fri 12/09/2025

Theatre Reviews

The King of Hell’s Palace, Hampstead Theatre review - Chinese scandal freezes the blood

aleks Sierz

New artistic directors are popping up all over British theatre. Every week seems to usher in a refreshingly versatile talent taking the reins of a major theatre.

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For Services Rendered, Jermyn Street Theatre review – uneven revival of 1930s drama

Laura De Lisle

“I don’t think I have the right to influence her,” says an older character of her daughter in For Services Rendered, W Somerset Maugham’s 1932 anti-war drama. If only all elder statesmen and women felt the same about the youth.

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Preludes, Southwark Playhouse review - journeying into the mind of Rachmaninoff

Marianka Swain

Where does music come from? That’s the vital question posed to Sergei Rachmaninoff in Dave Malloy’s extraordinary 2015 chamber work, as the great late-Romantic Russian composer – stuck in his third year of harrowing writer’s block – tries to relocate his gift.

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A Doll's House, Lyric Hammersmith review - Ibsen tellingly transposed to colonial India

Heather Neill

Newly arrived from a much-lauded stint at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Rachel O'Riordan has undertaken to make "work of scale by women" during her time as artistic director of the Lyric. What better place to start than with Ibsen's once-shocking heroine, her story reimagined by prolific playwright Tanika Gupta?

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Torch Song, Turbine Theatre review - impressive return for Harvey Fierstein's seminal gay drama

Tom Birchenough

London’s latest theatre opening brings a stirring revival of Harvey Fierstein’s vital gay drama, which premiered as Torch Song Trilogy in New York at the beginning of the 1980s, the playwright himself unforgettable in the lead...

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Chiaroscuro, Bush Theatre review - music, sweet, sweet music

aleks Sierz

Identity politics has been around for decades.

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Anahera, Finborough Theatre review - blistering family drama from New Zealand

Katherine Waters

With power comes responsibility. One without the other is sickening -- and both iterations are on show in Emma Kinane's searing new play about a child runaway in New Zealand. 

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A Very Expensive Poison, Old Vic review – bold evocation of a post-truth world

Rachel Halliburton

If Russia is, as Winston Churchill once so memorably said, “a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma”, then this play is an outrage, wrapped inside a farce, framed by a bittersweet love story.

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Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation, Royal Court review - brilliant meta-theatrical experience

aleks Sierz

Playwright and performer Tim Crouch is one of Britain's most innovative creatives, with a big back catalogue of challenging and stimulating stage work. Typically he tells stories about profound loss, while simultaneously questioning the basis of theatrical representation: how is what we see on stage true? In what way is it real? And how can you tell?

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Falsettos, The Other Palace review - affecting search for the new normal

Marianka Swain

William Finn and James Lapine’s musical – which combines two linked one-acts, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, set in late 1970s/early 1980s ...

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Advertising feature

★★★★★

A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.
The Observer, Kate Kellaway

 

Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.

 

★★★★★

This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.
The Times, Ann Treneman

 

Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.

 

Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.


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