sun 15/06/2025

Theatre Reviews

God of Carnage, Lyric Hammersmith review - a dark piece is lightened with slapstick

Helen Hawkins

Yasmin Reza’s God of Carnage (2008), like her British megahit, 1994’s Art, is not strictly a comedy. The French dramatist likes to create gladiatorial spaces disguised as chic living-rooms, where the professional classes slug it out, chewing their way through all manner of pieties and prejudices to reach some kind of climactic end point.

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As You Like It, Shakespeare's Globe review - vibrant, ebullient fun in a forest where anything goes

Rachel Halliburton

To proclaim that you’re playing gender games with Shakespeare’s As You Like It seems a little like announcing that you have a bicycle with two wheels, or indeed that you’re doing something interesting with rhythms in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

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Next to Normal, Donmar Warehouse review - terrific cast in a punchy musical

Helen Hawkins

The journey from off-Broadway to central London has taken 15 years, but the multi-award-winning musical Next to Normal has finally made it. That time lag may lead to suspicions that its subject matter has become a tad outmoded, but this staging, directed by outgoing Donmar director Michael Longhurst, is fresh and affecting.

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The Odyssey: The Underworld, National Theatre review - community effort with real heart and a great staging

Helen Hawkins

One of the great wonders of Western literary history is one of the earliest, Homer’s The Odyssey, an epic poem with all the thrills and spills of an Indiana Jones outing, with added Olympians. The National’s version turned out not to be The Odyssey as we know it, though.  

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: CHOO CHOO! / Blood of the Lamb

David Kettle

CHOO CHOO! (Or... Have You Ever Thought About ****** **** *****? (Cos I Have)), Pleasance Dome 

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A Mirror, Almeida Theatre review - unconvincing and contrived

aleks Sierz

This is a play about censorship in a totalitarian state – but, no, I’m not reviewing The Pillowman again. Instead, I’m watching A Mirror by Sam Holcroft, a playwright who – as her 2015 play Rules for Living amply illustrated – is interested in playful games with the idea of theatricality.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: Distant Memories of the Near Future / Soldiers of Tomorrow

David Kettle

Distant Memories of the Near Future, Summerhall 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: Dark Noon / Concerned Others

David Kettle

Dark Noon, Pleasance at EICC 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: The Insider / Sensuous Governing

David Kettle

The Insider, ZOO Southside 

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Dimanche, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 review - troubling and bewildering

David Kettle

A toy car – in fact, a mobile home with comically enormous antenna on top – shudders over arms and shoulders as if they were mountain ranges. A colossal polar bear comforts its curious cub. A lifesize puppet grandmother is chased up and down stairs by her over-enthusiastic stairlift.

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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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