fri 12/09/2025

Theatre Reviews

A Midsummer Night's Dream, National Theatre At Home review – a mad delight

Laura De Lisle

Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filmed for NT Live at the Bridge Theatre last summer, is – as it gleefully acknowledges – completely bonkers. But it doesn’t start out that way.

Read more...

The Last Five Years, The Other Palace Digital review - socially distanced heartbreak

Marianka Swain

A musical featuring two people who are physically separated? Jason Robert Brown’s work is a shutdown natural – as this new digital theatre version demonstrates.

Read more...

Small Island, National Theatre At Home review – big-hearted story hits every beat

Laura De Lisle

A British-Jamaican man is confused. It's the Second World War, and he signed up for the RAF on the understanding that he would serve as a pilot overseas. But instead he's ended up as ground crew in a grey Lincolnshire village. "You are overseas, aren't you?" sneers his sergeant.

Read more...

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe online review - a seasonal treat

Heather Neill

What could be better for a lockdown summer night "out" than a virtual visit to Shakespeare's Globe? Simultaneously in a theatre and the open air, we can share the visible enjoyment of hundreds of others, the very opposite of self-isolation and social distancing.

Read more...

The Madness of George III, National Theatre at Home review – a powerful, elegant depiction

Rachel Halliburton

It has been the fate of George III – who on many levels was a visionary and accomplished monarch – to go down in history as a comic figure, most famed for losing first America and then his mind.

Read more...

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Graeae review - raunchy working-class nostalgia

aleks Sierz

If any musical can live up to this title in these troubled times, it must be this show from Graeae, a theatre company whose mission is to champion the work of Deaf and disabled artists.

Read more...

Coriolanus, National Theatre at Home review – gritty 21st century update

Rachel Halliburton

An arrogant leader contemptuous of his people. Could there be a more perfect timing for Josie Rourke’s taut, visceral production of Coriolanus?

Read more...

This House, National Theatre at Home review – timely revival of brilliant House of Commons drama

Rachel Halliburton

There is a line of argument that – unfairly – blames playwright James Graham for Dominic Cummings. Would Cummings, some might ask, have achieved the influence he has now if it hadn’t been for his depiction in Graham’s brilliant TV drama Brexit: The Uncivil War in which he was played as an obsessive genius by Benedict Cumberbatch? 

Read more...

A Streetcar Named Desire, National Theatre at Home review - world on fire

aleks Sierz

The National Theatre’s triumphant march through its archive of NT Live recordings continues this week with a glorious blaze of a show.

Read more...

The Understudy online review - entertaining adaptation of David Nicholls' novel

Veronica Lee

A running gag in David Nicholls' novel The Understudy is that its main character is called Steve McQueen. Not that Steve McQueen, the multi-award-winning, critically acclaimed, rich and successful one. 

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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Album: Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderfu...

Everyone’s favourite angsty pop-punk nerds are back, balancing new with nostalgia and synths with guitars, this is exactly what fans have been...

theartsdesk Q&A: actor Sam Riley on playing a washed-up...

You won't find Sam Riley lying at the pool in a holiday resort – unless it's for work. "I'd rather stay home to be honest", says the...

A Single Man, Linbury Theatre review - an anatomy of melanch...

Mind, body, body, mind. Medical science confirms the powerful two-way traffic between emotional and physical health. Nonetheless the idea of...

Cow | Deer, Royal Court review – paradox-rich account of non...

I love irony. Especially beautiful irony. So I’m very excited about the ironic gesture of staging a show with no words at the...

Album: Baxter Dury - Allbarone

Quite why Baxter Dury isn't already a national treasure is a mystery to me. Not for his nepo connections but...

Lammermuir Festival 2025 review - music with soul from the h...

One piece that you’re unlikely to hear at the Lammermuir Festival is Lucia di Lammermoor. As co-director James Waters explained during a...

Album: Yasmine Hamdan - I Remember I Forget بنسى وبتذكر

A lot is going on during Yasmine Hamdan’s third solo album. Despite all ten songs of I Remember I Forget بنسى وبتذكر drawing from the...

BBC Proms: Steinbacher, RPO, Petrenko / Sternath, BBCSO, Ora...

My final visit to the Proms for this year was a Sunday double-...

Honey Don’t! review - film noir in the bright sun

The Coen brothers’ output has been so broad-ranging, and the duo so self-deprecating, that critics have long had difficulty getting their arms...