wed 18/06/2025

Theatre Reviews

Money, Southwark Playhouse online review - ethical dilemmas for the Zoom generation

Rachel Halliburton

To accept or not accept a donation: that’s certainly the burning political question of the moment.

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Tarantula, Southwark Playhouse online review – spine-tingling love and trauma

aleks Sierz

I think I can safely say that polymath playwright Philip Ridley has had a good lockdown.

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The Winter's Tale, RSC, BBC Four review - post-war poise colours a solid production

Tom Birchenough

It has been a hard coming for this RSC Winter’s Tale. Erica Whyman’s production was cancelled by the virus days before its premiere last spring, with plans to stage it in the autumn frustrated by the second lockdown.

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The Importance of Being Earnest online review - Oscar Wilde updated for the Nando's generation

Veronica Lee

Oscar Wilde's fabulous play satirised Victorian England and contained a shedload of quotable quips.

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A Splinter of Ice, Original Theatre Company online review - Graham Greene and Kim Philby are friends reunited

Tom Birchenough

There’s such a genial feel to the pairing of Oliver Ford Davies and Stephen Boxer in Ben Brown’s new play that there are moments when we almost forget the weighty historical circumstances that lay behind the long-awaited encounter between two old friends, this evening of conversation and drinking,...

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Romeo and Juliet, National Theatre online review - a triumphant hybrid

Heather Neill

Shakespeare's enduring tale of star-crossed lovers is especially pertinent in a pandemic. The fatal plot twist depends on failed communication during an outbreak of pestilence, and one of the most famous lines is Mercutio's heartfelt, "A plague on both your houses" – clearly no idle curse.

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Living Newspaper, Edition 3, Royal Court online review – bleak news, sharp words

Laura De Lisle

“The crocus of hope is, er, poking through the frost.” When he uttered that dodgy metaphor back in February, Boris Johnson probably didn’t predict that it would become the opening number of the third edition of Living Newspaper, the Royal Court’s anarchic, hyper-current series of new writing....

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A Midsummer Night's Dream, SHAKE Festival livestream review - a star turn from Luisa Omielan makes this 'Bottom's Dream'

Tom Birchenough

Just what the Zoom era has brought to theatre – to performers and audiences alike – is something we will no doubt be pondering for some while yet, certainly still in the much-anticipated eventual hereafter when stages in their “traditional” multifariousness are once again standard.

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Angela, Sound Stage online review - tender and time-shifting

aleks Sierz

Does a subjective theatre piece encourage a subjective critical response? I think it might, especially when it’s a memory play about dementia, so here goes: first I turn off the lights, then I press play. From the darkness comes jaunty music – it’s a dance class.

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Assembly, Donmar Warehouse online review - the future is coming, ready or not

Laura De Lisle

“Your task is to imagine the future.” That’s what the citizens of Assembly, a new streamed production performed and devised by the Donmar Warehouse’s Local Company, are told.

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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.


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