UK / West End Theater Reviews

Review: BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY, Hampstead Theatre
by Franco Milazzo - May 14, 2024

Walter Washington is stuck. Stuck in his recently deceased wife’s wheelchair. Stuck in “a rent-controlled palace ruled by a grieving despot king” that he can ill afford. Stuck waiting for City Hall to pay him what he considers his due after a thirty year-long cop career ended in a shooting incident....

Review: L'OLIMPIADE, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - May 14, 2024

Irish National Opera bring a touring production to London in what might prove to be a show for the purists...

Review: PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS, Trafalgar Theatre
by Aliya Al-Hassan - May 15, 2024

It’s nearly a decade since Denise Gough set the stage alight in Duncan MacMillan’s starkly raw study of addiction. She now reprises her Olivier and Critics' Circle Theatre Award-winning role as Emma for this harrowing and completely absorbing new production of People, Places & Things. ...

Review: A SONG OF SONGS, Park Theatre
by Louise Penn - May 15, 2024

A Song of Songs has been placed within a traditional Middle Eastern beat by Ofra Daniel, writer, composer, director, and lead actor as Tirzah, unfulfilled wife. Whether through the stamps and flowing skirts of flamenco or thumping percussive beats, the physicality of the piece takes centre stage. Wh...

Review: THE DEEP BLUE SEA, Theatre Royal Bath
by Cheryl Markosky - May 14, 2024

Tamsin Greig is a marvel as Hester Collyer in Lindsay Posner's new revival of Terence Rattigan's 1950s classic, The Deep Blue Sea, at Theatre Royal Bath's intimate, 126-seater Ustinov Studio....

Review: WITHNAIL AND I, Birmingham Rep
by Debbie Gilpin - May 15, 2024

“What we need is harmony, fresh air, stuff like that.” Almost 40 years after it first graced the big screen, cult classic film Withnail and I has been adapted for the stage – and it is currently in the middle of a limited engagement at the Birmingham Rep....

Review: THE HOUSE PARTY, Chichester Festival Theatre
by Gary Naylor - May 12, 2024

Superb performances anchor a hurtling rollercoaster of a play that will live long in the memory of anyone who sees it....

Review: MARY SAID WHAT SHE SAID, Barbican
by Alexander Cohen - May 11, 2024

Theatre at it's most ruthlessly elusive....

Review: PHIL ELLIS'S EXCELLENT COMEDY SHOW, Soho Theatre
by Kat Mokrynski - May 13, 2024

Phil Ellis’s Excellent Comedy Show begins with a man, dressed in a tight black spandex costume and wearing a bin bag over his head, struggling to make his way to the microphone. Once he removes the bag and reveals himself to be the man of the hour, we discover that Ellis is dressed as a cat, with Sh...

Review: MASTERCLASS, Southbank Centre
by Alice Cope - May 13, 2024

Masterclass is a powerful production which provides some genuine discussion on privilege and opportunity within theatre and arts....

Book Review: A SENSE OF THEATRE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF BRITAIN'S NATIONAL THEATRE, by Richard Pilbrow
by Cheryl Markosky - May 13, 2024

In the summer of 1962, Sir Laurence Olivier invited lighting designer Richard Pilbrow to 'sort out the bloody awful lighting' at Chichester Theatre two days before it opened. Pilbrow replied there was nothing he could do in so short a time. 'Well, you're no bloody use, are you?' Olivier quipped....

Review: TWELFTH NIGHT, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre
by Debbie Gilpin - May 10, 2024

“More matter for a May morning.” Given that the majority of Shakespeare’s plays began with outdoor performances of one kind or another, it’s a perfect fit for the leafy surroundings of Regent’s Park – which has made it all the more conspicuous for its absence from the programming over the past few s...

Review: WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, Theatre Royal Windsor
by Gary Naylor - May 09, 2024

Landmark show creaks at the edges, but gets its share of laughs in this highly accomplished touring show...

Review: BETWEEN THE LINES, New Diorama Theatre
by Alexander Cohen - May 09, 2024

Sparks fly in this plucky grime infused play, but it doesn't quite catch fire...

Review: GILLIAN COSGRIFF: ACTUALLY, GOOD, Soho Theatre
by Kat Mokrynski - May 10, 2024

Gillian Cosgriff: Actually, Good begins with Cosgriff performing using a looper pedal, with backwards vocals and some chords from the onstage keyboard. She gives us context for several things in order to understand the show, including that the Whitsundays are islands and Australians like to make tou...

Review: THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, Marylebone Theatre
by Mica Blackwell - May 09, 2024

Nikolai Gogol's 1836 satire The Government Inspector caused a stir for calling out the Russian government's corruption. It's easy to see why Peter Myers wanted to bring its relevant story to the stage two centuries later, but the biting commentary under the silliness is lost in translation in this c...

Brighton Fringe Review: WHOA MAMA!, Spiegeltent, Bosco Theatre
by Caroline Cronin - May 09, 2024

The strapline for Stephanie Ware’s WHOA MAMA! had me intrigued – a one woman comedy about a 40-something woman and her choice to remain childfree. There’s certainly no shortage of rhetoric on this subject, particularly on social media where the childfree “movement” has a real chokehold. But the conc...

Review: VANITY FAIR, Open Bar Theatre
by Aliya Al-Hassan - May 09, 2024

Pub garden theatre specialist Open Bar Theatre has returned for a spring season with a deft and slightly chaotic version of William Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Dealing with the fortunes of two young women, the story explores early 19th-century English society, specifically how money and ambition can de...

Review: SPIRITED AWAY, London Coliseum
by Cindy Marcolina - May 09, 2024

Hayao Miyazaki’s legacy is one for the ages. The co-founder of Studio Ghibli revolutionised the Western consumption of anime and set a new standard for Japanese animated films. London isn’t a stranger to the stage adaptations of his creations: a major example is My Neighbour Totoro, which took up sh...

Review: CAPTAIN AMAZING, Southwark Playhouse Borough
by Aliya Al-Hassan - May 07, 2024

Mark sits in a white box on a red chair. He is dressed in a grey t-shirt and jeans. With the exception of sporting a red cape, he is nondescript, ordinary, normal. In the next 65 minutes, we are taken on an emotional ride through Mark's experiences of love, parenthood and devastating loss, all while...

Review: TIM RICE: MY LIFE IN MUSICALS, Liverpool Playhouse
by Sarah OHara - May 07, 2024

Currently on tour across the UK, Tim Rice: My Life In Musicals is two hours of musical theatre bliss that you will never forget....

Review: THE WINTER'S TALE, Royal Opera House
by Franco Milazzo - May 06, 2024

Part violent psychodrama, part sunny romcom, The Winter’s Tale was not the most obvious of plays for the Royal Ballet to take on....

Review: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Shakespeare's Globe
by Abbie Grundy - May 04, 2024

Much Ado About Nothing is a laughter-filled production with stellar performances throughout....

Review: KING LEAR, Riverside Studios
by Cindy Marcolina - May 04, 2024

Cutting Shakespeare isn’t rare, with time restraint and accessible efficiency at the top of the list. What happens when you remove the text altogether, leaving only the bare bones of the story? Hong Kongese company Nonverbal Theatre of Gesture have the answer....

Review: THE CHERRY ORCHARD, Donmar Warehouse
by Alexander Cohen - May 03, 2024

An excellent cast are let down by self-obsessed direction....