The Irish actor Stephen Rea is a silent-movie Krapp to treasure In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a door…
An ideal revisiting of Patrick Marber's play about risking all to move ahead Patrick Marber's powerful debut about gambling men is 30 years old, born as the Eighties entrepreneurial boom was…
De Beauvoir's novel gets an often charming but undemanding staging The Finborough has once again performed the miracle of creating a whole world in its intimate space: this time, inter-war …
Amy Ng's take on two Chinese titans needs more dramatic ballast The writer Amy Ng has made a sterling effort in digging up the true story behind her new play at the Kiln, Shanghai Dolls, but…
Writer-actor Keelan Kember floods the stage with a torrent of gags but few ideas Keelan Kember's play Thanks for Having Me may look like a vehicle for Kedar Williams-Stirling (Sex Education,…
Johnson Willis captures the anarchic energy and wit of the late guitarist Resurrecting the origins of old rock stars is becoming quite the thing, After cinema's Elton John, Freddie Mercury…
Julia McDermott triumphs as a Californian weather girl coping with fires inside and outside her head Can Francesca Moody do it again? Fleabag's producer has brought Weather Girl to London, a…
Jean-Philippe Daguerre tries to mix a farcical comedy of manners with the holocaust When Yasmina Reza's cerebral play Art arrived in London in 1996, we applauded it as a comedy. Now another…
Perfectly judged performances enhance a subtle staging of Nick Payne's two-hander Nick Payne, the writer of Constellations, has created another 90-minute zinger for two actors. This one is m…
Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie shine in a multifaceted portrait of motherhood The theatre director Anna Mackmin has written and directed an extraordinary play about a mother and daughter relat…
Is it a dance piece with added text, or a stripped down play with excess choreography? The opening scene of the Old Vic's Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes …
Still inventive and fun but short on sharp shocks How excited Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton must have been to learn that the venue for their Inside No 9 stage show was haunted, by an …
An intimate staging and superb casting make this a superior West End production Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes …
Matthew Bourne's masterly reinvention has become a classic itself How do you refresh a masterpiece? Bringing back his first and still greatest hit, Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne seems to have ch…
Lillian Hellman's family feud set in 1900 Alabama doesn't survive a confused updating The Young Vic has opened under a new artistic director with a puzzle play. The puzzle is, why stage this…
Director Patrick Marber does Mel Brooks's 1967 musical proud There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers' arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these twitc…
Dan McCabe's play about ageing hiphop stars makes a winning European debut Watching Dan McCabe's 2019 play, older folk might be reminded of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's indelible lyrics, "Ca…
Rajiv Joseph's play pitting beauty against duty gets an impressive staging It's 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls…
A magnificent Adrien Brody leads a moving production by Justin Martin There is star casting, and there is casting the right star " not the same thing. The Donmar's new production, The Fear o…
Zinnie Harris's modern take robs the play of its tragic potential John Webster's sour, bloody tale of brotherly greed and vice has been updated by the playwright Zinnie Harris, who also dire…
Nathan Englander probes a divide in modern Jewish identity; Patrick Marber directs An incendiary play has opened at the Marylebone, the adventurous venue just off Baker Street. Bigger houses…
Josh Azouz and Kathryn Hunter concoct an uneasy mix of comedy and tragedy The writer-director Josh Azouz and actor-director Kathryn Hunter have collaborated on a piece exploring the ethics o…
Daisy Hall's astonishing debut is both darkly funny and deadly serious As hurricanes rip into the American Gulf states with increasing ferocity, eastern Europe disappears underwater and eve…
Changgeuk Company bring an epic poem quality to the familiar tale What do the cult TV show Squid Game and National Changgeuk Company of Korea's Lear have in common? Oddly, a K-Pop producer, …
Pinero's play emerges fresh-minted in an exquisite production The stock of the late 19th century playwright Arthur Wing Pinero has just received a significant boost, thanks to the brilliant …