Theatre Reviews
Habeas Corpus, Menier Chocolate Factory review - grappling with Alan Bennett's anti-farceWednesday, 15 December 2021
In his 1973 play Habeas Corpus, now revived at the Menier Chocolate Factory under the direction of Patrick Marber, Alan Bennett had his way with the venerable Whitehall farce. Read more... |
Pantomime 2021 round-up 1: a great Dame and two debutsTuesday, 14 December 2021
Jack and the Beanstalk, Hackney Empire ★★★ |
Best of Enemies, Young Vic review – fast-paced portrait of a clash between two titanic egosMonday, 13 December 2021
No playwright has a scalpel as sharp as James Graham’s when it comes to dissecting politics; he has a brilliance and edge that strips away all unnecessary material till the beating heart of the matter is revealed. Read more... |
Cabaret, The Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre review – polymorphous, prodigiousMonday, 13 December 2021
Has there ever been a Cabaret as dangerous as this one? Rebecca Frecknall’s disorienting take on the Kander and Ebb classic pulls you in and spits you out in a reinvention that pushes or dissolves boundaries at every twist and turn. Read more... |
Trouble in Mind, National Theatre review - race, rage and relevanceSaturday, 11 December 2021
The National Theatre has a good record in staging classic American drama by black playwrights. James Baldwin's The Amen Corner, August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs have all had terrific new stagings. Read more... |
The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Royal Exchange, Manchester review - a spooky study in balladryFriday, 10 December 2021
This is a story of an innocent who finds herself unexpectedly in a strange, unknown world. The same could be true for those in its audience. Read more... |
The Book of Dust, Bridge Theatre review – as much intelligence and provocation as fleet-footed funThursday, 09 December 2021
It’s been seventeen years since Nicholas Hytner first directed Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials at the National Theatre, ambitiously whirling audiences into Pullman’s universe of daemons, damnable clerics and parallel worlds. Read more... |
Measure for Measure, Sam Wanamaker Theatre review - this problem play is a delightMonday, 06 December 2021
Measure for Measure may be the quintessential Shakespeare “problem” play, but just what has earned it that epithet remains a puzzle. Each generation approaches the matter from its own perspective. The developments of recent years, #MeToo most of all, have given new resonance to one of its central themes, the imbalance of law over nature and the quality of justice, but the play’s “resolution”, if it can even be called that, leaves the questions open. Read more... |
Life of Pi, Wyndham's Theatre review - visually ravishing show uplifted by astonishing puppetryFriday, 03 December 2021
When the Canadian Yann Martel went to India as a young adult backpacker he fell in love – not with one person but with the rich imaginative landscape opened up by its religions and its animals. A struggling writer at the time, he channelled this new love into a dazzling idiosyncratic narrative about a shipwrecked Indian boy who survives 227 days at sea with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. Read more... |
The Good Life, Richmond Theatre review - popular sitcom gets its own origin storyMonday, 29 November 2021
"Off-grid" wasn't a thing in the mid-'70s. Sure, people planted a few potatoes in the garden and pottered about a bit in an allotment, but nobody went the whole hog. The rat race was certainly a thing though, a fertile seam for comedies like The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘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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