The week in theatre: The Normal Heart; Shining City
Olivier; Theatre Royal Stratford East, LondonLarry Kramer's 1985 response to the Aids crisis resonates with new force. And Dublin ghost stories unfurl slowly in a fine Conor McPherson reviva…
Olivier; Theatre Royal Stratford East, LondonLarry Kramer's 1985 response to the Aids crisis resonates with new force. And Dublin ghost stories unfurl slowly in a fine Conor McPherson reviva…
Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Dorfman, LondonWill the West End ever let go of this glinting new adaptation of the beloved Disney film. Back in the real world, a telling historical mashup from Wi…
Almeida, LondonMirth and menace fight it out in Josh Azouz's play of shifting alliances, with Adrian Edmondson on fine form as a knitting Nazi officer The action is tragic; the dialogue freq…
Royal Court Upstairs, LondonAs delivered by the Dutch singer Wende, the diffuse nature of assorted words that "can only be sung" take on the force of nature I often wish I had been in Paris …
Gillian Lynne theatre; Regent's Park Open Air theatre, LondonAndrew Lloyd Webber's new musical, sparkily scripted by Emerald Fennell, goes to the ball at last. And Carousel gets a salty rewo…
Olivier; Noël Coward theatre, LondonLesley Sharp is magnetic in Kae Tempest's ferocious reworking of Sophocles, while Lily Allen makes a spookily quiet West End debut It is rare for an au…
Old Vic, LondonWarm, wily and gloriously playful, Emma Rice's adaptation of the 1987 film is another motel-and-ballad show triumph for the Old Vic It is, says director Emma Rice, a story to …
Theatre Royal Windsor; Harold Pinter theatre; Bush, LondonIan McKellen's wonderfully assured Prince of Denmark is a double-edged sword; The Crown's Emma Corrin can do far more than Diana; an…
Chichester Festival theatreDaniel Evans's production bursts with energy as it foregrounds an anti-racist message in the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic I have always flinched from the seduct…
Vaudeville; Theatre Royal Stratford East, LondonThe first two of four new casts work their magic differently in Nick Payne's irresistible multiple realities play. And April De Angelis makes …
Bridge; Lyric Hammersmith, LondonSimon Russell Beale is Bach to his fingertips in Nina Raine's intermittently brilliant tale of the great composer's domestic labours. And a fine triple bill …
Notting Hill carnival and Dylan Thomas's radio masterpiece come to the stage, while no one does lockdown like Beckett It is an unlikely phenomenon in the West End. Women slamming their argum…
Hampstead theatre, LondonThe ingenious struggle of a new generation of entrepreneurs is charted in Dawn Walton's bright revival of Alfred Fagon's prescient 1975 play Alfred Fagon's play, fir…
Dorfman; Theatre Royal Stratford East, LondonGhosts confront bureaucracy and memory; and a murdered man's spirit inspires his twin sister to tackle racial injustice Here are ghosts bringing …
Pinter; Kiln; Old Vic/online Gemma Arterton's failed astronaut confronts her overachieving sister in Amy Berryman's debut play; wheelchair user Amy Trigg transfixes with her witty monologue;…
Shakespeare's Globe; Duchess theatre, LondonSeated groundlings make history at the Globe's carnivalesque Dream. And Jack Holden conjures memories of the onslaught of Aids As if by magic, aft…
Available onlineJulie Hesmondalgh as a food bank volunteer and Frances de la Tour in glinting Alan Bennett headline this sharp set of five plays filmed in and around the city As theatres reo…
Pitlochry Festival theatre, onlineJohn Byrne revisits the terrain of his 1977 hit spoof Writer's Cramp to follow the fortunes of artist Pamela Crichton Capers in this dizzy audio drama Pell-…
Available onlineBen Brown's new play imagining the author's Moscow meeting with his former MI6 colleague fails to truly chill The theatre is rich in dramas about the Cambridge spies. Alan Be…
National Theatre/Sky ArtsBuckley and O'Connor head a terrific cast in this imaginatively pared down, made-for-TV production What an accomplished example of pandemic-style drama: a sleek fusi…
Pitlochry Festival theatre; Crucible Sheffield; podcast; all available onlineMark Ravenhill tenderly explores his mother's life; monologues and music from Sheffield; and actors talk about th…
RSC onlineA motion-captured Puck and computer-generated forest of fairies hint at possible futures for live performance At 7pm on Tuesday more than 7,000 people were watching. At a later per…
Old Vic, London; available onlineJade Anouka sprints through American history, while all is calmly, inexorably revealed in Kiri Pritchard-McLean's subtle play about gaslighting The Old Vic h…
The actor on his pandemic poetry jukebox, life lessons of the Moomins, the pros and cons of Twitter, and how to reboot regional theatre Samuel West, 54, one of the best verse speakers of his…
Old Vic, London; available onlineSolo voices reverberate in these archive performances of Maxine Peake's play about a woman in prison, and Ella Hickson's roaming story of escape I have often…