The rise of fascism in the 1930s East End is given a human face Hot on the heels of Brigid Larmour's updating of The Merchant of Venice to the East End in 1936, a spirited new musical acr…
Tracy-Ann Oberman turns Shylock into a heroic Jewish anti-fascist It's an unhappy time to be staging Shakespeare's problematic play, given its antisemitic content, so hats off to adaptor-dir…
Felicity Huffman, heading a superb cast, is a force of nature In 2017, two years after Hir premiered, Taylor Mac was awarded a "Genius Grant" and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for drama. Th…
Sarah Snook gives a virtuoso performance amid a dazzling display of tech wizardry Oscar Wilde's 1890 novella The Picture of Dorian Gray has given the world a trope built for flattery, along …
Age has not withered one jot the FAs' fury at the absurdities of modern life You don't expect a couple of septuagenarian contraltos, aided by a spring chicken of a soprano in her fifties, t…
Ingenious twists can't give Sam Holcroft's play a vital sense of danger Take dollops of Orwell and Kafka, with a sprinkling of Pirandello for a lighter texture, then bake. That could be the …
Bartlett Sher's intelligent reading is gorgeously staged and winningly performed The giant crinolines are back, and the winsome little royal children with miniature temples on their heads, a…
Zoe Cooper's queer reading is a tonic: clever, funny and seriously silly What Zoe Cooper has concocted in her loving rewiring of Jane Austen's first completed novel looks at first sight like…
Jonathan Spector is a Stoppard fan, but might Mamet have been better? How do you make a play out of Stalin's defecting daughter Svetlana, the psycho-economic theories of Daniel Kahneman and …
Les Enfants Terribles can't work their usual magic at the QEH There are probably two distinct audiences for the latest adaptation from Les Enfants Terribles, The House with Chicken Legs: the…
Monsters of ego clash in David Ireland's demolition of posturing theatre types David Ireland's Edinburgh Fringe hit Ulster American is essentially a play about a play that a Hollywood big…
Beautiful Elvis Costello songs and stirring music underpin a fine adaptation There's a touch of Dr Zhivago about director PaweÅ‚ Pawlikowski's screenplay for his 2018 film Cold War. It…
Terrific showcase for writer-director Kwame Owusu and his performer Kwame Owusu's 55-minute one-hander does just what it says on the tin: it features a young student who dreams he is drowni…
Annie Baker delivers a richly satisfying piece about hungry women A sun deck with seven pale-green padded loungers is the latest setting for the latest National Theatre premiere from Ame…
Mischief Theatre's sight gags are faultlessly timed, though the verbals need a trim Mischief Theatre set themselves a big challenge when they evolved their brand of knowing slapstick. And n…
Lynn Nottage and Lynette Linton reunite to deliver a rollicking evening Lynn Nottage's second London opening this year, the Donmar premiere of Clyde's, is a comedy about a sandwich, the p…
Alexander Zeldin creates a complex portrait of a woman's struggle for self-esteem How to describe Alexander Zeldin's latest, The Confessions? It is almost a kitchen-sink drama, but also a pi…
James Graham's play works like a big joke that a whole nation is in on It was interesting, in the same week that the England football team trounced Italy 3-1 in a Euros qualifier, to see Dea…
Mustapha Matura's 1981 play set in modern Trinidad is superbly served up Mustapha Matura's 1981 play, Meetings, is still a knockout. Supply the characters with mobile phones and it could be…
Maggie O'Farrell's inventive retelling of the Shakespeares' love story needs a more inventive production The RSC apparently has a hit on its hands with its West End transfer of Hamnet. Box o…
Big Broadway show with a pleasing British accent The Sondheim gala show Old Friends is a must for fans of the master, naturally, but its quality would knock anybody who loves musical theatre…
Ben Elton has written an odd musical-documentary, part comic-strip, part lecture The Biba dresses are way too colourful, the shop's interior about 10 times too bright… and did anybody real…
Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer have muddled aims for a tale of warring actors An impressive performance by Samuel West as one of two warring hams stuck on-set in a trailer over a not-so-d…
Lynn Nottage's 2018 play gets an exquisite staging with moving performances The work of the double Pulitzer-winning Black American dramatist Lynn Nottage has thankfully become a fixture in t…
The affable American humourist proves death becomes him Few comedians are such good company that you never want them to stop. The young Billy Connolly was one such; affable American Mike Bi…