should…

The history of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the theatrical history of England

7 August 2021 9:00 am

The newly renovated Theatre Royal Drury Lane has seen it all and staged it all, says Robert Gore-Langton

One for hardcore Tennessee Williams fans only: The Two Character Play reviewed

31 July 2021 9:00 am

It can be difficult to remember that Tennessee Williams, the great songster of the Deep South during the 1950s, was…

What a comic treat: The Game of Love and Chance at the Arcola reviewed

24 July 2021 9:00 am

Lady Sylvia is a gorgeous aristocrat whose hand is sought by the charming Dorante whom she has never met. To…

The best theatre podcasts

24 July 2021 9:00 am

All the world’s on stage again so where to go to for insight into what to see and why? Podcasts,…

A shrill, ugly, tasteless muddle: Romeo & Juliet reviewed

17 July 2021 9:00 am

What shall we destroy next? Romeo & Julietseems a promising target and the Globe has set out to vandalise Shakespeare’s…

Wallace Shawn's Designated Mourner feels like watching the news

17 July 2021 9:00 am

Pity the aesthete, the flâneur and the opera-goer. Those who find the contents of their own heads so dull and…

Staged: a handful of VIP events is no substitute for normality

3 July 2021 9:00 am

Uncertainty is crippling our cultural life