Spirited performances of Elvis Costello's bland songs can't save this new musical It's hard to work out why Kwame-Kwei Armah chose to end his tenure at the Young Vic by directing this soggy …
Lyndsey Turner's fast-paced production doesn't let the audience engage with its hero The National's new production of Coriolanus has to be one of the most handsome to appear on the Olivier s…
Timberlake Wertenbaker's updated version takes particular aim at colonialism The latest Greatest Hit to land at the Lyric is Timberlake Wertenbaker's 1988 award-winning play about a performa…
A wealth of musical talent keeps this gig musical afloat The signs in the Peacock's foyer warn that this show features "very loud music". Exactly what Janis Joplin fans want to hear. This is…
Patrick Barlow's brand of silly still delivers a sly Hitchcock spoof Before the Plays That Went Wrong and the multi-role six-hander Operation Mincemeat, there was Patrick Barlow's adaptat…
Roy Williams and Clint Dyer's protagonists rage against the limits of their lives Two boys in east London, one Black, one white, grow up together, play pranks at school, then decades later h…
The National's finely acted staging of Steinbeck's grim classic is a tough watch It's a brave company that embarks on a staging of John Steinbeck's award-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of Wra…
Michael Bennett's 1975 hit has plenty of pizzazz but not enough emotional oomph A Chorus Line reigned supreme on Broadway from 1975 to 1990, a bold, bare-bones piece that for once put musica…
Timely arrival for Lucas Hnath's play about the cost of winning Before Lucas Hnath wrote Red Speedo, he had heard a 2004 speech at a hearing investigating baseball doping that declared the p…
Nassim Soleimanpour's latest 'cold read' work is a unique experience The Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour is many things, some seemingly contradictory: a) a clever, poetic playwright w…
Cardboard Citizens shine an unforgiving light on poverty in the UK A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,…
Christopher Hampton's love of Stefan Zweig's text becomes a drawback Who was Stefan Zweig? It's likely that it's mostly older folk who studied German literature at A-level who have encounter…
Two awkward science nerds and a violent alcoholic father are oddly likeable company Sarah Power, the writer of Grud, now in the Hampstead's smaller space, is a self-confessed geek who…
A fine cast spell out the cost of survival in today's ailing industries For a long stretch of its first half, Dominique Morrisseau's 2016 award-winner, Skeleton Crew, seems a conventional…
Fans of the film will love it, but it's like being in a pink fever dream Nothing anybody over the age of 30 says about the new Mean Girls musical, spawn of Tina Fey's witty script for the 20…
A production with a green message for younger audiences It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably…
'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' brings the house down in a strongly cast lineup Lincoln Center's Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican's latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter's c…
Alice Childress's 1962 play about interracial love has lost none of its richness and fire Alice Childress's Wedding Band has arrived at the Lyric Hammersmith like an incendiary bomb, a weapo…
Giles Terera excels leading a livewire cast in an irreverent look at Black identity From New York's Public Theater, the venue that nurtured Hamilton, comes another estimable pocket musical, …
Superb cast deliver Van Badham's anti-incel barbs and feminist wit with gusto What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided …
Ian McKellen's Falstaff thrives in Robert Icke's entertaining remix of the Henry IV plays Shakespeare's plays have ever been meat for masher-uppers, from the bowdlerising Victorians to the m…
A five-women team spell out a feminist message with humour and strong singing Many an Edinburgh Fringe transfer has struggled when it moves to the big city, but the Dirty Hare company's Gunt…
It's a great song and dance evening, but the story is an empty one In a secret chamber somewhere, the producers of MJ the Musical may be keeping a portrait of the King of Pop that has ac…
Director Rachel O'Riordan finds lighter moments in a tale of grief Brian Friel's Faith Healer isn't noted for its laughs, but Rachel O'Riordan has found more than most directors do in this …
Lucy Kirkwood's latest mixes the birth of the NHS with a Brief Encounter-ish romance Keeley Hawes onstage is something to look forward to, so rare are her appearances there. In Lucy Kirkwo…