fri 12/09/2025

Theatre Reviews

Blithe Spirit, Duke of York's Theatre review - Jennifer Saunders in serious comedy

aleks Sierz

Jennifer Saunders is a one-woman tickle machine. As her countless appearances in television shows such as French and Saunders and Ab Fab prove, this triple BAFTA winner is box office magic. The mere incantation of her name is enough to sell out any West End show.

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Mrs Puntila and Her Man Matti, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh review - a drink-sodden slog

Fergus Morgan

If there’s one certainty about the Edinburgh Lyceum’s production of Mrs Puntila And Her Man Matti  – and there aren't many in this unsatisfying, overlong revival – it’s that Elaine C Smith makes a terrific drunkard.

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Shoe Lady, Royal Court review - Katherine Parkinson is a footsore Beckettian

aleks Sierz

On my way to see this show, I see an urban fox. Before I can take a photo, it scrambles away. And I'm sure that, as it goes, it winks at me. This weird moment is a great prologue to EV Crowe's new play, virtually a monologue starring Katherine Parkinson, which is weird, and then some. And then some more.

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Not Quite Jerusalem, Finborough Theatre review - theatrical hit from 1980 now feels flat and stale

Rachel Halliburton

It may seem strange to watch a play about four English people on a kibbutz in the Seventies, and find yourself thinking about Brexit, but that’s precisely what springs to mind here.

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The Last Five Years, Southwark Playhouse review - an inspired actor-musician take on a cult classic

Marianka Swain

There’s concept on top of concept in this revival of Jason Robert Brown’s beloved 2001 musical, which charts the ebb and flow of a relationship by juggling timelines: aspiring actress Cathy’s story is told in reverse chronological order, while aspiring writer Jamie’s moves forward.

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The Revenger's Tragedy, Piccolo Teatro di Milano/Cheek by Jowl, Barbican review - fun, but not enough

David Nice

Vendetta, morte: what a lark to find those tools of 19th century Italian opera taken back to their mother tongue in a Milanese take on Jacobean so-called tragedy, where the overriding obsession is on mortalità. It would take a composer of savage wit like Gerald Barry to set Middleton's satirical bloody-mindedness to music today.

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The Special Relationship, Soho Theatre review - informative, but uninspiring

aleks Sierz

Since 2000, Esther Baker's Synergy Theatre Project has worked with prisoners, ex-offenders and young people at risk of offending to produce powerful dramas about some of the most fraught social situations you can imagine.

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Pretty Woman: The Musical, Piccadilly Theatre review - not so pretty, actually

Matt Wolf

It’s not so much that Pretty Woman: The Musical isn’t much good, which it isn’t.

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United Queendom, Kensington Palace review - rollicking royal tale

Veronica Lee

Les Enfants Terribles is the theatre company behind several interesting immersive projects, including Alice's Adventures Underground and Inside Pussy Riot.

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Sinners, Playground Theatre review - intimacy but also fear

Anthony Walker-Cook

Layla is trapped in a pit of sand up to her shoulders, with a shroud over her head and piles of rocks surrounding her. On steps Nur, who has been tasked with arranging the rocks. The two were engaged in an adulterous affair, and he must begin the public stoning of his lover by casting the first stone.

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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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