Theatre Reviews
Next to Normal, Wyndham's Theatre review - rock musical on the trauma of mental illnessFriday, 05 July 2024
We open on one of those suburban American families we know so well from Eighties and Nineties sitcoms - they’re not quite Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, but they’re not far off. As usual, we wonder how Americans have so much space, such big fridges and why they’re always shouting up the stairs. Read more... |
Mnemonic, Olivier Theatre review - thanks for the memoriesThursday, 04 July 2024
I’m sitting in the Olivier waiting for the show to start, comfortable in the knowledge that I’ve seen the original production of Mnemonic, one of Complicité’s most lauded plays, in 1999; but I struggle to remember anything about it, the detail is fuzzy. A play about memory is challenging my own faltering apparatus. Read more... |
Starlight Express, Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre review - freight is kinda greatTuesday, 02 July 2024
The reinvigoration of Andrew Lloyd Webber continues apace. New York is now hosting a ballroom culture, drag-inflected Cats, and the Olivier-laureled Sunset Boulevard, a breakaway hit last year on the West End, hits Broadway in the autumn. Read more... |
The Marilyn Conspiracy, Park Theatre review - intriguing murder mysteryMonday, 01 July 2024
The death of Marilyn Monroe is a wet dream for conspiracy theorists. Like the assassination of JFK in the following year there is plenty of material in the official accounts that doesn’t quite make sense – which opens the door to free-form speculation. Read more... |
Mean Girls, Savoy Theatre review - standout performances save a thin scoreSaturday, 29 June 2024
Nothing anybody over the age of 30 says about the new Mean Girls musical, spawn of Tina Fey’s witty script for the 2004 screen sideswipe of that name, will make any difference. As with all things Barbie, the pink madness seems deathless. Read more... |
The Secret Garden, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - adaptation more edifying than beguilingSaturday, 29 June 2024
It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably adapted into films that pile on the visual beauty of its magical settings. This enterprising venue may be surrounded by trees and foliage, but it offers essentially a big bare stage with few frills. Read more... |
My Father's Fable, Bush Theatre review - hilarious and haunting family dramaTuesday, 25 June 2024
Following the huge success of Benedict Lombe’s Shifters, which transfers soon to the West End, the Bush Theatre is riding high. Now this venue’s latest exploration of the Black-British experience tells a really lively and emotionally deep story about Nigerians in London. Read more... |
The Bounds, Royal Court review - soccer play scores badlyFriday, 21 June 2024
Every day this week I’m watching a football match, and now – after April’s production of Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan and Rachel Lemon’s Gunter – comes another football stage drama to tear up the turf at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs. Read more... |
Kiss Me, Kate, Barbican review - an entertaining, high-octane Cole Porter revivalThursday, 20 June 2024
Lincoln Center’s Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican’s latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter’s classic Kiss Me, Kate. It’s an energetic, largely intelligent production of what is at base a screwball comedy with great songs. Read more... |
The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's Globe review - riotous comedy jars with the bitter pill of the production's messageWednesday, 19 June 2024
A recent Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that 2.1 million people in the UK had been victims of domestic abuse in the year ending March 2023. So it makes sense that director Jude Christian has addressed this tricky, troubling Shakespeare play by amplifying the genuine trauma caused by Petruchio’s “taming” of his wife Katharina. Read more... |
Pages
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.
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery review - sickeningly cute ki...
It’s been a long time since an exhibition made me feel physically sick. The Hayward Gallery is currently hosting a retrospective of the...
Hespèrion XXI, Savall, QEH review - an evening filled with l...
For the first encore of the evening, it was not just the audience but the whole ensemble of Hespèrion XXI that was mesmerised as its leader,...
Album: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - Talkin' to...
When Neil Young releases a new album, you can be reasonably sure that you’ll get either a disc of melancholy singer-songwriter fare or a set of...
Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages
The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a...
Album: Mary Halvorson - About Ghosts
Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review - Nick...
It’s a sign of the inroads that the term “immersive” has made in theatreland that it now gets jokily namedropped at the...
Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing desc...
This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in...
theartsdesk at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festiv...
If, like me, chamber music isn’t your most frequent home, there are bound to be revelations of what for many are known masterpieces. Mine in...
