I can't praise this show highly enough: The Philanthropist reviewed
Christopher Hampton’s 1968 play The Philanthropist examines the romantic travails of Philip, a cerebral university philologist, forced to choose between…
Adventures in boozy slapstick: Shit-Faced Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing reviewed
Even the Bard’s staunchest fans admit that ‘Shakespeare comedy’ may be an oxymoron. That’s the assumption of the touring company…
Original, astute, unnerving, sexy, funny, brutal: Dorfman Theatre’s Consent reviewed
It’s like Raging Bull. The great Scorsese movie asks if a professional boxer can exclude violence from his family life.…
David Tennant is magical: Don Juan in Soho reviewed
Don Juan in Soho rehashes an old Spanish yarn about a sexual glutton ruined by his appetite. Setting the story…
BREAKING NEWS: Enjoyable play found at Royal Court
BREAKING NEWS: ‘Enjoyable play found at Royal Court.’ Generally, the Court likes to send its customers home feeling depressed, guilty,…
Prejudiced pap for Remainer elitists: Dorfman Theatre's My Country reviewed
No one should complain that My Country; a work in progress is a grim night out. It’s rare for a…
A flimsy exhibition of varsity wit: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead reviewed
Harry Potter, who uses the stage name Daniel Radcliffe, is a producer’s delight. By now it’s becoming clear that the…
The textual omissions and misreadings could fill a small book: Almeida’s Hamlet reviewed
Hamlet was probably written sometime between 1599 and 1602. The Almeida’s new version opens with a couple of security guards…
I’ve never enjoyed Twelfth Night but the Olivier Theatre’s new production is triumphant
It’s every impresario’s dream. Buy a little off-West End venue to try out stuff for fun. Andrew Lloyd Webber has…
Very little theatre is important or valuable. This is: Young Vic’s See Me Now reviewed
What does it take to become a prostitute? Youth, beauty, courage, sexual allure, a love of money, a need for…
Though dissatisfying it doesn’t deserve a monstering: Sandi Toksvig’s Silver Lining reviewed
Sandi Toksvig’s new play opens in a Gravesend care home where five grannies and a temporary nurse are threatened by…
Exquisite to look at but hard to warm to: The Glass Menagerie at Duke of Yorks reviewed
Tennessee Williams’s breakthrough play is a portrait of his dysfunctional family. A young writer, Tom (Williams’s real name), lives with…
An exquisite, opulent bore: Death Takes a Holiday at Charing Cross Theatre reviewed
It could be the nuttiest idea ever. The protagonist of this American musical is Death, who secretly reprieves a beautiful…
Clever, genial and splendidly eccentric: Raising Martha reviewed
David Spicer’s farce Raising Martha opens with a skeleton being disinterred on a frog farm by animal-rights activists. They hope…
A hymn to a vanished era when immigration worked: The Kite Runner at Wyndham’s reviewed
The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Now it arrives on…
A three-hour bum-number by a German gas bag: Schiller’s Mary Stuart at the Almeida reviewed
God, what a dusty old chatterbox Schiller is. Like Bernard Shaw, he can’t put a character on stage without churning…
Scarcely worth discussing this daft old muddle: Hedda Gabler at the Lyttelton reviewed
Hedda Gabler is one of the most influential plays ever written. It not merely illuminated an injustice, the enslavement of…
For those who want to gawp at the underclass from a safe distance: Buried Child reviewed
Buried Child is a typical Sam Shepard play. The main character, Dodge, is a brain-damaged alcoholic cripple stuck in a…
A convoluted tale of eco-angst and earth-mother cant: Royal Court's The Children reviewed
What if? is the engine of every great story. What if the toys came to life when their owner left…
An undemanding and underwritten frivolity: Nice Fish at the Harold Pinter Theatre reviewed
An ice floe. Two anglers. Months to kill. That’s the premise of Nice Fish by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins.…
I'm not sure I've seen a more powerful finale: School of Rock reviewed
Who could resist School of Rock? For me it was a chance to see a heavy-metal musical written by the…
A treat to hum along to but don't ask me what it's about: Bowie's Lazarus reviewed
One of David Bowie’s last works, Lazarus, is a musical based on Walter Tevis’s novel The Man Who Fell to…
Glenda Jackson’s King Lear shows that men play unhinged warlords better than women
Dynastic affairs and international relations were once a seamless continuum. Royal weddings accompanied peace treaties. An heirless realm was vulnerable…
Like a kids’ entertainer on crack: Amadeus reviewed
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is haunted by its own antecedents. Viewers are apt to feel that a new production lacks…
One of the ugliest nights of my life: A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer reviewed
Great subject, terminal illness. Popular dramas like Love Story, Terms of Endearment and My Night With Reg handle the issue…
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