Theatre
Threadbare brain-teaser
The Forest is the latest thriller from the French dramatist Florian Zeller, translated by Oscar winner Christopher Hampton. It’s a…
Clown prince
Never Not Once has a cold and forbidding title but it starts as an amusing tale set in an LA…
Double trouble
A Number, by Caryl Churchill, is a sci-fi drama of impenetrable complexity. It’s set in a future society where cloning…
Low Life
Harley Granville-Barker, actor, director, playwright, manager and critic, was a pasha of the Edwardian London stage. As a director, his…
Fraudulent tripe
It’s getting silly now. London’s subsidised theatres aren’t just competing to put on the worst play of the year but…
Boom and bust
Moulin Rouge wins no marks for its storyline. A struggling Parisian theatre is bought out by an evil financier who…
Watching the detective
Producers are getting jittery again. Large-scale shows look risky when a single infection can postpone an entire show. Hence Poirot…
Love letter to a titan
Hampstead Theatre has revived a play about Peggy Ramsay, the legendary West End agent who shaped the careers of Joe…
Grand Dame
Jack and the Beanstalk is a big, sprawling family show that opens with a baffling gesture. A booming voiceover announces…
Tiger feat
Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi is a complicated organism. The action starts in southern India where we meet a…
The National is the graveyard of talent
Somewhere in the wilds of England a stately home is collapsing. Rising floodwaters threaten the foundations. Storms break over the…
Guilt-free hilarity
World-class sex bomb Janie Dee stars in a fabulously silly revival of the American comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha…
Feat of endurance
Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto — part instructional guide for artists, part call to arms for equality, part literary memoir —shimmers with…
Screwball Austen
Let’s be honest. Jane Austen is popular because War and Peace doesn’t fit inside a handbag. Austen’s best-loved novel, Pride…
A call to arms
’night, Mother is a two-hander that opens like a comedy sketch. ‘I’m going to kill myself, Mama,’ says Jessie. She’s…
How to stop another Grenfell
Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry is a gripping, horrifying drama. Nicolas Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor have sifted through the public…
Too much bawl and shriek
Yaël Farber’s Macbeth sets out to be a great work of art. The director crams the Almeida’s stage with suggestive…
Simply Shakespeare
Here goes. The Young Vic’s Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov, is a triumph. This is a pared-back, plain-speaking version done…
Remaking history
The Normal Heart is not about Aids. Larry Kramer’s play is set in New York in 1981 at a time…
A script to raise whirlwinds
Boy meets girl. Girl gets pregnant. Then the entire world collapses. That’s the story of Camp Siegfried, which is set…
Phantom thread
Blithe Spirit is a comedy with the plot of a horror story. Charles, a middle-aged novelist, lives happily with his…
Cold spell
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
Deep breath. Here goes. Winsome Pinnock’s new play about Turner opens with one of the most confusing and illogical scenes…
Darkness visible
Translating the story of Jimmy Savile to stage or screen is a creative minefield, says Jonathan Maitland, who knows from first-hand experience
Rottweilers in frocks
It’s a rum beast the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Cinderella is set in Belleville, a European city of 18th-century…
