News & Reviews

Review: The One, Soho Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

REVIEW: The Act, Trafalgar Studios ✭✭✭✭✭

This is a powerful piece of theatre, a meditation on the state of the homosexual in the UK in the last 50 or so years. But it is wrapped up and delivered lik…

REVIEW: Being Shakespeare, Harold Pinter Theatre ✭✭✭✭

REVIEW: Knight Of The Burning Pestle, Sam Wannamaker Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

It is startling to realise this play was written seven years after Hamlet. It feels as fresh as a daisy. If you value the warmth that humour and truth provid…

REVIEW: Urinetown, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Really, this production cements Lloyd's reputation as a dynamic and thrilling young director. His vision here is glorious and he sees to it that it is proper…

REVIEW: Ellen Terry with Eileen Atkins, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

An unmissable night with one of the world's greatest living stage actresses.

REVIEW: Candide, Menier Chocolate Factory, ✭✭✭✭✭

This genius production ought not be missed. Sell body parts to see it and to revel in its ecstasy

REVIEW: Blurred Lines, The Shed Theatre at The National ✭✭✭✭✭

Blurred Lines is one of the best things to play at the National Theatre in the last six years. It is a significant and provocative work of great sweep and sc…

REVIEW: Before the Night is Through, The Landor Theatre ✭✭✭

Despite the first Act moving somewhat slowly, Act Two is when the musical really takes off with added cheekiness, inuendo and ridiculously outrageous farce, …

REVIEW: Donkeys Years, Rose Theatre Kingston ✭✭✭

Frayn is a genius and a clever wordsmith to boot. He orchestrates the silliness here with a precision that is formidable and even now, almost forty years on,…

REVIEW: The Only Way Is Downton, Trafalgar Studios ✭✭✭✭✭

Kempner is the real deal in every way - his timing is impeccable, his sense of comedy immaculate, his ability to impersonate or portray the essence of the wo…

REVIEW: Strangers On A Train, Gielgud Theatre ✭✭✭

It is incredibly well worth seeing. It's not a play for everyone, but if you get on Goodchild's train, and ride with it, there is plenty to enjoy and savour.

REVIEW: Fortune's Fool, Old Vic Theatre ✭✭

The trouble is that none of it is co-ordinated or controlled or channelled in a particular direction, with the result that nothing comes of anything.

REVIEW: The World Goes Round, Union Theatre ✭✭

In a week when the "other" (Sondheim) revue, Putting It Together, closed at the St James' Theatre after a terrific run, this childish and facile production p…

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance hits the stage.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance explodes on to the stage at the Park Theatre this year.

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

The City Stops at Islington - With Iris

Joseph to be an animated film thanks to Elton John's Rocket Pictures

It was announced today that Elton John's Rocket Pictures has acquired the rights to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dr…

Images - Andrew Lloyd Webber's Stephen Ward

Production images from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Stephen Ward currently playing at the Aldwych Theatre.

Robert Webb to play Wooster

Following a successful initial season, hit comedy Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense has now extended it's run at the Duke Of York's Theatre until 20 Sep…

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Back To The Future Musical Announced

Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale are working with Universal Stage Productions (Wicked and Billy Elliot), London-based producer Colin Ingram (Ghost – The Musical)…

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Mayhem Musical Theatre Company premiere The Addams Family in the UK

Following the rights release late last year by Theatrical Rights Worldwide, it was announced today that Mayhem Musical Theatre Company will present the UK pr…

Wincester amateur theatre launches playwrighting competition

Amateur theatre group, Chesil Theatre is once again inviting playwrights to submit scripts for its 10x10 Playwriting Competition.

Interview: The Heritage Arts Company Directors - Tim and Mat

Over 200 talented performers and artists applied for VAULT, a festival running over six weeks. The interest in working for the company has enabled a strong p…

Feature: The Future Of Theatre Criticism

Arts desks across all major publications seem to be cutting back on their critics. In an information saturated world, who do you trust? What is the future of…

Hairspray now available for UK amateurs

Josef Weinberger has announced that rights for smash hit musical Hairspray are now available to amateur groups throughout the UK.

Interview: Made in China Company Directors Tim and Jessica

What makes theatre company Made in China so special? Their razor sharp comedy Gym Party is currently on tour.

REVIEW: Ciphers, Bush Theatre ✭✭

It is difficult to believe that anyone would programme this play and even more difficult to believe that there are not better plays which deserve productions…

REVIEW: Putting It Together, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

This Putting It Together deserves to transfer into a central West End theatre and play to packed houses seeking pure, joyful entertainment.

REVIEW: Happy Days, Young Vic Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Happy Days is not a happy play. It is Beckett at his most confronting, most understandable, relentlessly surreal and disturbing. Essentially a monologue, it …

Critics Circle Theatre Awards turn 25 as Chimerica prevails.

The Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2013 took place on Tuesday 28 January 2014, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, celebrating the 25th anniversary of these uni…

Joseph to hit the silver screen

Jersey Boys to tour UK for the first time.

The Tony, Olivier and Grammy Award-winning Best Musical Jersey Boys, which has been delighting audiences in London for six years, will be touring the United …

REVIEW: The Pass, Royal Court Theatre ✭✭✭

Tovey gives a first rate performance. He attacks the part with every fibre of his being and gives the dialogue more joy and menace than it deserves. Even he,…

Sex and the City star Kristen Davis to make West End debut in Fatal Attraction

Cameron Mackintosh becomes first British producer inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame

Cameron Mackintosh was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in a ceremony at New York's Gerhswin Theatre on January 27, 2014

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Sneak Peek: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels heads to the West End

Rehearsals for the musical were recently opened up to the media and BritishTheatre.com were invited to take a look. Robert Lindsay said he wished that more s…

Cast announced for I Can't Sing - the X Factor musical

Bunny boiling is back in fashion as Fatal Attraction hits the stage.

Bunny boiling, psychotic lovers and thrills aplenty when the stage adaptation of the film Fatal Attraction arrives in the West End early next year for a limi…

Review: Happy Days, Churchill Theatre, Bromley ✭✭✭

A wave of nostalgia engulfed the Churchill Theatre Bromley last night, when the UK tour of Happy Days - a new musical kicked of its UK tour, some 40 years af…

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Review: Stephen Ward, Aldwych Theatre ✭✭

It’s a story that offered so much but as a show Stephen Ward returns so little.

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: The Duchess Of Malfi, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

This is the start of a whole new range of possibilities for the Globe complex - and a really entertaining and desirable one.

REVIEW: King Lear, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭

There has not, since 2007, been a National Theatre production of a Shakespearean play anything like as engaging, thrilling and involving as the Sam Mendes he…

REVIEW: The Bridges Of Madison County, Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

First and foremost though, it is a human tragedy - and the acting, staging, book, music and orchestrations all combine to produce an intensely affecting and …

REVIEW: The Glass Menagerie, Booth Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Sell limbs, organs, children, gold, whatever - but see this production if you value great dramatic theatrical work. It's a once in a lifetime reimagining of …

REVIEW: Machinal, American Airlines Theatre ✭✭✭

The audience was not fooled either; their tepid applause was a damning indictment of the alleged star turn. And the production company plants calling out "Br…

REVIEW: Pippin, Music Box Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Utterly completely glorious - funny and intensely sexual in style. This is a Pippin for all seasons. Miss it not!

REVIEW: Buyer And Cellar, Barrow Street Theatre ✭✭✭✭

It's a delicious and satisfying theatrical experience in every way. Urie is nothing short of remarkable.

REVIEW: Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, RSC ✭✭✭✭✭

It is as near perfect a piece of dramatic theatre as one is ever likely to see. What Herrin and his team have achieved here is utterly, unquestionably remark…

REVIEW: Coriolanus, Donmar Warehouse ✭✭✭

As Act One trundles along, there is absolutely no sense that anyone on stage has any idea what they are doing or why.