Trafalgar studios

RSC’s Merchant of Venice is full of puzzling ornaments and accents

25 July 2020 9:00 am

The BBC announces Merchant of Venice as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster. ‘In the melting pot of Venice, trade…

A mesmerising piece of theatre: On Blueberry Hill reviewed

21 March 2020 9:00 am

On Blueberry Hill sounds like a musical but it’s a sombre prison drama set in Ireland. Two bunkbeds. Above, an…

‘Irish writers don’t talk to each other unless they’re shouting abuse’: Sebastian Barry interviewed

14 March 2020 9:00 am

Sebastian Barry talks to Robert Jackman about family folklore, the joy of writing playsand why he is not an ‘Irish’ novelist

Circus routine rather than theatre: Noises Off reviewed

12 October 2019 9:00 am

Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy, Noises Off, is the theatre’s answer to Trooping the Colour. Everyone agrees that it’s an amazing…

Ira Mandela Siobhan as the horse Nugget, and Ethan Kai as Alan

The play’s dated badly – but the horse is exquisite: Equus at Trafalgar Studios reviewed

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Equus is a psychological thriller from 1973 which opens with a revolting discovery. An unbalanced stable-lad, Alan, spends his evenings…

Arinzé Kene is a performer of great charm and charisma led astray by bad advice and public money

Blacktivist rhetoric and impenetrable symbols: Misty reviewed

22 September 2018 9:00 am

Arinzé Kene’s play Misty is a collection of rap numbers and skits about a fare dodger, Lucas, from Hackney. Lucas…

Gripping piece of comic-horror nonsense: Killer Joe at Trafalgar Studios reviewed

9 June 2018 9:00 am

Tracy Letts begins his trailer-trash comedy Killer Joe with the corniest of platitudes. A runaway druggie named Chris Smith needs…

Missing in action: Cosmo Jarvis and Oliver Alvin-Wilson in The Twilight Zone at the Almeida

The latest astonishing achievement from the creators of War Horse

13 January 2018 9:00 am

The Twilight Zone, an American TV show from the early 1960s, reinvented the ghost story for the age of space…

Sister act: Zawe Ashton and Uzo Aduba in Jean Genet’s ‘The Maids’

Jean Genet’s fascinating play, The Maids, is botched at Trafalgar Studios

19 March 2016 9:00 am

The Maids is a fascinating document. Written in 1947, Jean Genet’s drama portrays a pair of serving girls who enact…

Intelligent design: Alex Eales’s set for ‘Cleansed’ is the star of the show at the Dorfman

Sarah Kane's Cleansed is a thin, vicious pantomime

5 March 2016 9:00 am

Big fuss about Cleansed at the Dorfman. Talk of nauseous punters rushing for the gangways may have perversely delighted the…

Steely, erotic, indomitable: Gemma Chan as Ruth in ‘The Homecoming’

Awards await this mostly terrific new Homecoming

5 December 2015 9:00 am

Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes…

The Globe's Oresteia lets Aeschylus speak - the Almeida's muzzles him

19 September 2015 8:00 am

To examine an ancient text requires an understanding of the ancient imagination. The Oresteia is set in a primitive world…

Quite the hankie-drencher: Tanya Moodie as Constance in ‘King John’

There's a reason why the past four centuries have ignored Shakespeare's King John

13 June 2015 9:00 am

King John arrives at the Globe bent double under the weight of garlands from the London critics. Their jaunt up…

Old Vic’s Tree: Beckett plus Seinfeld - plus swearing

17 January 2015 9:00 am

‘Fucking hell. You twat. Fuck off. Fuck. Fuck.’ These dispiriting words are the opening line of Tree, a newish play…

The Play That Goes Wrong. Photo: Alastair Muir

If you have teenage boys who loathe the very idea of theatre, send them to The Play That Goes Wrong

20 September 2014 9:00 am

It’s taken a while but here it is. The Play That Goes Wrong is like Noises Off, but simpler. Michael…