Theatre News & Reviews: 2015

CRITICS CHOICE: Emily Hardy's Pick Of 2015

Phil Willmott Company To Present Double Bill At Union Theatre

Casting Announced For Gate Theatre's In The Night Time Before The Sun Rises

CRITIC'S CHOICE: Douglas Mayo's Pick Of 2015

Impossible UK Tour

CRITICS CHOICE: Danny Coleman-Cooke's Pick of 2015

CRITICS CHOICE: Tim Hochstrasser's Pick Of 2015

My best revival recommendation would go to Antic Disposition’s HENRY V played in the evocative setting of Temple Church. It is very hard to find something new to say about one of the most familiar plays in the canon, but this production developed a fully thought through and reconfigured setting in the period of the First World War that fused precisely and informatively with the original.

REVIEW: A Christmas Carol, Middle Temple Hall ✭✭✭✭

Once again this year, Antic Disposition have bought their formidable skills to staging this festive classic at Middle Temple Hall, a venue associated with Dickens himself. Atmospherically, you realise upon entering this hallowed hall that you are in for a very special staging indeed and the audience were not short-changed.

REVIEW: The Lorax, Old Vic Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This family-friendly adaptation adapted for the stage by David Grieg and with songs by Charlie Fink is an enchanting evening in the theatre that had children and adults alike under its spell from the minute it began.

Cast Announced For Pink Mist at the Bush Theatre

Harry Potter Lead Casting Announced

REVIEW: No Villain, Old Red Lion Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The play itself would get four stars from me, but the outstanding production values and overall experience of the evening enable me to add a final star at the top of the tree.

End Of The Rainbow UK Tour

Billy Elliott Announces West End Closure

REVIEW: You For Me For You, Royal Court Theatre ✭✭✭✭

You For Me For You is a well crafted and significant piece that gives its audiences an opportunity to connect briefly with a situation that needs to be experienced to be fully understood.

First Look At Sheila Hancock and Jenna Russell in Grey Gardens

20 Years Of Cirque Du Soleil In London

First Look At The Lorax At The Old Vic

REVIEW: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, West Yorkshire Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

Get out and get a seat when Chitty comes to a theatre near you. Take your kids or just go and revel in the enormous joy that resonates off the stage in waves. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be entertaining young and old for a long time to come and who could want for more from a stage production.

REVIEW: Clementine's Seasonal Spectacular, Rosemary Branch Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Clementine’s Seasonal Spectacular is certainly strange and unconventional. However, it also wonderfully original and made me laugh and smile more than any other Christmas production I’ve seen this winter. A real must-see (but make sure you pick the right type of performance!)

REVIEW: Nutcracker The Musical, Pleasance Theatre ✭✭✭

Nutcracker! The Musical is a valiant effort that never quite sets out what it wanted to achieve. It’s not funny enough to be a panto or gripping enough to be true drama, however still contains enough festive magic to raise a smile.

Confessions Of A (Struggling) Actress Part 1

REVIEW: Musicals - The Definitive Illustrated Story ✭✭✭✭

A lot of effort has been put into compiling this glorious book, giving one of the most comprehensive overviews of musicals (both on stage and on film), that I have seen in a long time.

REVIEW: Around The World in 80 Days, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Around the World in 80 Days is one of the classic tales by Jules Verne, who in the 19th century wrote epic stories of adventure and futuristic scenarios that still captivate the readers of today. This production at the St James Theatre until 17th January is a retelling by Laura Eason who pays due homage to the brilliance of the original whilst highlighting the contemporary relevance of the old story.

REVIEW: Through The Mill, London Theatre Workshop ✭✭✭✭

Ray Rackham’s play is infused with enormous passion for its subject, a woman who touched the lives of millions with her extraordinary singing and irrepressible charm. A witty and thoughtful piece, Through the Mill looks at snapshots from key moments from Judy Garland’s life, which demonstrate the interplay between her overwhelming professional life and personal struggles. Exceptional live music – delivered by various members of the cast – and a busy set partitioned for various stages of Garland’s career lends itself to an immersive and often powerful theatrical experience.

New Theatre Company Tiny Fires Launches at St James Theatre

School Of Rock Opens On Broadway

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty UK Tour 2016

Jenna Russell Sings Another Winter In A Summer Town From Grey Gardens

REVIEW: Loserville, Union Theatre ✭✭✭

Loserville is a production full of E numbers; bright and sweet but likely to overload you. It’s a derivative script and score made as good as it can get by some talented direction and an energetic young cast.

REVIEW: Blues Brothers Xmas Special, Arts Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This is a Xmas Special that doesn’t hammer home the same old Christmas songs ad nauseam. Instead it gives Blues Brothers enthusiasts plenty of the music they know and love and rounds out the show with a treatment of a smattering of Christmas songs in their own inimitable style.

REVIEW: Cinderella And The Beanstalk, Theatre 503 ✭✭✭✭✭

Pantomimes have the potential to be uniquely excruciating. Children are merciless critics, and decades of expectation weigh heavily on poor productions. Such is the genre’s status in British popular culture that it is very difficult for any show to achieve mass appeal – it must be original enough to set itself apart from hundreds of other pantomimes, yet inclusive enough to appeal to several generations of families. What makes Sleeping Trees’ reprisal of Cinderella and the Beanstalk so wonderful is that it doesn’t centre on celebrity performers, topical jokes or endless double entendres. Rather we are treated to three highly talented comic actors both subverting and celebrating the genre, with uproariously funny results.

REVIEW: Beauty And The Beast, Polka Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Loyal Disney viewers may feel they’ve seen it all before, but this version of Beauty and the Beast is charming and well performed. It’s running until February so there’s plenty of time to see it, whether it’s as a Christmas treat or to shift the January blues.

REVIEW: Desperate Measures, Jermyn St Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Desperate Measures is exactly what fringe theatre should be - inventive, energetic and ambitious. It really is a must-see, especially if you want a non-panto option this December.

REVIEW: Kings Of Broadway, Palace Theatre ✭✭✭

This was a delightful evening, bursting with talent at all points, and consistently enjoyable. It is good to be able to stand back sometimes and reflect on the detailed musical joys of these composers absent stage apparatus.

Jackie The Musical UK Tour

The Winter's Tale Tops UK Cinema Box Office

Romeo And Juliet - First Image Released

REVIEW: SpinCycle, Theatre N16 ✭✭✭✭

Regardless of the format, theatre of telly, SpinCycle is a great piece of writing performed superbly by The Canting Crew. If only it were around for a longer run.

Aladdin London - Full Casting Announced

REVIEW: Faustaff, Cockpit Theatre ✭✭

Despite these stark issues, the Cockpit Theatre is a wonderful space and the lighting was well deployed to create some tense moments. Bizarrely, someone in the company seemed to think it was a good time to get some production shots, annoyingly snapping away throughout the entire show. Perhaps a task best left for the dress rehearsal…

Russell Howard Announces World Tour

Casting Announced For European Premiere Of Grey Gardens

Maureen Nolan and Gareth Gates Headline Footloose UK Tour

Funny Girl - Rehearsal Images Released

Andrew Scott and David Dawson to Star In The Dazzle

REVIEW: Living Between Lies, Kings Head Theatre ✭✭✭

The action interweaves the stories and mounting crises of four women whose lives are in different ways based on a series of lies. It is billed as a comedy drama but the tone is mostly sober and bleak, with the one exception being the relationship forged out of lies for fun.

Hand To God Comes To Vaudeville Theatre - Tickets Now On Sale

REVIEW: Echoes, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Echoes is a success for many reasons but fundamentally it’s because there is such strength in the story telling. In fact there are 2 stories running concurrently and though the time periods in the stories are 175 years apart and told by 2 actors independently, there is such deep and meaningful symbiosis between them so that what can be a fragmented experience is a beautiful whole.

INTERVIEW: Drew McOnie on making musicals dance

3 Guys Naked From The Waist Down Comes To Finborough Theatre

The Nutcracker On Ice Comes To The Royal Albert Hall

Hapgoood at Hampstead Theatre - Rehearsal Images Released

REVIEW: The Miniaturists, Arcola Theatre ✭✭

With the death of provincial repertory theatre, the connections between the theatre world of London and ‘the provinces’ have atrophied, and where The Miniaturists could make a real difference is in taking their project of fully-staged short plays into other parts of the country and gathering in work from local authors.

Chicago 2016 Tour Tickets

REVIEW: Four Minutes Twelve Seconds, Trafalgar Studios 2 ✭✭✭✭

By the end of the play there is a horrifying awareness that a variation of this story is currently being enacted for real somewhere in the near vicinity: in immediate families, next door, down the road, but certainly not further away than the next suburb. This is a situation, indeed a problem that concerns everyone and there is no doubt that it should be put in front of the eyes and ears of the young people who need to hear.

Funny Girl At The Savoy Theatre - Tickets On Sale Now

REVIEW: Julie Madly Deeply, The Crazy Coqs ✭✭✭✭✭

This is an immensely polished, professional and stylish evening which marks another example of how contemporary cabaret is still exploring and pushing at the boundaries of how to best combine words and music.

Jeff Wayne's The War Of The Worlds Comes To The Dominion Theatre

REVIEW: The Station Master, Tristan Bates Theatre ✭✭✭

Connor's score owes a considerable debt to Sondheim, but, that said, it treads in very interesting paths. Complex and intricate, the melodies and harmonies reward careful listening, but there is no danger of a "hummable tune" for the most part, even though individual numbers and vocal lines are quite beguiling, instantly enjoyable.

REVIEW: The Killing Of Sister George, London Theatre Workshop ✭✭✭✭

The Killing of Sister George is a play that feels ripe for a revival; the cast and crew have certainly done it justice. It’s high quality theatre that will certainly make you think about the true impact of fame and celebrity.

Laila The Musical UK Tour 2016

REVIEW: By The End Of Us, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

It’s not often that you see something that feels genuinely different, executed in a modern and innovative way. The End of Us makes for an unusual yet entertaining experience, whether you’re an avid gamer or not.

REVIEW: A Touch Of Mrs Robinson, The Pheasantry ✭✭✭

I don’t know if A Touch of Mrs Robinson was trying to seduce me, but if it was, it didn’t quite work. Whilst being amusing in parts, it was musically rather flat. Whilst The Graduate superfans will certainly have fun, cabaret fans will see more interesting offerings elsewhere.

REVIEW: Dry Land, Jermyn Street Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This was one of the most demanding nights I have had in the theatre as reviewer or audience member in a long while, and that was wholly justified by the challenge and revelation of the play. We shall hear more of this author and these actors before long, to be sure.

REVIEW: Waste, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Barker's play is extraordinary, especially given that it was written over a century ago and revised by him in the late 20’s, the original having been banned from performance. The notions and complex philosophies which underline the narrative are as fresh, vital and important now as then. The need to invest in the future, to educate the young properly. The hopelessness of political cabals. The marginalisation of women. Double-standards in public life. The dirty compromises of party politics. The terror a true rebel with a proper cause can create in the complacent and borne to rule.

REVIEW: Vampire Hospital Waiting Room, Arts Theatre ✭✭✭

It is easy to see why Vampire Hospital Waiting Room was such a hit at the Fringe; it has a quirky cultish charm that makes it stand out from the crowd. It’s certainly not polished; at times it feels a bit like watching some mates messing around, but that is also a large part of its appeal.

REVIEW: Annie, New Wimbledon Theatre (On Tour) ✭✭✭✭

Thanks to this energetic reimagining, Annie can finally escape the chorus of groans that once accompanied its name. It’s once again acceptable to hum Charles Strouse’s Tomorrow (boy oh boy!) and soak up Thomas Meehan’s saccharine rags to riches story – just as I did when I was seven. Foster’s fast-paced and punchy production – touring the UK until June 2016 – has given one very old dog a fresh lease of life, bringing Annie back for a new, let’s face it, more discerning generation. And they’ve done so with gusto.

REVIEW: All On Her Own - Harlequinade, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The revival of Harlequinade, directed by Branagh and Ashford, now playing at the Garrick Theatre (in a 100 minute experience that includes All On Her Own and no intervals) is something of a revelation. Mostly, Harlequinade is seen in conjunction with The Browning Version, one of Rattigan’s masterpieces, usually as a curtain raiser. To my mind, that combination has never worked and Harlequinade has always seemed pale and irksome by comparison with The Browning Version. But, here, released from the curtain raiser position, placed directly in the spotlight, splendidly set up by the intense darkness of All On Her Own, the play can shine.

REVIEW: The Winter's Tale, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭✭

Dench's verse speaking is unrivalled. She picks each word and gives it full, accurate weight, landing the sense, purpose and exact emotion of every glittering phrase. She is wily, wise and wonderful. Her pained berating of Leontes when she tells him Hermione is dead is one of the greatest moments in theatre I have ever witnessed. So powerful, it knocks the breath from your body.

REVIEW: United We Stand, CLF Art Café ✭✭✭✭

United We Stand is a powerful refutation of this view and a reassertion of the continuing value of political theatre. Its channelling of moral passion, a powerful narrative, evocative music, self-aware humour, and a campaigning cause produces a compelling evening that earns and deserves respect.

Glenn Close at the English National Opera

Goodnight Mister Tom UK Tour 2016

Don't Miss These Great Christmas Shows

REVIEW: Elf, Dominion Theatre ✭✭✭

Elf is set to be a Christmas hit with adults and children alike. Whilst it lacks the magic of a family classic like Matilda, Elf will put even the biggest Scrooge in a fun and festive mood.

Jamie Lloyd to direct Uzo Aduba, Zawe Ashton and Laura Carmichael in The Maids

Tom - Tom Jones Musical UK Tour 2016

Elf! - New Show Trailer Released

REVIEW: Xanadu, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

Xanadu is a perfect show for an intimate venue like the Playhouse; a cultish and cheesy production that won over the audience through its energy and sense of fun. Taking a concept from a Razzie to a Tony is no mean feat – even an ugly duckling can become a theatrical swan.

REVIEW: The Father, Wyndhams Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

In the early stages of the play, this approach is both confronting and disarming. I found myself consulting the programme to check who was who before catching on to Zeller's conceit (as opposed to thinking I had missed something). Once you click into the right receptive mode, accept you will not understand everything, you are free to marvel at Kenneth Cranham's extraordinary performance as André and gain some understanding of what it is to have your wits challenged by Alzheimer's.

REVIEW: The Phantom Raspberry Blower, St James Theatre ✭✭✭

The Phantom Raspberry Blower will make you laugh and groan in equal measure. Whilst objectively the premise isn’t strong enough to sustain a two-hour production, the infectious enthusiasm of the cast makes for a fun, if frivolous, night.

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 Plays November 2015

REVIEW: RoosevElvis, Royal Court ✭✭✭✭

Despite its visual confusion at the outset, this is an extremely watchable piece of theatre. It is a must see this Autumn.

REVIEW: Piaf, Bridewell Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Given its inherent flaws, the play cannot hope to succeed without a powerhouse performance from its star and here Laasko has struck gold. Leigh is outstanding in every respect. Her voice is powerful and bewitching, full of throaty sensuality and ardent guttural flourishes. You have no trouble believing that she could sing loudly enough to be heard over the traffic on the streets of Paris.

REVIEW: Cats, London Palladium ✭✭✭

The audience on press night - with as many face-painted adults as children – loved it all. If you are looking for a reliable night out at the theatre with the full repertory of musical theatre technique on display then you will not be disappointed.

CRITICS CHOICE: The Top 10 New Musicals in London - November 2015

REVIEW: The Moderate Soprano, Hampstead Theatre ✭✭

What pleasure the play offers comes in the characters Hare has carved from fragments of history. Roger Allam, almost unrecognisable as John Christie, does a superb job, totally transforming himself into a funny, fussy, oddly dressed Opera lover. He makes eccentricity part of the fibre of Christie and superbly shows his extremes: his anger about Glyndebourne when things don’t go his way; his gentle adoration of Audrey; his unflappable belief in the inherent value of Opera as the most sublime aspect of humanity.

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 Long Running Shows in London - November 2015

Funny Girl Announces Transfer To Savoy Theatre

REVIEW: The Hairy Ape, Old Vic Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

O’Neill’s play has lost none of its power or resonance. It still feels as shocking and new today as no doubt it did in 1922. Jones’ revelatory and evocative production is not just beautiful to look at, easy to follow and enthralling – it also reminds that the questions of oppression, disparity and injustice which concerned O’Neill then are still pertinent. The world may not turn to the tune of industrialists quite so much in the 21st Century, but there is still a clear, powerful and rich elite and workers whose lives are made hideous while the rich get richer.

REVIEW : Thérèse Raquin, Studio 54 ✭✭✭✭

Cabnet's clear and perceptive direction is sound for the most part, and there is an emphasis on visual aspects of the production which make it something special. Thérèse, alone on a rock, contemplating escape; the awkward, near inept, murder of Camille followed by the images of the sodden lovers, breathless on dry land; Madame's hand creeping into view, just as the stroke fells her; the restless sense of Camille's spirit having possessed the bedroom where Thérèse and Laurent cuckolded him. Using silence as expressively as sound, Cabnet presides over a production rich in detail and incredibly tense to experience.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD TICKETS - TICKET UPDATE

Bend It Like Beckham - Save Over 75% On Great Seats

REVIEW: Sylvia, Cort Theatre ✭✭

There are many ways to read the play, but the most obvious is probably correct. Sylvia is a metaphor for a trophy girlfriend; she is someone Greg can use to make himself feel better about himself, rather than actually work on his own complex personality issues. Someone he can effectively cheat on with in front of his wife's eyes, that he can challenge her with, that he can use to bring his wife to heel.

REVIEW: Romeo And Juliet, Brockley Jack Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Despite some rough edges this was a continually thoughtful and engaging production that is targeted very deftly at those coming to the play for the first time. In the absence of traditional repertory theatre it is all the more important that productions such as this go on extensive tours to spread Shakespeare accessibly. We can only wish them well.

REVIEW: The Seagull, Chichester Festival Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Hare's adaptation, the best of the three in the Season, is crisp, charming and comical, thereby magnifying the effect of the more tragic aspects. It's a markedly short version of the play, and Kent assists the understanding of its contours and colours by interposing interval between Acts 3 and 4. This allows the four central characters of the play to stake out their positions, develop their tensions and alliances, their hopes, fears and dreams; by the time the third Act is over, the various dice have been rolled and Act Four, set two years on, is about consequences; chickens - or seagulls - coming home to roost.

REVIEW: Encounter, Above The Stag ✭✭✭✭✭

Evocations of famous films can tip over into parody or unintended comedy very easily but thanks to the skill of the writing and the carefully graded, fully inhabited acting, this production is a triumph on all fronts and deserves a very successful run.

REVIEW: Razzle Dazzle, Michael Riedel ✭✭✭✭✭

Michael Riedel is to be congratulated on this great history of Broadway. It’s a riveting read for any fan of musical theatre on the Great White Way. It brings all of the players in the great Broadway drama to life and regales the readers with those fabulous anecdotes and memories that true fans of Broadway die for.

REVIEW: Hey Old Friends, Theatre Royal Drury Lane ✭✭✭✭

There was a charming mix of reverence and irreverence as well, making the audience feel specially entertained and complicit with the in-jokes. The warm up prelude, People Who Like Sondheim (performed with zing by Kit and McConnel) was good fun and the duo appeared throughout as a kind of Sondheim Statler and Waldorf with witty and barbed repartee. In the second Act though, one of the unarguable surprise sensations of the evening was a five minute romp through 33 Sondheim compositions, "Ladies and gentlemen may we have your attention please..." presented with real style and panache by Martin Milnes and Dominic Ferris. These cabaret contributions provided some much needed innovative content.

REVIEW: Platonov, Chichester Festival Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Another sumptuous production of a superb Hare adaptation of an unwieldy and slightly schizophrenic early Chekhov work, made just that much more glorious by a committed cast and the undeniable star presence of James McArdle.

REVIEW: Titus Andronicus, New Wimbledon Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Titus Andronicus is not one of Shakespeare’s finest plays, but Arrow and Traps’ Theatre Company do a splendid job with their adrenaline fuelled, and often nightmarish interpretation. The excellent choreography, universally strong performances and nicely observed modern touches means that if you can stomach the premise, the production’s not to missed.

REVIEW: Clarion, Arcola Theatre ✭✭

Mark Jagasia not only fails to carry that stick, but it’s too heavy for him to pick up in the first place. “Clarion,” now playing at the Arcola, is the broadest bit of anti-newspaper criticism that’s been on the stage in years, and that includes the National’s crack at phone hacking, Great Britain.

REVIEW: Ivanov, Chichester Festival Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Honesty, as David Hare points out, is the dominating theme of Ivanov. It is also the dominating principle adopted by Jonathan Kent as the guiding light for his revival of Ivanov, now playing at the Chichester Festival Theatre as part of their Young Chekhov season. The performances he elicits from the specially formed repertory company are intensely honest, truly felt, and they create a theatrical tapestry which is rich in detail and unsparing in terms of vitality and verity.

REVIEW: Kathy Kirby Icon, White Bear Theatre ✭✭

Biopics are not easy to get right, however despite two sterling efforts at The White Bear, neither of them really hit the mark. Whilst it will no doubt be of some interest to Kirby’s fans, it may be a less inspiring evening for anyone else.

REVIEW: The Humans, Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre ✭✭✭

There are two ways in which Karam's work steps up to the mark: the dialogue is believable and genuine, splendidly touching in places; the narrative is uncompromising, as families so often are. There are no pat solutions or happy endings here - just a slice of suburban transitional life. This has the result that if the play is to achieve any momentum or purpose, it is the cast which must embellish the material with remarkable, penetrating and utterly believable performances. Happily, the cast with which Mantello animates Karam's work is, without exception, first rate.

Theatre Talk - 2015 Fall Season Preview

Behind The Scenes - Cast Recording Of Elf The Musical

Private Lives 2016 UK Tour Tickets

REVIEW: The Tempest, Eel Brook Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Director Brandon Force and movement director Liam Steward-George deserve great credit for creating such a dynamic and detailed production with continual visual, choreographic and textual exploration at its heart.

Gareth Gates Plays Willard In Footloose Tour 2016

REVIEW: Dames At Sea, Helen Hayes Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Dames at Sea, the work of George Haimsohn and Robin Miller (Book and Lyrics) and Jim Wise (Score), is well known as the off-Broadway hit from 1968 which launched the star of one Bernadette Peters into the Broadway stratosphere. It has been surprisingly absent from Broadway stages and this revival is a timely one, coming, as it does, amongst a season where Broadway houses are playing host to very serious and intense works (plays and musicals).

REVIEW: The Black Book, Sargent Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This is a dynamic, challenging and gripping piece of dramatic theatre. It's confronting in a number of ways, especially if you have known someone who took their own life. There are sections full of lyrical beauty, others dripping with trenchant scepticism. Sometimes it is easiest to listen to the actors rather than watch them, because the subject matter is so close to the bone.

REVIEW: The Full Monty, Churchill Theatre (On Tour) ✭✭✭✭

The Full Monty is a masterclass of British writing and its energy and sensitivity transfers smoothly to the stage. It’s raucous and crude but also a lot of fun – if it’s touring in your area then it’s well worth a visit.

REVIEW: First Daughter Suite, Anspacher Theatre, The Public ✭✭✭✭✭

It would be unsurprising if First Daughter Suite constituted a significant hat-trick for the Public, following, as it does, in the footsteps of Fun Home (which won the Tony Award for Best Musical) and Hamilton (which surely will win that Tony Award this year). It is a mature, sophisticated, joyful and challenging musical work, hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure. It's a triumph, unquestionably.

REVIEW: The Wars Of The Roses: Richard III, Rose Theatre ✭✭✭

Maybe we were all weary at the end of a full day of theatre; maybe, and with ample justification, the cast were flagging after appearances in different roles in the previous two parts of the trilogy, but whatever the explanation Richard III seemed something of an anti-climax rather than a natural culmination of this notable revival of the Barton/Hall Wars of the Roses.

REVIEW: Sunny Afternoon, Harold Pinter Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The Kinks frontman Ray Davies joined many famous faces at the Harold Pinter Theatre to celebrate the first birthday of his co-creation. Based on this showing, it’ll be around for some time to come.

REVIEW: The Wars Of The Roses: Edward IV, Rose Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Suffice to say that Barton and Hall attempt to clarify the bewildering blizzard of switched allegiances, broken promises and inconclusive battles that form the later section of Shakespeare’s Henry plays, and largely succeed in doing so.

REVIEW: Plaques and Tangles, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs ✭✭✭

As Young Megan, whom we first meet when she is recovering from the one-night-stand night before, is brought to complex, life-embracing realisation in a startlingly good performance by Rosalind Eleazar. Eleazar makes every moment sing with honesty, and sets up beautifully the challenges Megan will face/ignore/be overcome by in her life. Her scenes with Robert Lonsdale's Young Jez are far and away the most involving of the production.

REVIEW: Looking For Lansbury, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Looking for Lansbury is a fitting tribute to one of the finest British actors of her generation. The show offers education and entertainment for everyone; whether you’re a Lansbury lover or just want a fun evening.

REVIEW: The Gin Game, Golden Theatre ✭✭✭

Both actors here are doing something quite different from a drawing room comedy. They are trying to make a point and, bravely, one that extends beyond the Caucasian community. Ill-treatment of women is everywhere and it must be stopped - that is what this version of The Gin Game screams. It's just that no one seems to be listening.

REVIEW: She Called Me Mother, Stratford Circus Arts Theatre ✭✭✭✭

There is a great deal to admire about She Called Me Mother, a play which gives a voice to the homeless and victims of abuse. Funny, poignant, and often distressing, Michelle Inniss’s debut piece explores her characters’ memories to compellingly visceral effect.

REVIEW: Ripcord, New York City Centre Stage 1 ✭✭✭

Holland Taylor is in exceptional form as the coiled, steely Abby. She manages to humanise a thoroughly inhuman creature, making her likeable despite Abby's more loathsome attributes. This is a real testament to Taylor's finely honed skills - she truly makes something out of nothing. In particular, in one key scene, late in the play, she is marvellously unsentimental when the text (and the audience the night I was there) seems to beg for maudlin excess.

REVIEW: Master Of The Macabre, The Vaults Waterloo ✭✭

Master of the Macabre, now showing at The Vaults Theatre until 1 November, is a curious and entertaining evening. There are some fun thrills and tricks along the way, but ultimately it sort of falls flat, when it comes to its story and delivery.

REVIEW: What Am I Doing?, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Whilst I don’t think What Am I Doing?: Tales From a Worrying Actor quite fulfilled its promise of exploring the essence of worrying, Gregory Hazel’s easy charisma, coupled with consistently entertaining anecdotes, made for an enjoyable one man show. Constructed as a collection of songs and monologues, the show thrives on Hazel’s ability to poke fun at himself. Though the music sometimes lacked a personal touch, his storytelling offered a memorable insight into the absurdities of his profession, and its associated anxieties.

REVIEW: The Bandstand, Papermill Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

Director Andy Blankenbuehler has achieved something remarkable and electrifying here. Together with David Korins (Scenic design), Jeff Croiter (Lighting design) and Paloma Young (Costume design), Blankenbuehler creates a theatrical language and feel which is seductive and powerful. At most times, the sense of theatre, music and war co-exist, permanently reminding of the scars of battle borne by the musicians whose story lies at the heart of the musical. Occasionally scenes or vignettes jolt you from the happy place of clubs and nightspots swinging and evoke a world of dog tags and distress. It's smoothly and smartly done; perfectly executed.

REVIEW: In The Heights, King's Cross Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

In sum this is a show that deserves all the plaudits that have come its way and should receive a long run both at the King’s Cross Theatre and in even larger West End venues.

Full Cast Announced For Funny Girl at Menier

Full casting has been announced for the sell-out season of Funny Girl being produced at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Adrian Lester Joins Kenneth Branagh Company In Red Velvet

Kinky Boots Extends Until 28 May 2016

Disney's Aladdin Heads To West End

REVIEW: The Wars Of The Roses- Henry VI, Rose Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Henry VI stands out as the play in this triptych that most benefits from Barton’s editing and clarifications. Characters and scenes are cut away in profusion to reveal a focus on the nature of good and bad governance.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 2016 Tour Tickets

Close To You - New Trailer Released

REVIEW: Coming Up, Watford Palace Theatre ✭✭✭

Coming Up is a play that tries to do many different things and scores more hits than misses. With some judicious editing, it could serve as one of the more innovative portrayals of identity issues and cultural chases.

REVIEW: Close To You, Criterion Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Trying to highlight individual performances or individual songs is pointless, this is a show to be savoured as whole, not just once but many times.

REVIEW: Club Gelbe Stern, Laurie Beechman Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Now playing at the Laurie Beecham Theatre is a remarkable piece of musical theatre, Club Gelbe Stern, written by Alexis Fishman and James Miller, and directed by Sharone Havely. It delves directly into the fear and horror of being Jewish and talented just as the Swatsika began its control of German breath. Through song, chutzpah and gritty, poignant narrative, Club Gelbe Stern weaves a hard-hitting tapestry: sex, joy, heart-break, grim reality, defiance and, ultimately, hope.

REVIEW: Leader Of The Pack, Waterloo East Theatre ✭✭✭

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in Legends UK Tour

REVIEW: Metamorphoses, Earl Haig Hall ✭✭✭✭✭

Metamorphoses plays through the rest of October, every Thursday to Sunday, and though Earl Haig Hall is in deepest darkest Crouch End, do not let the journey phase you. Take every train, tube, and bus necessary to go see this production. It is a must see.

REVIEW: Blackout, Drayton Arms Theatre ✭✭

REVIEW: Volpone, Brockley Jack ✭✭✭

Everyone involved in this production acted with commitment and a good sense of pace and projection within this intimate space, but the success of the whole remains fundamentally dependent on mastery of a refractory text that like Volpone’s gold, flatters to deceive, unless the actor is very careful.

Let It Be UK Tour

The Let It Be UK Tour returns in 2018 bringing Beatlemania back to a theatre near you. Celebrate the music of The Beatles with a new updated version of the acclaimed show Let It Be.

REVIEW: The Merchant Of Venice, Ambassadors Theatre ✭✭✭

While the emotional wattage did not burn as brightly as it might, and while we were never really made to feel fully uncomfortable with either issues or text as we should, it provides a showcase for many players of real talent.

REVIEW: Amazing Grace, Nederlander Theatre ✭✭

While the tunes and harmonies for the new material might not be memorable, the orchestrations and playing is first rate. Kenny Seymour and Joseph Church, together with the 13 piece orchestra led by Aaron Jodoin, make great, evocative and stirring sounds. And when the title tune finally comes, the fusion of its simple majesty, the brilliant harmonisations of the cast and the clever arrangements, see the whole musical end on an intensely satisfying note.

REVIEW: Romance Romance, Landor Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This is an intriguing and valuable revival with some very solid performances at its heart. I am not fully persuaded that this double-bill has earned a lasting niche in the repertory, but the performers make a persuasive and consistently attractive case for it.

REVIEW: Old Times, American Airlines Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Where Hodge does elect for difference is in the manner of playing. No low-key, slow boil quiet broiling here. No, the parts are played with vigour, brasher than you would expect to see on an English stage or one that thought Pinter was wrapped in mothballs. The result is the sexy edge is more angular, the stakes are higher, the comedy quite a bit funnier. All deliberately so. It reaps rewards often, but perhaps best of all in the sequence where the theft of underwear is discussed, or the body in the bed is remembered or the show tunes are so badly serviced. This is brave on Hodge's part looked at one way; looked at another, it is simply just doing it.

REVIEW: Spring Awakening, Brooks Atkinson Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Quite simply, it is one of the most perfectly conceived, cast and executed productions of a musical on any stage anywhere in the world. It's shocking, brutal, brilliant and beautiful, all at once; like any good date, it is sexy, funny, serious and well worth a whole hearted investment

REVIEW: Roaring Trade, Park Theatre ✭✭✭

So for all the efforts of the actors to make their characters more rounded and sympathetic this play tells us more about the anger in the air after the events of 2008 than it gives pointers to how we should think of the world of Canary Wharf in the future.

In The Heights - First Look Gallery

REVIEW: Thriller Live, Lyric Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The choreography is by far the strongest aspect of Thriller; it is inventive, exhilarating and almost exhausting to watch. It incorporates the traditional Jackson moves (including the moonwalks) whilst still providing a fresh, fun and radical approach.

Simon Lipkin To Play The Lorax At Old Vic

Les Miserables 30th Birthday Celebrations

Sheffield Showboat Extends By Popular Demand

Eddie Izzard Brings Force Majeure To Palace Theatre

Finding Neverland - Lunt Fontanne Theatre

Mrs Henderson Presents Transfers To Noel Coward Theatre

Dames At Sea - Helen Hayes Theatre

REVIEW: Fool For Love, Samuel J Friedman Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Central to the power of the the production is the exquisite casting of the two doomed lovers, Eddie and May. Nina Arianda, a fan of this play since her very youngest days, is utterly superb as Eddie. Powerfully sensual, impossibly attractive, but just as impossibly earthy and ordinary, Arianda presents a deeply physiological performance which plays out through intense physical theatre. Remarkably, Sam Rockwell matches Arianda's intensity and notches it up a level. He exudes a sexual intensity which is overwhelming, laces it with pain and indecision and then overlays that with testosterone cowboy tropes which somehow seem utterly fresh, real and dangerous.

On Your Feet - Marquis Theatre

The Lion King - Minskoff Theatre Broadway

Broadway sensation, The Lion King is an epic tale beloved by young and old. It is now Broadways 4th Longest running show with over 80 million people having seen the show worldwide.

School Of Rock - Winter Garden Theatre

Kinky Boots - Al Hirscfeld Theatre

Matilda - Shubert Theatre

Les Miserables - Imperial Theatre

Jersey Boys - August Wilson Theatre

Chicago - Ambassadors Theatre

Kander and Ebb's Chicago is the longest-running American musical in Broadway history now playing at the Ambassador Theatre.

The Book Of Mormon - Eugene O'Neill Theatre Broadway

The Book Of Mormon Broadway remains a hot ticket eight years after the show first opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

Peter Pan - Adelphi Theatre - One Day Only!

REVIEW: 46 Beacon, Hope Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It is clear from the start that this play – which runs straight through for eighty minutes – is potentially a drama about coming-out and sexual initiation, and indeed it becomes both of those things. But it is a tribute to the skill of the writing and the actors that it becomes a lot more than that too.

Beautiful - The Stephen Sondheim Theatre

Beautiful now playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre is the story of legendary singer/songwriter Carole King, a girl from Brooklyn with a dream.

An American In Paris - The Palace Theatre

Aladdin - New Amsterdam Theatre

Disney's Aladdin noiw playing at the New Amsterdam Theatre is one of Broadway's most successful productions

Mr Foote's Other Leg Transfers to Theatre Royal Haymarket

World Premiere Of Arthur Miller Play At Old Red Lion

Hangmen Transfers to Wyndhams Theatre

First Look At Pixie Lott as Holly Golightly

REVIEW: The Great Gatsby, Greenwich Theatre ✭✭✭

This reimagining of The Great Gatsby has to be commended for trying something very new and different. However, the musical innovations generally distracted from rather than enhanced the text; it was the brilliant source material and some solid acting performances that really made it sing.

INTERVIEW: Kyle Riabko on Close To You

Russell And Hancock Cast in Grey Gardens Musical

Casting Announced For Around The World In 80 Days

REVIEW: Pure Imagination: A Sorta-Biography by Leslie Bricusse ✭✭✭✭✭

The book is laid out like a sorta-score. There is an Overture, large chapters which form 'the key changes of (Bricusse's) life' - from A Minor to G Undiminished and a Coda. The sense of musicality is all pervading, as it should be for the man responsible for tunes such as Goldfinger, The Candy Man, Feeling Good and Talk To The Animals. As Elton John puts it in one of 6 Superstar forewords: "Anyone who has written What Kind Of Fool Am I? and My Old Man's A Dustman should be revered forever."

REVIEW: Crushed Shells and Mud, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭

Crushed Shells and Mud starts well and features some wonderful performances. However, somewhere in the second half it unfortunately gets well and truly stuck.

Thriller Live UK Tour

The Thriller Live UK Tour continues whilst the Thriller West End production continues to shatter records. Book Now!

REVIEW: Nell Gwynn, Globe Theatre ✭✭✭

While there are more serious moments to be found in this play, especially focused on the opportunities for women in the new theatre of the 1660s, there is no point pressing too far for layers of deep meaning in this frothy confection

REVIEW: Horniman's Choice, Finborough Theatre ✭✭✭✭

All in all this is a revival very much deserving of support. You reward will be some genuinely fine ensemble acting and some neglected writing that you can explore again at leisure in the texts generously provided in the programme.

REVIEW: West End Heroes, Dominion Theatre ✭✭✭✭

West End Heroes wisely avoided making the concert a remembrance festival; instead it was a celebration of the brilliant talent within both the military and the UK theatre scene. Director Tim Marshall said he wanted to offer a ‘great night out’; by that standard the production passed with flying (military) colours.

REVIEW: The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, Westside Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Lecesne has a winning charm and a cast-iron technique, so his spinning wheel presentation of a myriad of small town character types is absolutely engaging and subtly preaching. You never lose track of which character is speaking. He tells the tale in a beguiling way, never down-playing the atrocity at its heart but also, more fairly than is perhaps necessary, showing the humanity and humour in the positions of the other characters.

REVIEW: Eventide, Arcola Theatre Studio 2 ✭✭✭

This is a genial, quietly satisfying set of reflections on how hard rural life can be and how mostly distant it has always been from any kind of Arcadian idyll or vision of pastoral. Rates of depression and suicide are higher in rural than in urban Britain and in its gently insistent way this play provides valuable, sober insights for those of us living in towns as to how and why this should be so.

REVIEW: Stitching, White Bear Theatre ✭✭✭

Stitching is an interesting and challenging play, undermined by a late twist, but still engaging. There are a number of moments which will take some people aback, and one or two lines will court controversy, which is unsurprising given the play’s chequered performance history. Nevertheless, the strong cast and superb staging are enough to justify giving it a go, though there is no doubt the play will elicit a wide range of reactions.

REVIEW: Nobody's Business, Kings Head Theatre ✭✭✭

Part Felicity Kendall, part Carol Channing, with just a soupçon of Jo Grant (The Doctor Who companion she first played about forty five years ago) and legs that most 30 year olds would kill for, Manning is a revelation. Watching her in this fatuous nonsense makes you pine to see her Judith Bliss, Miss Prism or Mistress Quickly: the potential that Manning has available to be mined is vast. There is something both astoundingly individual and comfortingly familiar about her: she soothes, inspires and captivates.

REVIEW: Valhalla, Theatre 503 ✭✭✭✭

Valhalla is an intense and gripping production, which showed its class in very difficult circumstances. Whilst the ending could do with some work, it is clever and thought provoking enough to warrant a longer run elsewhere.

REVIEW: 5 Guys Chillin', King's Head Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It both shines a light on a corner of society which is misunderstood and unfairly vilified and, examines the rules, conventions, habits and language of a particular form of sexual expression. When you realise, as I did at some point in the latter part of the play, that the kinds of experiences the characters were discussing were the sorts of experiences that might be discussed in a football locker room or a banker's pub on a Friday night or a Hen's do in Malaga - not the specifics, obviously, but the spectrum of experiences, desires and passions - you appreciate the real value of works like this.

REVIEW: The Sweethearts, Finborough Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The Sweethearts is a truly fascinating play, and I am certain that Sarah Page has a very bright future as a playwright. The theme of heroism is particularly closely examined, and explored to brilliantly cynical effect. Coupled with involving dialogue and a universally excellent cast, The Sweethearts makes for an unforgettable and thought-provoking performance

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 Plays October 2015

Derren Brown's Miracle 2016 UK Tour

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 Long Running Shows in London - October 2015

The Wind In The Willows Announced Pre-West End Dates

Something Rotten – St James Theatre

REVIEW: Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, Apollo Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

If you attend the theatre regularly, you will undoubtedly have encountered that rare, awful, but entirely exquisite, moment when an actor dries, a prop fails, a door doesn't open or a dress falls apart. You will recognise the peculiar, particular moment of fused horror and wonder that flickers across the features of the cast as some battle to keep going and others try, usually hopelessly, to stifle laughter. Showstopper! thrives on such moments; indeed, in a way, the adrenalin from the uncertainty about the choice another actor will make fuels the comedy and creativity.

Madam Butterfly Returns Comes To Landor Theatre

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 New Musicals October 2015

Four Minutes Twelve Seconds Transfers To Trafalgar Studios

INTERVIEW: Dean Chisnall On Playing Shrek

REVIEW: Pure Imagination, St James Theatre ✭✭✭

Bricusse's output is so prodigious and so tuneful that only the tone deaf would not find lots of numbers here satisfying and delicious. Many will find something to enjoy in every song, and certainly Musical Director, Michael England, does a terrific job accompanying the singers with a six piece band (including England on piano) that does real justice to England's arrangements. As ever, there could have been more strings to swell the underscoring, but that is a small quibble.

Harry Potter Play To Be Presented In Two Parts

Mack and Mabel UK Tour 2015

Puppetry Of The Penis UK Tour 2016

Casting Announced for Closer To Heaven Return Season

In The Heights - Rehearsal Images Released

REVIEW: Hamilton Broadway Cast Recording ✭✭✭✭✭

Glenn Close In Sunset Boulevard – Tickets Now On Sale

REVIEW: Martyr, Unicorn Theatre ✭✭✭

This is an unsettling rather than disturbing night at the theatre that raises more questions than it can readily answer, and part of trouble lies in the way those questions are posed. However, this is terrain where few convincing pathways are currently discernible and where few playwrights have dared to tread at all. The subject and theme still awaits its Voltaire, its Shaw or even perhaps its David Hare.

REVIEW: Jane Eyre, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This is a fully compelling night at the theatre. You do not feel the time dragging and can only be impressed at the way the cast finds new meanings in material that we all think we know backwards. This is a true ensemble production with scope for individuals to shine and the whole to resonate with something greater than their individual contributions too. It impressed hugely, made me laugh often, but in the second half rarely touched me as it should.

Lucy O’Byrne Joins Sound Of Music UK Tour

REVIEW: Pomona, National Theatre ✭✭

I willing to concede that I have may have missed a great deal, and certainly the mainly youngish audience loved it on press night; but to me this was ultimately a preposterous mish-mash of possibilities that never gelled. The Emperor never deigned to wear any clothes for long enough for us to care about any of the characters or gain a sense of thrill or sustained absorption from the situations evoked.

Strictly Come Dancing Arena Tour 2016

Billy Elliot UK Tour

The Last Tango UK Tour 2015-16

REVIEW: The Book Of Mormon, Prince Of Wales Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The Book of Mormon begins long before you step into the theatre. London is adorned with its posters, our offices echo with remembered jokes and songs. As you enter Leicester Square, you are bottlenecked towards the Prince of Wales – particularly if there’s a film premiere – and when you step up to the theatre, you are encircled by queues for entry and ticket collection alike. The atmosphere is spellbinding, and the weight of expectation is colossal. I’m delighted to say that my expectations were met.

Peppa Pigs Surprise UK Tour 2015-16

REVIEW: Bette Midler And Me, Upstairs At The Gatehouse ✭✭✭

This is certainly a must-see show for Midler fans and thanks to an energetic cast and some sparkling tunes there’s plenty to keep everyone else entertained as well.

Closer To Heaven Returns To Union Theatre

Full Casting Announced For Guys And Dolls

REVIEW: The Cocktail Party, Print Room At The Coronet ✭✭✭✭

There are many more layers both to this play and to this production that deserve further comment, but which lie beyond the reach of a relatively brief review. Suffice to say that this production makes a very well thought-through case for revisiting Eliot’s plays as a whole, and serves to remind us that there is a lot more important drama to his name than the one work we all know – namely Cats – which of course he never intended for the stage.

REVIEW: Dinner With Saddam, Menier Chocolate Factory ✭

When the climax to Act One involves a slapstick shovel-on-head knockout blow, a suit splitting across the central character's back, and Steven Berkoff finally making his entrance, heavily made up as Saddam Hussein, you know that there is no point staying for the second Act. Nothing can make up for the time which you have lost while enduring Act One. Death is far too close, whatever your age, to fritter time away on profitless theatrical misjudgment. Fleeing is wise.

Jamie Lloyd Directs 50th Anniversary Production of The Homecoming

REVIEW: The White Feather, The Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The White Feather is everything musical theatre should be – it will make you think deeply about bravery, war and the nature of humanity all the way home. If there is any justice this exciting production will be given a longer run or a second home so it gets the wider viewing it deserves.

REVIEW: Mr Foote's Other Leg, Hampstead Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The Hampstead season has all but sold out, if not actually sold out. Make every effort to grab a return. The production really ought to transfer to the West End and run and run, preferably at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. To see this rich plum pudding of a play in the theatre which is closest to the place where Foote worked his magic, and which bears the name of Foote’s own passion, would be really something.

REVIEW: Kinky Boots, Adelphi Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Lennox is sensational as Lauren, the whacky factory girl who flirts with and eventually wins the heart of the Boss. It is a comic tour-de-force from Lennox who doesn’t miss a trick, let a laugh opportunity pass or do anything at less than dynamite power levels. She completely steals every scene she is in and her hilarious solo, The History of Wrong Guys, is the first moment in the show then you think that Lauper might be up to the task of composing a Broadway score. Start engraving that Olivier Award now, because if there is any justice Lennox will be a shoe in.

REVIEW: The Ward Of The Manor, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

There is a long tradition of performance of classic Russian-language theatre in Ukraine that dates back to Stanislavski, and one of the great rewards of this current residency is to see how rich that dramatic tradition still remains.

REVIEW: Casa Valentina, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

As directed by Luke Sheppard, Casa Valentino is a play about a marriage. Everything turns on the central relationship between George (Edward Wolstenholme) and Rita (Tamsin Carroll). They have an unconventional marriage. She married him knowing that he liked to dress in women’s' clothing; indeed, she has fostered and supported his desire because she loves him. She is content for his dress-wearing self to be the prettiest girl in their marriage. She welcomes, supports and mothers the other men who come to rent rooms in their weekend guesthouse and unleash their inner woman. A Weekend In The Country with a difference.

TICKET ALERT: More tickets for Judi Dench in The Winter's Tale On Sale Now

REVIEW: Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Minerva Theatre Chichester ✭✭✭✭

There are many extraordinary moments from Keenan. Highlights include his improvisation of horse-racing victories; the powerful sequence which opens the second Act when Edward is openly defying his captors and refusing to eat; the absurd, but incredibly touching, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" scene, where he and David Haig's Michael pretend they are flying over Europe, heading home; the silent, aching horror when he dresses to leave. All of these moments are superbly judged by Keenan, incisive and absorbing. The haunted look his eyes develop over the course of the play is quite remarkable, and will linger with you afterwards.

REVIEW: F*ck The Polar Bears, Bush Theatre ✭✭

It feels like a farce as it plays out. Yet, it is described as "a raucous family drama about the cost of living the life of our dreams". Bizarre and incomprehensible things happen to the characters and their domain, but mainly they are not played for laughs. The acting style, for the most part, tends to realism, even though the situation is not realistic. There is such earnestness about the acting that the laughs are few and restrained, and it is difficult to be absorbed in the narrative.

Close To You - New Trailer Released

Hapgood By Tom Stoppard Comes To Hampstead Theatre

Crush - A New Musical on Tour

REVIEW: And Then Come The Nightjars, Theatre 503 ✭✭✭✭

We encounter rural Britain more frequently through soaps – Emmerdale and The Archers – than on the stage. This is a missed opportunity for writers and for this reason alone this new play by Bea Roberts is a welcome and unusual joint-winner of the first Theatre 503 Writing Award. This month it receives a run in London before heading off to the Bristol Old Vic, which co-sponsors the production.

Happy Birthday Agatha Christie

REVIEW: Ushers, Arts Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This inventiveness, as well as some first-class performances, helped make Ushers a very enjoyable night. However, its frequent theatrical references and in-jokes mean you need some level of background knowledge to really get the most out of it. For this reason, whilst it will never be a mass market crowdpleaser, I could easily see Ushers becoming a cult hit.

Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company Release Sexy Season Trailer

REVIEW: Side By Side By Sondheim, Brockley Jack Theatre ✭✭✭

Side by Side by Sondheim benefits from some superb material and a rock solid cast. It’s a warm and friendly production, perfect for a gloomy September night.

New Mary Poppins Movie Sequel Announced

REVIEW: Photograph 51, Noel Coward Theatre ✭✭

It is important to be clear about Kidman's failures because the character she plays, Rosalind Franklin, at least in the version of history which Ziegler endorses in her script, is a towering figure in the unlocking of the DNA double helix, a woman betrayed, belittled and beaten by a pack of self-serving, sanctimonious and utterly vile men. For the play to work, Kidman's character needs to be inspirational, complicated, difficult, extraordinary; coming across as a mediocre functionary is simply not enough.

REVIEW: The Man Who Had All The Luck, Kings Head Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Arthur Miller was born a hundred years ago. A centenary is about discovering work afresh if it is about anything and the King’s Head deserve great credit for choosing to commemorate this great writer, not through one of plays with which we are very familiar, but with a less-well known but not lesser work that still speaks to us powerfully.

Dogfight in Concert at St James Theatre

REVIEW: The Sum Of Us, Above The Stag Theatre ✭✭✭✭

One part of the mission of Above the Stag is to remind us of notable plays on gay themes that have not always received the attention they deserved, or whose continuing topicality and universal value needs restating. The Sum of Us by David Stevens falls very much within both these categories, and now receives a welcome fresh production at the launch of the autumn season.

Danny Boyle Presents Star Studded Dramatic Fund-Raiser

REVIEW: See What I Wanna See, Jermyn Street Theatre ✭✭✭

Marc Elliott is the one cast member who seems to understand this and he completely subsumed himself in his dual roles of Thief and Reporter. Sinewy, handsome, bristling with electric sensuality in the first act, Elliott is superb. In some ways, his more complex turn as the lost Reporter, a vain, pretty and confused modern man is the superior performance. Both, though, are clever, thoughtful turns, and Elliott's voice is equal to the demands of the score. He is proving to be a serious player in the field of musical theatre in London.

First Look At New Cast Of Sunny Afternoon

Oompa Loompas Set Loose at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Goodnight Mister Tom at the Duke Of York's Theatre

REVIEW: Future Conditional, Old Vic ✭✭✭✭

There is a joy to this piece that is impossible to truly describe in words—it has the boisterous nature of Spring Awakening (the musical) but without sung through moments, although the two school uniformed guitarists who make up the pit (or rather balcony) band certainly make you wonder when Melchior is going to come on stage with his wireless hand mic. But where Spring Awakening digs into the cold, Future Conditional runs to the warmth of the cliched hearth.

Buy Tickets To Matilda and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

American Idiot Cast Release 9/11 Tribute

Valhalla Comes To Theatre 503

Casting Announced for Roaring Trade at Park Theatre

5 Guys Chillin' At The Kings Head This October

Casting Announced for Crushed Shells and Mud at Southwark Playhouse.

First Look At The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

Tooting Arts Club Presents Barbarians

Graham Norton Hosts West End Bares

REVIEW: Song From Far Away, Young Vic ✭✭

Stephens shares writing credits for Song From Far Away with Mark Eitzel who provides the lyrics and music for a haunting, quite beautiful song, pieces of which punctuate the action. The song has a repeat motif: Go where the love is, Where the love is go. In its own way, that repeat motif provides the key to Willem. You can't help but feel that if the character had simply paid attention to the song, no one would have had to endure the 80 minute self-flagellation.

REVIEW: Dusty The Musical, Charing Cross Theatre ✭

Whilst there are a few moments of quality, Dusty’s hackneyed script and awkward staging means not even the son of a preacher man could save it. The show is now on its third director and has seen nine cast members head for the exits; you can’t help thinking that they had the right idea.

REVIEW: Hatched 'N' Dispatched, Park 90 ✭✭✭✭

This play can be seen as a saucy romp or as something rather more unexpectedly melancholy than that; but either way it is a thoroughly absorbing evening, and you really don't feel the passage of time at all.

Rattigan's French Without Tears At Orange Tree

Show Boat Comes To Sheffield Theatres

Close To You Bacharach Reimagined Transfers To West End

Wicked Extends Booking Period To November 2016

Horniman's Choice at The Finborough Theatre

REVIEW: Absent, Shoreditch Town Hall ✭✭✭

Absent is a bit like a night in a Travelodge – it does the job and gives you an interesting night but you leave feeling like you could have had something a bit more…

REVIEW: The Jewish Legends, Gatehouse Upstairs ✭✭✭

In the bout of the two Jewish musicals revues, I’d have to give it to Never Succeed on points, due to its more inventive staging and varied songlist. The Jewish Legends is a great vehicle for four very talented singers. However, the concept and script is muddled and bloated – as a famous Gentile once sang a little less conversation a little more action!

REVIEW: Flare Path, Richmond Theatre (UK Tour) ✭✭✭

Flare Path centres on the fears and frustrations that derive from an interminable war, seen through the eyes of three married couples. Although its central love triangle can be more distracting than compelling, overall this is a fine production with a host of excellent performances and an admirably tense atmosphere.

The Sweethearts Casting Announced

David Hasselhoff Visits Jersey Boys

In The Heights Casting Announced

REVIEW: McQueen, Theatre Royal Haymarket ✭✭✭✭

The play triumphantly uncovers and re-asserts McQueen’s credo that design is at its best an act of love of the person – a summing up of who that man or woman was, is and may become – and therefore lies, paradoxically, in the mind as much as purely in the visual sense. It was for this reason that Alexander McQueen chose the Shakespeare line that heads this review to wear as a tattoo – a blazon for his time, and – surely – for all our times.

Jim Broadbent Stars in A Christmas Carol

REVIEW: The Medium and The Wanton Sublime, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

And so to the culmination of the contemporary opera section of the Grimeborn Festival, a double-bill in the form of Peter Maxwell Davies’ The Medium and The Wanton Sublime, a new work by Tarik O’Regan, to a libretto by Anna Rabinowitz. Robert Shaw directed both operas and the Orpheus Sinfonia conducted by Andrew Griffiths accompanied the second half. The house was sold-out in anticipation of an evening of musicianship of high quality – an expectation that was by-and-large fulfilled.

REVIEW: Our House, Union Theatre ✭✭✭

While this is a deserved revival of an intriguing show, the core material remains in some respects unsatisfactory, and the scale of the show is not a great fit with the location. If this sounds churlish, then that is only because in musical theatre – as in opera – for the whole to succeed to best advantage the list of parts that need to be in great shape is a long and exacting one.

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 New London Plays - September 1, 2015

REVIEW: Henry V, Temple Church ✭✭✭✭

It is very rare that a company integrates a new concept so thoroughly into a Shakespeare play – too often it is merely gestural – but here the level of attention to detail is hugely impressive and imaginative while still sitting comfortably with the spirit of the original.

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 West End Musicals - September 1, 2015

ATG Acquires Five USA Venues

Theater Talk Interview - Kinky Boots - Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper

REVIEW: Raz, Assembly George Square Studios ✭✭✭✭

Social commentary aside, RAZ takes us on an entertaining rollercoaster of a ride through the joys, frustrations and heartache of the kind of night-out that happens every weekend not just in Lancashire but in towns and cities around Britain.

REVIEW: Hendrick's Emporium of Sensorial Submersion, Edinburgh ✭✭✭

Hendrick’s Gin is a familiar name on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but this year it returned with a theatrical experience called the Emporium of Sensorial Submersion, staged across three floors of a Georgian Grade A-listed townhouse in George Street. Part of the Fringe programme with a cast of actors, it is a sensory experience that is illuminating, entertaining and often bewildering.

REVIEW: Love Birds, Pleasance Courtyard ✭✭✭✭

Love Birds is a real hoot but, at 60 minutes, it is clearly a work in progress, squeezing in well over a dozen different songs while giving us just the skeleton of the plot and characters. After its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it will be interesting to see how Robbie Sherman and his team develop the show and spread its wings.

REVIEW: Swallow, Traverse Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This powerful production, sharply directed by Orla O'Loughlin, is a highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe and another demonstration of Smith’s skill at capturing the struggle and hope of everyday lives.

REVIEW: Tomorrow, Traverse Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It is a powerful show that leaves you with unforgettable images and an uncompromising vision of old age and dementia.

REVIEW: Marriage, Assembly George Square Studios ✭✭✭

Solidly directed by Russell Bolam, the production has less of the anarchy and exuberance of some of Comedians Theatre Company’s previous shows but it offers a fresh, modern twist on a Russian classic.

What's On In Manchester - September to October 2015

REVIEW: A Midsummer Night's Dream In New Orleans, Above The Arts ✭✭✭

If this performance did not clear all of the hurdles set by Shakespeare and the play’s daunting production history, it cannot be faulted on ambition and daring. The company has fully earned the right to be heard and seen again in this concept of the play and one hopes that it will be in a larger, more suitable venue.

REVIEW: Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Manchester Opera House ✭✭✭✭

Take two drag queens, a transvestite, a big bus and enough sequins and glitter to sink the titanic, put them together with a talented cast and a plethora of modern pop and disco classics in a big pink bus, and you pretty much have all the ingredients that make Priscilla a joyous night in the theatre.

REVIEW: You Won't Succeed On Broadway If You Don't Have Any Jews, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This revue is great fun and well-produced, combining superb music and performances with an insightful journey through the history of Jewish musical theatre. The show has wowed audiences in Tel Aviv (talk about preaching to the converted!) but judging by tonight’s crowd it has made its mark in London as well.

First Look at McQueen at the Haymarket

Flare Path UK Tour Tickets

REVIEW: Thoroughly Modern Millie, Landor Theatre ✭✭✭

The dancing is really the one area here where there is a consistent, utterly stylish, utterly camp, utterly "too much" approach. The cast are all accomplished dancers and the routines ping with power and pleasure. Lane and Huddleston have done a superb job at ensuring uniformity of step and action; the group numbers are precise, with everyone exactly in time, all performing in riotous synchronicity. Both Thoroughly Modern Millie and Forget About The Boy are delicious and there is some seriously good tapping from George Hinson and Thomas Inge and the entire female cast.

REVIEW: Our Country's Good, National Theatre ✭✭✭

Nadia Fall has misunderstood the play and, by seeking to make her mark on it, has come dangerously close to obliterating its impact. Bad casting and bad direction, however, is not enough to completely scupper Wertenbaker's great play. In the end, the magical words she wrote come through - overcoming lightweight performances, an indulgent set, too grand a space and some interesting, but tiresomely intrusive, music.

REVIEW: Daphne, Arcola Theatre ✭✭

Not everything in Grimeborn can work and while the commitment of all concerned deserves recognition, this adaptation cannot be considered wholly successful. As a better test of its worth though, I do hope further performances can be arranged with a full ensemble of strings, woodwind and brass. If all the main lines are present, the core of this delicate work can still generate the right kind of silvery shimmer.

Cynthia Erivo and Jennifer Hudson Perform The Colour Purple

REVIEW: Falstaff, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

After Monty Python and Blackadder it is not really possible to present this type of opera in full cross-gartered fustian without an ironic angle; so much better in many ways, therefore, to take it out of time and re-present it in another period altogether, or in contemporary dress – as here – where in effect it becomes The Merry Chavs of Windsor. The result is one of the best vindications of the Grimeborn ethos in the current season and a wonderful refutation of the Coward quote at the head of this review.

REVIEW: Mrs Henderson Presents, Theatre Royal Bath ✭✭✭✭✭

There is no doubt that Mrs Henderson Presents should transfer to the West End. The material is first-rate and superior to many new musicals that have played there in recent years. It will need a bigger orchestra (and, accordingly, bigger orchestrations) and it could do with some casting fine-tuning and a larger ensemble (another dozen dancers at least) so that a grander sense of scale was permitted. In Bath, it comes across as a superb chamber piece, perfectly suited to the gorgeous Theatre Royal. In the West End, its aim can be higher.

West End Rocky Horror Show Extends Extra Week

REVIEW: Willemijn Verkaik in Concert, Ambassadors Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It was a brilliant and energetic concert that clearly showed that Verkaik is having the time of her life and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

REVIEW: Hamlet, Barbican Theatre ✭✭

The play's the thing - wherein to catch the conscience of a King. And the hearts of an audience. Turner needs to pay more attention to the play and the actors. At the moment, to slightly misquote Hamlet, "Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of Shakespeare's greatest play."

REVIEW: Day Of the Dog, Etcetera Theatre ✭✭✭✭

There is an open-minded integrity about these conversations and characterisations that is highly impressive and which deserves a wider audience in a larger (but not too much larger) performance space

REVIEW: The Clown Of Clowns, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The evening as a whole provided a superbly invigorating beginning to the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola. We were given new insights into an old work that made it seem much less forbidding and more accessible than usual; and in the second half the joyous, madcap side to the life of the clown and the circus was given full rein in a new one. Tradition and its subversion, the two governing tenets of Grimeborn, were in in this instance in perfect balance.

REVIEW: For Services Rendered, Minerva Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

I doubt anyone could hope for a finer, more delicate production of this great play. It is genuinely funny in parts, full of melodramatic touches which are not silly but insightful, and incredibly moving when the final scenes play out. Davies is at the top of his game here- this is a symphony of theatrical pleasure. It should transfer to the West End and play and play. Producers should not be fearful of a good old-fashioned triumph.

First look at Nicole Kidman in Photograph 51

REVIEW: Bruises, The Tabard Theatre ✭✭✭

Bruises is an ambitious piece, seeking to cast a non-judgmental eye on the highly divisive topic of sex work. There is so much to admire in this play, which I believe makes a valuable contribution to a deeply sensitive dialogue. As a piece of moral philosophy, Bruises excels, unpicking questions of identity as its characters stare into the existential void. Yet the play is occasionally undermined by a lack of subtlety. Themes, metaphors and character traits are too often made explicit, making a piece that delights in the complexities of human interaction less satisfying than it should.

Casting Announced For Pure Imagination

Casa Valentina Cast Announced

REVIEW: La Boheme, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

So in sum, the production did achieve exactly what Grimeborn sets out to do each year. It knocked old layers of varnish off an old favourite and found a new and convincingly thought-through scenario in which to relocate it. Director Lewis Reynolds has a lot of experience in presenting opera at the King’s Head Theatre, which made him a very good choice to achieve fine results here. This was a truly committed, full-on team effort: and in this opera nothing else will deliver the goods.

REVIEW: Bye Bye Birdie, Ye Old Rose and Crown Theatre ✭✭✭✭

In the wrong hands this show could be become exactly what it is trying to send up; a clap-along, preppy, saccharine affair. However the blistering choreography, catchy score and some fantastic performances mean this restaging works on every level.

F*cking Men Extends Run At Kings Head

REVIEW: Dear Lupin, Apollo Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Inevitably there are many priceless anecdotes that had to be left out of this play, and its dramatic transformation is not perfect. But it captures the spirit of the original faithfully, and will one hopes bring more readers to a book that is now well on its way to becoming a modern classic. Humour like this, formed in the face of adversity, is a form of grace that generously helps to make life more bearable for everyone else.

REVIEW: A Naughty Night With Noel Coward, Old Red Lion ✭✭✭

In sum, this is a thoroughly absorbing evening in the theatre with high professional values across the board, but where the real rewards and revelation come in the second half.

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REVIEW: Marsha - A Girl Who Does Bad Things, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭

So while this is a challenging night in the theatre in the best sense, it remains incomplete and unfinished and invites further revision and reflection on the part of the very able performers and highly thoughtful creators.

REVIEW: Garine, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The evening was notable for reviving a work of genuine tuneful elegance and comic potential. The commitment and skill of the production overall makes you want to see the same company offer a fully staged run in a larger venue - and soon.

REVIEW: F*cking Men, King's Head ✭✭✭✭

DiPietro’s character studies vere dangerously close to stereotypes at times but ultimately the truth of the characters and their circumstances win out. There’s drama and humour aplenty, but DiPietro is skilled at lulling the audience into a sense of false comfort through the use of sex, leaving us to realise the loneliness and despair that some of these characters feel.

Top Selling Tours August 2015

REVIEW: The Backward Fall, Hen And Chickens Theatre ✭✭✭

The Backward Fall is a thoughtful and touching play. It handles the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s with great sensitivity, and I feel enriched for having seen it. A few unsubtle touches, coupled with a rushed conclusion, prevent the story from achieving its full potential – however the intelligent script and excellent performances certainly make this worth a watch.

REVIEW: The Wind In The Willows, Waterloo East Theatre ✭✭✭

Overall, The Wind in the Willows is an enjoyable evening, with some inventive moments and excellent performances from a talented young cast. Forget Wolf Hall, Toad Hall is the place to be over the next few days.

REVIEW: My Children! My Africa, Trafalgar Studios 2 ✭✭✭✭

It is difficult to remember a recent production of a drama where the design elements played so profoundly important a role in the understanding of the production that it is almost as if set, lighting and sound are themselves characters in the narrative. Subtle often, sometimes erupting in violence or dissonance, Erin Witton's soundscape allows Jack Weir's shadows to waltz in Nancy Surman's barbed-wire hell. The fusion of these elements gives the entire production an operatic/balletic feel which eminently suits Fugard's flowery imagery and the grandiose aspects of the writing.

REVIEW: Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales, Leicester Square Theatre ✭✭✭

Whilst I am clearly not the target audience for this production, the kids around me loved it and it is easy to see how it would be a great day out for any family with young kids. Donaldson’s tales are simple and enjoyable and the enthusiastic cast and direction make it certainly worth the trip.

REVIEW: Briefs, London Wonderground ✭✭✭✭✭

This gender, race and sexual politics canvas stretches across the entire platform of the performances, from the sharp opening patter of Fez Fa'anana which happily offends everyone equally, through the "pretty doesn't mean dumb" antics of the cheeky Louis Briggs and the vignettes with an increasingly more naked Lucky Charm (Lachy Shelley) to the various satirical and ironic numbers involving the remarkable Dallas Dellaforce, whose take on gender roles in society is razor sharp and strikingly bold.

REVIEW: Hetty Feather, Duke Of York Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Hetty Feather is a triumph - although it’s ostensibly for children, it’s a touching and absorbing tale for all ages. It combines multiple artistic elements to fantastic effect and manages to be funny, uplifting and sad, sometimes all in the same scene.

REVIEW: Tommy, Greenwich Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Regardless of how it is characterised, Michael Strassen's production of Tommy is a genuine triumph, practically perfect in every way. From the first note, it grabs you by the throat, demands that attention be paid, and does not relent in that until Tommy spins the oversized pinball in his hands and a blackout signals the show has ended. Intervals are rarely resented these days, but I freely confess to resenting the interval here. This is an exceptional reimagining of a work rarely performed on stage. Vocally, dramatically and artistically it is an unqualified triumph. Ashley Birchall is a rising star, John Barr an established one.

REVIEW: The Adventures Of Pinocchio, Greenwich Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Christian James is a wonderful Pinocchio. He completely captures the sense of the character's otherness and separation (being living wood) as well as a newcomer's desire to explore and a child's desire to rebel. The sequence where he learns about lying and his nose growing is genuinely delightful, as is the way he quickly shaves off his extra growth before Gepetto's return. Bronagh Lagan has presided over an excellent production of an interesting and involving musical which provides a fresh, but refreshingly old-fashioned approach to the entertainment and stimulation of (especially) young minds. You leave wanting -desperately - to be able to bring youngsters to more theatre just like this.

REVIEW: Grand Hotel, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭

Proud’s choreography is redolent with an acute understanding of all this and everything he does aims to help involvement in and understanding of the work’s intent. The hotel is seen as reflective of the Berlin experience and that is reflective of world experience: the microcosm in the hotel provides universal truths and observations. From the almost military opening routine, through the set pieces and the smaller incidents, the big, joyous all-in numbers, and the more intimate moments of pain or joy, Proud sees to it that dance propels the action, accentuates the fun and underscores the darkness.

REVIEW: L'Amore Dei Tre Re, Opera Holland Park ✭✭✭✭✭

Montemezzi may have been something of a one-work composer, but this performance made the best case possible for his masterpiece, and we can only hope that the repute of this revival will stimulate a wave of further performances at home and abroad. The whole evening showed Opera Holland Park at its very best.

REVIEW: The Heresy Of Love, Shakespeare's Globe ✭✭✭

The Globe is not really a space for claustrophobic intense drama and this production really brings that home. This production would look and feel very different in the Sam Wanamaker Theatre and probably should have been programmed there. The openness of the space works against the building tension in Edmundson's writing and Dove's direction does not utilise the wide spaces in a way which enhances or accentuates the dark, brooding and Machiavellian aspects of the religious politics and the dogma dissection.

Harvey Fierstein's Casa Valentina Comes To Southwark Playhouse

REVIEW: Personals, Landor Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Personals, a comedy musical about finding love through lonely hearts columns, was first performed in 1985, and technology has rendered it an unintentional period piece. I feared that the ubiquity of dating websites and applications might make the production rather old fashioned, but my doubts were misplaced. Ain’t No Other Productions’ heartfelt and joyous revival demonstrated just what an unsung gem Personals is. I found myself captivated as their rendition explored the timelessly bewildering process of attempting to form intimate connections with strangers, highlighting the vulnerability of its characters to both hilarious and poignant effect.

REVIEW: Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre ✭✭✭

The utterly reliable Laura Pitt-Pulford brings strength, warmth and thoughtfulness to Milly - frankly, she outdoes Jane Powell by some distance. Her Milly is completely believable, a realistic contradiction of thoughts and deeds, and a woman unafraid to be driven (and bound) by her lust - for Adam and for life. Vocally, Pitt-Pulford is a dream. Her pure, golden voice masters the music and her delivery is sensuous, wry and whole-hearted, depending on the requirements of the particular tube. Her work in "One Day", "Goin' Courtin'" and "Love Never Goes Away" is outstanding; she makes more of the songs than might be reasonably expected.

REVIEW: The Three Little Pigs, Palace Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The children sitting around me were having a ball. Engaged, entertained and thoroughly enjoying themselves and that’s brilliant.

Casting Announced For New Barney Norris Play Eventide

REVIEW: Lakmé, Opera Holland Park ✭✭✭✭✭

Yet, Holland Park Opera, here working under director Aylin Bozok, show that these problems are by no means insuperable where the company have confidence in the quality of the work itself and perform it with sensitivity and full commitment.

REVIEW: Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Opera Holland Park ✭✭✭✭✭

If you have missed this charming opera this time around then do book now for one of the performances at the Linbury Studio Theatre in early November. You won’t regret it.

REVIEW: Annie Jnr, Arts Theatre ✭✭✭

It must be every stage school kid’s dream to perform in the West End and the cast of Annie has certainly not passed up the opportunity. It’s an infectiously enthusiastic feel-good production that does justice to Charles Strouse’s brilliant score.

REVIEW: The Woman In Black, Fortune Theatre ✭✭✭✭

There’s nothing like a good ghost story to get the heart racing and give you a good scare. The Woman In Black has now been doing just that for twenty-eight years and it’s still managing to deliver the thrill of a well told ghost story night after night.

VALE: Cilla Black 1943 - 2015

Sheridan Smith To Star in Funny Girl At Menier

REVIEW: Impossible, Noel Coward Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Some doubted whether a magic show could thrive in the modern day West End but Impossible truly provides a first-class spectacle. It is intelligently staged and well cast, with a mix of mind-boggling tricks and stunts that will leave you thinking all the way home.

REVIEW: Operation Crucible, Finborough Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This is a noisy and shouty play and in many ways that is necessarily so – industrial processes, bombs, football matches, drinking in the pub – these provide the necessary loud framework around the still centre of the men trapped both literally in the cellar of the Marples Hotel and figuratively by their own fears and terrors. In some respects therefore this is too big a play for the Finborough’s tiny space.

REVIEW: Bakkhai, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

This is Whishaw's show - no question. He is a force of nature, fiercely unearthing every moment of nuance, humour and purpose from the text and giving a totally committed, undeniably powerful and persuasive performance. Every moment is fascinating, thought through and skilfully played. Dionysius was the God of the theatre, as well as wine, song and dance. Whishaw makes this part of the very fabric of his turn as the vengeful God, and offsets that performance with two remarkable cameos - as Tieresias and the Messenger. He is magical in every way.

REVIEW: Of Thee I Sing, Royal Festival Hall ✭✭

The comic performance of the night, and the source of most consistent pleasure, came from the very talented Tom Edden who made an acting masterclass out of the portrayal of the reluctant Vice President, Alexander Throttlebottom (is there a character in a Broadway musical with a better name?). Taking his cue from that name, Edden presented a neurotic, chaotic, frantic but ambitious, character: he stole every scene he was in and even some he was not in. Superb.

Critic's Choice: London's 10 Best New Plays 31 July 2015

Rocky Horror Show Returns To West End With O'Brien And Bedella

Critic's Choice: Top 10 Long Running Shows 31 July 2015

Critic's Choice: London's 10 Best New Musicals 31 July 2015

REVIEW: Jekyll & Hyde, Platform Theatre ✭✭✭

Jekyll & Hyde never feels like a gimmick and avoids the traps of so many reworkings. Instead it’s an intelligent and creative production which is well staged, acted and directed throughout.

REVIEW: Aida, Opera Holland Park ✭✭✭

This is a very great opera that can take many different interpretations. However, there is no room for compromise. Ultimately, it either has to be done straight and with absolute conviction that the themes with which it deals are as important to our culture now as they were to Verdi in the 1860s. Or if the traditional setting is thought to raise too many troubling questions or is beyond budget to realize then a fully thought-through alternative scenario is needed.

Bend It Like Beckham Trailer Released

Willemijn Verkaik in Concert

Dreamboats and Miniskirts 2015 UK Tour Tickets

Cats 2016 UK Tour Tickets

REVIEW: Three Days In The Country, National Theatre (Lyttleton) ✭✭✭✭

So often the press night comes too early in a run to fully assess a production’s potential. This welcome and ambitious new version has not yet attained greatness but certainly has the makings of it.

The Glenn Miller Story Video Teaser Released

REVIEW: Oklahoma! Lyceum Theatre Sheffield ✭✭✭✭✭

Rachel Kavanaugh presents us with a wily, almost feral Aunt Eller, a metrosexual Curly, a tomboy Laurey, an arch but staunchly feminine Ado Annie, a profoundly stupid but winningly endearing muscleman Will, a troubled and deranged Jud and a pixie-like Carnes. The interloper, the foreigner, Ali Hakim, is hardworking and mercurial, smart and savvy. The characters may be old but the interpretations are sparky and resonant.

REVIEW: Oh! Carol, Crazy Coqs ✭✭✭✭

Happily, Oh! Carol provides a thoroughly entertaining and exuberant cross-section of Sedaka's work. There are the hits but also lesser remembered works, and truly no number in the playlist is dull or unworthy. For the most part, the songs covered were co-written with Greenfield, and the lively, interesting patter tells the story of the highs and lows of the Sedaka/Greenfield partnership with wry objectivity and respectful affection.

REVIEW: The Spitfire Grill, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The Spitfire Grill is a musical treat. James Valco's score is richly rewarding and creates a genuinely engaging musical atmosphere which helps shape and drive the narrative. He creates a true musical world for the characters and, within that world, each character has tunes and phrases which assist in illuminating them and their part in the story. It does not feel like a Sondheim score, but it has a similar effect. The songs are derived from the situation, the place, the pulse of the narrative; they are not grafted on as afterthoughts or fancy trimming.

REVIEW: Hecuba, White Bear Theatre ✭✭✭

For all these reasons, a new production of Hecuba is very welcome and cannot fail to be thought provoking and moving, even when allied to a parallel re-telling of the story in modern guise that often treads on the toes of the original.

REVIEW: Songs For A New World, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

In Jenna Russell, Damian Humbley and Cynthia Erivo, Lenson has assembled three of the best, most exciting performers of musical theatre in London. Each performer turns in a bravura and totally committed performance here. Just hearing these people sing Brown's music is worth the whole experience.

REVIEW: Twelfth Night, Space Theatre ✭✭✭

When it comes to a tried and tested classic like Twelfth Night, it’s sometimes quite rare to come away feeling you’ve seen something new and different. For better or for worse (mainly better), Pell Mell have dug deep creatively and come up with a lively and high-energy production that you’re certainly not going to see at the Globe any time soon.

Two New Phantoms Announced

REVIEW: American Idiot, Arts Theatre ✭✭✭

American Idiot is a bit of a frustrating production; whilst the music of Green Day has plenty to offer a musical, it doesn’t seem right for a sung-through stage adaption. However, whatever it lacks in plot and characterisation, it more than makes up for in energy, passion and pure good fun.

The Perfect Murder UK Tour

REVIEW: Richard II, Shakespeare's Globe ✭✭✭✭

The result here is that this is more the Comedy of Richard II than the Tragedy of Richard II. There is an unseemly pursuit of laughter – characterisations are extreme, language is tossed aside in favour of quick laughs and the deeper, darker side of text and situation is left largely unconsidered. This is not to say that production is not entertaining – it is – but it is not a production which seeks to achieve anything in particular or which attempts to enliven or illuminate. In rather the same way as an accomplished school performance can leave you satisfied, so too does this production. It’s a great introductory point; if this is your first taste of Shakespeare, you won’t be disappointed. But if you come looking for insight or new perspectives, you will find none.

Shawshank Redemption Casting Announced

REVIEW: Mack And Mabel, Chichester Festival Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Ball is an exceptional, utterly convincing Mack. He completely gets under the skin of the character, finding precisely the right level to pitch every moment of anger, driven determination, and offhand callousness. The passion for making comedy films that can see people of any race and creed laugh in any place on the planet is the backbone of Ball's characterisation. He is entirely unsentimental in his delivery and never seeks the approval of the audience. Musically, Ball is exceptional. He uses his big, bright voice deftly, producing clear, strong notes, ringing phrases of great colour, and perfectly supported passages of soft and delicate singing

Best Selling Tours - July 2015

REVIEW: Sinatra - The Man And His Music, London Palladium ✭✭✭✭

Sinatra - The Man And His Music at the London Palladium is not your normal West End musical. It is a very different beast indeed. Perhaps best described as a multi-media spectacular, it takes footage of Sinatra’s performances over his entire career, applies a live orchestra and adds twenty dancers to the mix to create something rather special.

Summer Sale - Save £££ On Great West End Shows

Review: The Invisible, Bush Theatre ✭✭✭

The Invisible is a soap opera featuring some beautifully written female characters. It might skirt around the issue of legal aid cuts and the invisibility of some members of modern society, but it does not really have much to say about those matters and certainly does not present any kind of case, urgent or otherwise, for change. Rather, in a grab bag kind of way, it shines a light on issues (the horror of the bedroom tax for some people, self-representation in litigation and judicial responses thereto, domestic violence, grasping landlords, not getting what you bargain for on the Internet, the fading concept of job security), marks them as something which should be of universal concern, and limps on.

Further Venues on Sale for Hairspray UK Tour

REVIEW: Lovett + Todd, King's Head ✭✭

Lovett + Todd is a valiant effort at breathing new life into the tale of Sweeney Todd. Unfortunately, it feels like a missed opportunity – some intelligent staging can’t hide the gaping flaws in the plot and script.

REVIEW: Lesere, Jermyn Street Theatre ✭✭

In terms of lighting, set, costumes, sound and design the creative team led by director Donnacadh O’Briain do a very solid job, alongside the cast. But the professionalism of the production cannot make up for the fact that an interesting concept and scenario does not find a convincing, sustained realisation in the writing.

REVIEW: What's It All About?, Menier Chocolate Factory ✭✭✭✭

There are shreds and patches of key songs, which, like Wagnerian leitmotifs, bind the whole experience, make it less a concert and more a pop/rock/r&b opera. "What's it all about, Alfie?" is a key theme, appearing constantly throughout and, in a simple way, it provides the intellectual underpinning to the experience. Riabko and Selzer ask what Bacharach's music is all about and shows you their answer. Emotionally complex, beguilingly catchy, intensely human, and tuneful in an all pervading kind of way.

REVIEW: Othello, Royal Shakespeare Theatre ✭✭✭

This is a curious production of Othello. You get the bones of the story, clearly, but the flesh, the marrow, the heart - all of which depends upon the rich characters of the central trio and the way the actors approach their motivations, fears and tempestuous feelings - is thin on the ground. As Othello says: "Certain men should be what they seem". In appearance, word and action. In Khan's hands, and with this casting, none of Othello, Desdemona nor Iago are what they seem according to Shakespeare's text.

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REVIEW: Volpone, Swan Theatre ✭✭

Henry Goodman is assured and magnetic as the titular Volpone. He gives a larger than life performance which suits - entirely - Johnson's larger than life character. In the extreme, absurd comedy, Goodman is very good indeed. His fake almost-dead patient is a riot, not the least because when Goodman has his wig and hospital gear in full flight, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Worzel Gummidge as played by Jimmy Savile. There is something splendidly repulsive yet unsettlingly endearing about him in this mode.

REVIEW: Constellations, Trafalgar Studios ✭✭✭✭✭

Constellations is a 75 minute jewel of a play. It is a play about things that happen, might happen and could happen – just like life.

LaChiusa Musical Hits Jermyn Street

First Look At The Who's Tommy

REVIEW: I Sing!, Drayton Arms ✭✭✭✭

The original creators can be proud; I Sing! is a wonderful show with a wonderful cast and deserves to find a home for longer than the scheduled week.

REVIEW: Noonday Demons, Kings Head Theatre ✭

This evening, I was sent to see Noonday Demons at the Kings' Head Theatre. But, that is not exactly what happened...

Miss Saigon Announces West End Closing Date

Rehearsal Images For Benedict Cumberbatch In Hamlet

Listen to Victoria Serra Sing Girl In the Mirror From Grand Hotel

Win Tickets To Bette Midler at The O2

REVIEW: The Mentalists, Wyndhams Theatre ✭✭✭

The Mentalists is a fun and lively Pinteresque farce from a very talented playwright. Whilst there are a few thematic flaws, an amusing script guarantees an interesting afternoon, brought to life by two actors who are at the top of their game.

REVIEW: The Rhythm Of Life, St James Theatre ✭✭✭

Coleman worked in an era where Broadway was consistently part of the Top 10. Not every number presented as part of Rhythm Of Life deserved placement in the show, but audiences were left with no doubt that he was clearly a very talented composer with an ability to craft some surefire hits. A talented and versatile cast means that even a big spender would not come away disappointed.

In The Heights Transfers to Kings Cross Theatre

Zoë Wanamaker Joins The Cast Of Harlequinade

REVIEW: The House Of Mirrors And Hearts, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The future of British musicals seems assured. It’s wonderful to see a musical that eschews a jukebox or movie mentality and goes instead for an original story. If you are a fan of musicals like Next To Normal, then The House Of Mirrors and Hearts is going to appeal. It’s a dark, psychological and kept suprising me throughout.

REVIEW: Orson's Shadow, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

The play is staged in the round with a pleasing and teasing contrast between the artifice stage convention and informality. The gestures towards setting are practical and functional and do not distract from the verbal duelling of the players, which is the heart and centre of the action. While there have been several productions in the USA, this play has had only one previous outing here, and for the quality and intensity of the writing and acting it deserves a long and successful run.

REVIEW: The Four Fridas, Royal Artillery Barracks ✭✭✭

Memories still linger of the impressive Opening Ceremonies to the Olympic and Paralympic Games held in London in 2012, and The Four Fridas is best viewed as a (partly) successful coda to those spectacles. Bradley Hemmings, the director here, who was also responsible for the scene-setter to the Paralympics, writes in the brochure that Frida Kahlo was one of the representative images of the disabled he originally considered for that event; and now he has returned to her life as the basis of a meditation on the relationship between creativity and the overcoming of disability and persecution.

REVIEW: Sibling Revelry, Hippodrome Casino ✭✭✭

Sibling Revelry is nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking and nor does it claim to be. However, if you’re looking for some top class performances from some Broadway veterans then you can’t go wrong with the Callaways – the true sister act.

REVIEW: East Is East, Churchill Theatre (On Tour) ✭✭✭✭

East is East is set in the early 70s, was written in the 80s and released as a film in the mid 90s. And yet it’s remarkable how little it has dated. Since the film was released we have seen 9/11, the ‘War on Terror’ and the rise of the Islamic State. meaning questions of identity amongst British Muslims are as important and relevant as ever.

Open Auditions Held For Motown The Musical

REVIEW: I Love You You're Perfect Now Change, Above The Arts ✭✭✭

Watching Julie Atherton, Simon Lipkin, Gina Best and Samuel Holmes work their magic, individually, in couples, and as a quartet, it was difficult not to wonder if there was actually anything, any material, into which these four could not breathe life, and let fly higher than it has any business flying. They certainly give I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change an energy, an enthusiasm, an ineffable joy which far exceeds its obvious potential.

REVIEW: The Gruffalo, Lyric Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Matilda this show is not – the original and the adaptation are thin fare in comparison with the disturbing and multi-layered creations of Dahl and his later creative adapters. But on its own terms this show achieves exactly what it sets out to do and fully deserves the appreciation of reviewers, whether aged eight or eighty.

REVIEW: As Is, Trafalgar Studios ✭✭✭✭

Viewed one way, Hoffman's play is not a play about AIDS and its repercussions; it is a play about ignorance, discrimination and fear. Viewed that way, it is still a play of enormous power and relevance. Indeed, viewed as an AIDS play it is still an important piece - the research today suggests that levels of misapprehension and misunderstanding about AIDS are almost as high now as they were in the 80's.

REVIEW: Black Cat Cabaret - Nocturne, London Wonderground ✭✭✭

One of the most exciting features of the current fairground-cluster that is London Wonderground on the South Bank is the focus on late night cabaret. In the summer months of the festival many of the leading figures in the London cabaret scene are passing through, sometimes more than once and in different and intriguing combinations. After their award-winning success at Wonderground last year, there were great expectations of the Black Cat Cabaret’s new ninety-minute show, Nocturne, which runs on selected Fridays until early September.

The Diver Comes To the Rag Factory

The Play That Goes Wrong - New Cast Announced

Love Me Tender Trailer Released

REVIEW: The Importance Of Being Earnest, Vaudeville Theatre ✭✭✭

Director AdrianNoble strikes gold in the quartet of lovers: Gwendolyn, Jack, Cicely and Algernon. Without any question, Emily Barber and Imogen Doel are utterly exquisite, fabulously surprising, and inventively adorable as, respectively, Ms Fairfax and Ms Cardew. I have never seen better performances of those roles on any professional stage. Algernon is here played by Philip Cumbus, whose hunger and enthusiasm for Cicely matches his fervour for muffins. The gifted Michael Benz is a spiffing Jack/Earnest.

REVIEW: The Dreamers, St James Theatre ✭✭

The Dreamers is a real mixed bag. Musically it is often very strong; the musical direction and band are both terrific. However, lyrically and dramatically it falls short, especially the paper-thin first act. Despite this, it would be cruel to be too dismissive of The Dreamers

REVIEW: To Kill A Mockingbird, Barbican Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Timothy Sheader's utterly astonishing, profoundly beautiful, and intensely gripping production of To Kill A Mockngbird, is now playing at the Barbican Theatre. It's not practically perfect in every way - it is absolutely perfect in every way. In terms of glorious story-telling and superb ensemble acting rapturously telling a richly detailed and extraordinarily resonant - but sublimely simple - tale, there is nothing to touch this production (bar Gypsy) currently playing in London.

REVIEW: Measure For Measure, Shakespeares Globe ✭✭✭

This is a feel-good production of a difficult play. The very best thing about it is Dominic Rowan’s exceptionally charismatic Duke. In the second half, particularly, the underlying comic approach to the play allows Rowan to have a great deal of fun, and the final scenes, which can be excruciatingly painful to endure (because in some productions, essentially, the Duke is emotionally torturing Isabella in those scenes) are light and engaging.

CRITIC'S CHOICE: Top 10 New West End Plays 30 June 2015

REVIEW: Rent Boy The Musical, Above The Stag ✭✭✭

The star of the show, in truth, is Carole Todd's spirited, cheeky, and knowing choreography, which brings out the very best in the cast and masterfully establishes high readings on the happy barometer of the mood in the auditorium. The cast might not be real hookers, but they are all good hoofers.

CRITIC'S CHOICE: Top 10 New West End Musicals 30 June 2015

REVIEW: Amour, Royal Academy Of Music ✭✭✭✭

If tonight’s performance represents the future of British theatre then we are in very safe hands indeed. OK, so the story is about as substantial as the walls that kept toppling throughout the production. However, a beautiful score and some first-class performances showed that Amour really can be a labour of love. Now, where can I find a cast recording?

REVIEW: An Oak Tree, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Crouch delights in theatre which unsettles and pushes boundaries and An Oak Tree is no exception. In parts, it is brilliant and it is never less than compelling – at least, so it was when Burnett was the guest actor. On other days, it might be different – better, mostly the same or worse. The dynamics of the performers, usually honed in rehearsal, is here basically raw, and will either work or not. With Burnett and Crouch dancing this tarantella of guilt, grief and occasional guile, it’s a quirky, original and compelling exercise in the extremities of theatrical form.

Rocky Horror Show Tour Cast Announced

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Celebrate Start of 3rd Year.

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child To Open Summer 2016

REVIEW: Asking Rembrandt, Old Red Lion Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

There is not much room for manoeuvre upstairs at the Old Red Lion, but the creative team, led by director Jonathan Kemp, have put together a flexible and well dressed set that provides a richly textured backdrop for the play, full of relevant artistic clutter and debris and gorgeous fabrics – self-consciously theatrical in a way that is entirely appropriate for the paintings from this period in Rembrandt’s life. The intimate atmosphere and finely calibrated acting draws you into the relationships and the issues very quickly, and as a result we have a properly tough-minded, and warm-hearted night at the theatre. The play runs until mid-July and is rewarding in every respect. And you may never think of gloves in quite the same way ever again….

REVIEW: The Motherf**ker With The Hat, Lyttleton Theatre ✭✭✭

It's not that this is a bad play; it's more that it is not really a play at all. It's a series of separate scenes, mostly two-handers, which chiefly concern the central character, Jackie. It doesn't really have any compelling over-arching theme, there is no lyrical, poetic or political beauty to the language, and it does not attempt to shine a light on society or culture in any significant way. It looks and sounds like a short film - not a coherent, magnificent drama worthy of the Lyttleton stage.

REVIEW: Joking Apart, Theatre Royal Windsor ✭✭✭✭

As with so many theatres of a certain age, the bar at the Theatre Royal is proudly lined with photos of bygone productions from the golden age of repertory theatre; and there, sure enough, were the production shots of a 1986 production of this very play, Joking Apart – all duffle coats, cravats and tweed jackets, floral print dresses, and big, frizzy hair-dos, taking you straight back to the 1970s. But the lesson of this fine production is that this is a timeless play that holds up as true a mirror to our foibles now as ever it did before.

REVIEW: Bend It Like Beckham, Phoenix Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Act Two is practically perfect. It starts with a fabulous number for the girls, Glorious, and it never looks back. It's full of great music from Goodall and the range of styles he covers is significant. He uses Punjabi tunes effectively, there is a terrific solo for Jules's mother, There She Goes, a melodious duet which is gentle and joyful, Bend It, then a stirring quintet and an overwhelmingly joyous piece which celebrates the wedding of Pinky and Teetu in contrapuntal tandem with the celebration of the football grand final win. By the time the second Act is over, the longeurs of the first have been brushed aside, and the infectious sense of harmony and happiness is irrepressible.

REVIEW: The Seagull, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Betts' adaptation (re-imagining is perhaps more accurate) certainly tries to evoke the same effect Chekhov must have had on his original audiences. There is a robust modernity about the language which makes the situations and characters instantly understandable, relatable and recognisable. This comes at a real cost to the lyricism that Chekhov penned, but, in the end, the clarity of the understanding is worth it. For some, no doubt, the text will be too coarse, too vulgar - but it distils the essence of Chekhov's intent in a coherent and tangible way.

REVIEW: Alpha Beta, Finborough Theatre ✭✭

It’s exactly as bleak as it sounds; the entire play is one long, petty, extended, circular argument, stretched over nine miserable years. There’s very little respite (apart from a blissful five minutes in Act Three) – the two deliberately wind each other up and go after each other for the whole production.

Sinatra - Cast and Creative Team Announced

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time New Cast

The Mentalists - Rehearsal Images Released

REVIEW: I Went To A Fabulous Party, Kings Head ✭✭

The King’s Head has a notable tradition in supporting contemporary drama on gay themes, but sadly as things stand this new 65-minute play by And Davies does not add very many leaves to those laurels. It is not by any means without potential and with a longish run ahead in Edinburgh in August there is scope for development and refinement of both the text and the depth and authenticity of the acting.

The Who's Tommy - Cast Announced

REVIEW: The Jew Of Malta, Swan Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This is a play where the inhabitants of a Nunnery are slain by poisoned porridge; where the daughter of a Jew becomes a Christian Nun, twice; where, having purchased a Thracian slave, owner and slave engage in a bout of one-upmanship about the vile deeds they claim to enjoy; where Friars are referred to as "religious caterpillars"; where the Jew inquires if theft is the basis of Christianity; where a Friar casually asks if the Jew has been "crucifying children"; and where no one, really, has any redeeming features. It all but screams farce, even if some of the subject matter is repugnant and, sadly, deadly accurate.

REVIEW: Second Soprano, King's Head ✭✭✭✭✭

In this theatre season where commemoration and remembrance of the outbreak of the First World War are much to the fore, many of the most successful dramatic ventures are small-scale. In some ways this fine double-act, written by Martha Shrimpton and Ellie Routledge, and performed by Shrimpton and Olivia Hirst, is the mirror-image of Stony Broke in No Man’s Land, which I reviewed here recently. Both are virtuosic displays of actorly craft, using multiple genres, creating manifold roles, and mixing mood and manner, music and words to create an ineffable and individual blend of humour and pathos. As a result the act of commemoration is made more complex and ultimately, I would say, more moving, than a simple, full-on narrative or historical approach.

REVIEW: The Italian Girl in Algiers, Brunel Tunnel ✭✭✭✭✭

Please do chase down this wonderful, life-affirming production at one of the several intriguing venues that lie ahead on its current tour – you will not regret it, and it will bring unalloyed joy to your summer’s evening.

REVIEW: The Picture Of Dorian Gray, St James Studio ✭✭✭✭✭

Sadly this fine adaptation has a very brief run – I do hope another theatre can be persuaded to allow us to experience this play with this cast once more - and soon…..It deserves to be seen for its own qualities, for the fresh insights it brings to a work we think we know all too well, and for what it tells us of Wilde as well. It showcases in exemplary fashion the jostling, unstable and ultimately tragic combination of talents and aspirations that comprise Wilde's unique persona. As usual, he perceived the truth ahead of all the critics: ‘Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be - in other ages, perhaps.’

REVIEW: 1984, Playhouse Theatre ✭✭✭✭

This adaptation of 1984 is a modern masterpiece. Get your tickets now, before they take you to Room 101.

REVIEW: The Merchant Of Venice, Royal Shakespeare Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Findlay's production of The Merchant Of Venice, like all great productions of Shakespeare, is brimming with ideas, spoken with assurance and intelligence, and illuminates the text insightfully and vigorously. Refreshing and fascinating. Findlay breathes complexity and assuredness into Shakespeare's play by focussing on sex and greed. But there is no shortage of hatred either.

I Sing Comes To Drayton Arms

REVIEW: I And The Village, Theatre 503, ✭✭✭✭

I and the Village may be the best piece of new writing you’ll see at a pub theatre this year.

Shakespeare With A Jazzy Heart

Alice Comes To Opera Holland Park

REVIEW: Chef, Soho Theatre ✭✭✭

If the Chef was a type of food it would be a selection of pre-dinner canapés – small but perfectly formed. However, ultimately you are left wanting a little bit more…

The 39 Steps to Close on September 5

Jewish Composers Score Their Own Revue.

The Importance Of Being Earnest UK Tour Tickets

201 Dance Company Launch Kickstarter Campaign

Guys and Dolls UK Tour Tickets 2015

REVIEW: Oresteia, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭

This is Oresteia, not The Oresteia, the trilogy of plays (Agamennon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides) which won Aeschylus a prize in 458BC and which is considered the "original family drama" and the launching pad for all modern drama, but the free-wheeling, self-indulgent, filmic, and loose "adaptation" by Robert Icke which is now playing at the Almeida, kicking off Rupert Goold's Greeks season. There are some wonderful images, some potent exchanges, some brilliant flashes of inspiration - but, overall, it does not hold together dramatically. For a production which lasts three hours and forty minutes, many many minutes are spent biding time.

REVIEW: Reality, Ovalhouse ✭✭✭

Reality follows a group of fame-hungry youngsters who get a final recall for The Hostage, a new reality TV show which they hope will get them closer to fame and fortune. The wannabe stars are put through a series of increasingly sadistic and unnerving tasks by unhinged producer Oscar (Jack Stimpson) in order to prove that they’ve got what it takes.

REVIEW: Not A Game For Boys, King's Head Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Not A Game for Boys was a fantastic night out, with some stellar performances and a brilliant script – certainly worth making a racket about!

REVIEW: King John, Globe Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

James Dacre takes full advantage of the play's many moods and shifts of emphasis and style, with the result that the evening is rambunctious and thoroughly engaging: something like a political roller-coaster ride. This is a play where it is hard to work out who the real villain might be - there are a number of contenders for that appellation. But the real benefit of Dacre's production is that the characters get full value, and what rich and rewarding characters they turn out to be.

REVIEW: Violence and Son, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs ✭✭✭✭

The Royal Court has not had the best of runs recently, so it is heartening to report that in this new play by Gary Owen they have a really fine piece of writing in a memorable production that is fully in line with the radical and deliberately discomfiting traditions of this theatre. The action is disconcerting and uncomfortable at times to watch and until its denouement entirely convincing. The cast is uniformly excellent and the production values entirely in line with aims and ambitions of the writer.

REVIEW: Now This Is Not The End, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭

This then is a play about memory and a sense of homeland, and the inter-generational consequences of the Holocaust and Jewish Diaspora. Clearly this is well-trodden ground and anyone approaching it really needs to calculate a new, oblique angle of approach in the way that - for instance - The Hare with Amber Eyes was successfully organised around the history and travels of the netsuke collection owned by the family rather than a full-on narration of the personal fate of the people. There are indications of such an approach here focused on the different meanings and experiences of the untranslatable term Heimat or 'homeland', but it is never fully sustained across the play as a whole. Moreover while there are many intriguing connections developed between the six characters none of them really catch light or come to a resolution, so that at the end we are left with a frustratingly inconclusive trajectory. Not that there is anything wrong in leaving plot-lines open-ended, but in the end we are simply not given enough material to care about any of the characters and how they come to be who there are, despite the best efforts of the cast.

REVIEW: Turn Back The Clock, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It leaves us with a slight regret that, as with so many English comedians of her generation, Joyce Grenfell did not emerge more often from the comfort zone in which she had successfully built her reputation. We can be very grateful though to the Knights for demonstrating how brightly her legacy, both comic and quietly tragic, still shines.

Trevor Nunn To Direct War Of The Roses

Ron Moody Dies Aged 91

REVIEW: Love Me Tender, Manchester Opera Hour ✭✭✭✭✭

It’s almost impossible not be on your feet by the end of the show cheering on this cast of talented performers. Love Me Tender must be West End bound. I’d take a bet that it will find a home in the West End following its current tour. A 5 Star Hit! Don’t Miss It!

As Is comes to Trafalgar Studios

REVIEW: The Red Lion, Dorfman Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Marber is not writing just about football. The play is fundamentally about notions of masculinity as well as about modern society. The trio represents a kind of football holy trinity - all connected, and representing father, son and spirit. Which of the trio fulfils which role is not always clear, sometimes shifts, and this is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Marber's play. Calvin Demba is adept at displaying Jordan's naivety as well as his darker, more complex side. Peter Wight is compelling as the sad, lonely, committed club man, Yates, whose life is entirely centred on the game and The Red Lion.

Seven Brides For Seven Brothers Cast Announced

Derren Brown Returns To The West End

REVIEW: City Stories, St James Studio ✭✭✭✭✭

This therefore is work at a sophisticated creative level, where everything depends in a very pure, basic sense on the players themselves. There is no scenery, only a few hints at costume – a hat or a coat here and there – and some chairs where needed. It’s worth stressing too that the St James Studio, with the stage shunted off to one side to accommodate a bar, is not the easiest place to reel an audience in collectively. There are too many awkward angles and levels to play to, and the stage space available is tiny. Great credit then to all the players and to James Phillips for his direction, quite apart from his luminous yet precisely calibrated writing.

REVIEW: Stony Broke In No Man's Land, Finborough Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

With a plethora of films and plays about the tragedy and waste of the Great War I wondered initially whether there would be scope for the themes addressed here to touch me – the veins of both satire and mourning have been well worked after all. But in its oblique yet quietly insistent way this two-hander brought home the lingering effects of war on the bereaved and on those left behind more powerfully than many big-budget dramas. It would be excellent to see Brett and Williams repeat their performances on a national tour so that Stony Broke can reach out to a broader audience across the country in these years of commemoration.

REVIEW: The Taming Of The Shrew, New Wimbledon Studio ✭✭✭✭✭

REVIEW: A Damsel In Distress, Chichester Festival Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The cast, like a fine soufflé, is full of first rate choices and rises to the occasion in exactly the right way. The singing here is glorious. The Gershwins make a lot of demands upon singers and Williams ensures that every note is hit truly and that the froth and bubble in the music is given full release. The dance routines in Nice Work If You Can Get It, Stiff Upper Lip, I Can't Be Bothered Now, French Pastry Walk and Fidgety Feet are effortlessly engaging, thrilling to watch. As you emerge from the auditorium, it is impossible not be cheery.

Kenneth Branagh Company Further Casting Announced

Breakfast At Tiffany's UK Tour 2016

Farinelli And The King- More Tickets Available

Beverley Knight To Star In Cats

REVIEW: The Clockmaker's Daughter, Landor Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It's a great story, but the show's most glittering treasure is its music. There are folk tunes, love songs, impassioned ballads, comedy numbers, patter songs, soaring melodies, complex harmonies and splendid polyphony, all with a sprinkle of Irish jig around the edges. The inherent power and attraction of the score is helped in no small measure by a superbly assured delivery of the most difficult, and gorgeous, music by Jennifer Harding who excels in the central role of Constance. This is an engaging, absorbing, fantastical musical, radiant with possibility and truth. It's confronting in parts and heartbreaking in others. And it is full of magical moments.

REVIEW: The Flannelettes, King's Head Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Theatre 503 Autumn Season Announced

Asking Rembrandt at The Old Red Lion Theatre

Duncan James Photoshoot For Priscilla

Cast Announced For Gate's The Christians

New Miss Saigon Documentary Released on July 6

Jonathan Church Sets Up New Production Company

Lord Of The Dance - Dangerous Games Breaks Box Office Records

Autumn Donmar Warehouse Season Announced

Xanadu The Musical Comes To Southwark Playhouse

Clwyd Theatr Cymru Appoints Tamara Harvey as Artistic Director

Jules Verne's Classic Tales Comes To The St James Theatre

Curious Incident and Hamilton Major Drama Desk Winners

REVIEW: Duncton Wood, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Michael Strassen's richly detailed, splendidly cast, and lovingly staged premiere production of Duncton Wood (music and lyrics from Mark Carroll, book by James Peries, adapted from Horwood's book) is now playing at the Union Theatre. Strassen has first rate support from his entire creative team and each produce excellent work in the fulfilment of Strassen’s vision: Josh Sood as Musical Director, Jean Gray as Designer, Tim Deiling as Lighting Designer, Orchestrations from Michael England and Vocal Arrangements by David Steadman. Everyone here does exemplary work. The cast of 16 is exceptional and, with only one slight reservation, superbly and convincingly portrays the Duncton Wood moles.

REVIEW: James Freedman - Man Of Steal, Trafalgar Studios 1 ✭✭✭✭

It is always fantastic to see original theatre in London and Man of Steal certainly breaks new ground in putting on a public safety lecture with a difference. Freedman rightly received a warm reception from the crowd but perhaps the biggest compliment of all was the number of people checking and rearranging their pockets and bags as they left the Trafalgar Studios. Proof if it were needed that he really did steal the show.

Critics Choice: Top 10 New Plays in London May 29

Critics Choice: 10 Best West End Musicals 29 May

Mary Poppins - Further Tour Dates Announced

LGBT Musical Facing East Gets Charity Staging

REVIEW: Jason Robert Brown In Concert, Royal Festival Hall ✭✭✭✭

The unstoppable, extraordinary Cynthia Erivo proved, twice, what a potent combination Brown's music and lyrics can be in the hands of a singer whose voice can electrify every note. Her rendition of Stars And The Moon was perfectly judged, poetical and gorgeous in every way, each word ablaze with intense feeling, each note true and rich. But her staggeringly powerful I Can Do Better Than That served as the 11 o'clock number here and, quite rightly, brought the house down.

REVIEW: Just Jim Dale, Vaudeville Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

It is genuinely delightful to be able to report that anyone, child, adult, theatre sceptic or theatre lover, should have no hesitation in snaffling a ticket to the one man sensation that is Just Jim Dale, now playing at the Vaudeville Theatre after what can only be described as a glittering press night. Theatrical luminaries, critics, fans and audience members were seemingly all of one mind - Jim Dale is one hell of a performer.

Alison Jiear Joins Cast of 3 Little Pigs

London Road Trailer Released

REVIEW: As You Like It, Shakespeare's Globe ✭✭✭

Blanche McIntyre, whose revival of As You Like It now at the Globe, uses every trick in the book to make Shakespeare's play clear (it is, very), risqué (it is, very), engaging (it is, almost always) and funny (it is, often). There is music, dancing, cross-dressing, the carcass of a deer, lusty jostling, a tap-dancing clown, and a cross-dressing God of Marriage. There is much for the groundlings to delight in, as well as a few "oohs" and "awws".

REVIEW: Mess, Albany Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Caroline Horton’s Mess is probably the most honest portrayal of an eating disorder that one can find on stage.

REVIEW: The Beaux' Stratagem, Olivier Theatre ✭✭✭

Of all the cast, it is the gifted Susannah Fielding who comes closest to the right style of acting. She really is a tremendous performer, winning in her winsome style, with a voice as agile as her facial features and just as expressive. She keeps her Mrs Sullen to the naturalistic style Godwin has chosen, but you can feel, just below her gorgeous exterior, that within lies the right style, the right character, the right attitude, desperately wanting to break out of the confines of naturalism and take shape in proper Restoration Comedy mode.

Stiles and Drewe's The 3 Little Pigs Gets West End Premiere

Teaser Trailer For Clockmaker's Daughter Released

BOOK NOW FOR TONY NOMINATED PRODUCTIONS

REVIEW: Sense Of An Ending, Theatre 503 ✭✭✭✭

As this fine play moved towards its nuanced ending I could not help making a comparison with an earlier work that placed nuns in a setting of impossible choice: Poulenc’s opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites.

Tony, Tony, Tony - A Look At This Year's Tony Awards Race

REVIEW: Show Off, The Pheasantry ✭✭✭✭

Nikki Aitken, with pianist Simona Budd, performed Show Off. Aitken is a widely recognized artist in Australia where she has won awards for her cabaret programmes and to which she will be returning soon in the Australian tour of Amity Dry’s Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life. She is also a composer in her own right, both of cabaret numbers and of a new musical GO!, which received a fine first workshop outing last summer at the Camden Fringe Festival, as reviewed here by Stephen Collins. On the basis of this performance she will surely consolidate that reputation further.

REVIEW: Skin In Flames, Park Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It would be wrong to reveal more of the detail but the writer deserves great credit for the way in which he remorselessly brings the stories together in the finale while leaving sufficient threads hanging loose for our imaginations to fill in the remaining gaps in our own way.

REVIEW: The One Day Of The Year, Finborough Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Despite its trappings and narrative, this is not a play about Anzac Day, the public holiday in Australia where attention is paid to those who fought for their country in wars, those who were killed or maimed, or worse, survived. No. In the same way Death of a Salesman is fundamentally about the American Dream, so The One Day Of The Year is about the Australian Dream, or perhaps more exactly, about the dream of what it is to be an aspirational Australian. Wayne Harrison has achieved something quite remarkable here. A revival, a rebirth of a classic play without bells and whistles, just relying upon intelligent, visionary story telling and first rate acting. Mark Little's mercurial, bombastic and, ultimately, desperate Alf is a performance for the history books and the support he has from Fiona Press, Paul Haley and James William Wright is exceptional.

REVIEW: Beyond Bollywood, London Palladium ✭✭

All these positives on the creative side only sharpen the regret that this reviewer and clearly many of the audience felt that we were not seeing more of the unmediated original. In transferring great artistic traditions across cultures it is best to take the risk and present them raw and full-on, and invite the audience to rise to the full extent of the challenge, rather than diluting the formula to meet the audience half-way.

REVIEW: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, RFH ✭✭✭✭

On the strength of this first, tentative outing, concerts like this could come to rival those staged in the Encores! series in New York or by the Production Company in Australia. Jonathan Groff was truly terrific – and one was left wanting to see him headline a full scale production of this show, with Cynthia Erivo and Hannah Waddingham (and Amy Ellen Richardson) by his side.

The success of Headlong's 1984 and its contribution to the future of theatre

REVIEW: Fanny and Stella, Above The Stag ✭✭✭✭

Gay themed theatre can be hit and miss at the best of times but Chandler, Miller, Dexter and Todd have fashioned an evening that could well break free of its LGBT base and find a wider audience.

REVIEW: Flames, Waterloo East Theatre ✭✭✭

However, there is an uncertainty of tone about the piece as a whole that does not entirely convince. The evening starts as a straight-forward thriller but then seems to change as the plot twists multiply into a knowing send-up of the genre instead. There is nothing wrong with this, but at points, particularly in the rapid-fire, almost farcical later scenes it was not clear which view should predominate, whether one was supposed to empathise or simply laugh at the characters. On the night I visited there was clearly some laughter in the wrong places, and the audience did not know what to make of the emotional tone.

REVIEW: Avenue Q, Greenwich Theatre (UK Tour) ✭✭✭✭✭

Now undertaking its 4th UK Tour, Avenue Q continues to be one of the funniest musicals onstage at the present time. Whether you are an Avenue Q newbie or if like me you have seen the show MANY times you would be a fool to miss this production.

REVIEW: The Lonely Soldier Monologues, Cockpit Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

This is a harrowing but necessary evening in which the transcripts of seven interviews with American women veterans of Afghanistan and the second Iraq War are woven together into a compelling gendered commentary on the pity of modern war.

Beautiful Thing Tour Cancelled

REVIEW: Jerry's Girls, Jermyn Street Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

This is a genuinely terrific night in the musical theatre. Gypsy aside, there is nothing to touch it currently playing in London in terms of value for money and sheer, unrelenting happiness. Emma Barton has heart in spades and performs with a lustrous, warm allure which is both seductive and motherly. Ria Jones is a gifted performer, a delicious singer, and she brings a wealth of experience, and a warm, luscious tone to her carefully delivered renditions of Herman's standards. Sarah-Louise Young's comic work in Take It All Off and La Cage Aux Folles is gloriously amusing.