A gripping new play with a Michael Fish-y narrative: Pressure reviewed
David Haig’s play Pressure looks at the Scottish meteorologist, James Stagg, who advised Eisenhower about the weather in the week…
Flouncy, tasteless and unsubtle – I loved it: Ruthless! The Musical reviewed
Ruthless! The Musical is a camp extravaganza about ambitious actors stranded in small-town America. Sylvia St Croix, a pushy agent,…
The Plough and the Stars at the Lyric Hammersmith shows Sean O’Casey is one of the greats
The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey looks at the Irish nationalist movement during the events of Easter 1916.…
A beautiful but bizarre show, beset by ‘great ideas’: Summer and Smoke reviewed
Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams dates from the late 1940s. He hadn’t quite reached the peaks of sentimental delicacy…
Rory Kinnear is less Macbeth, more a tetchy manager of an Amazon warehouse
The Best Man by Gore Vidal is set during a fictional American election in 1960. Two gifted candidates seek their…
There’s much to adore about the Old Vic’s Fanny and Alexander
Fanny & Alexander opens like a Chekhov comedy and turns into an Ibsen tragedy. Ingmar Bergman’s movie script, adapted by…
The former head of the RSC finds cause for optimism in the Arts Council cuts
He looks like an absent-minded watchmaker, or a homeless chess champion, or a stray physics genius trying to find his…
If I were a detective looking for serial killers I’d stake out Frozen
Frozen starts with a shrink having a panic attack. She hyperventilates into her hand-bag and then gets drunk on an…
The York Realist feels like it’s been written by a newcomer at a creative writing weekend
The Donmar’s new show, The York Realist, dates from 2001. The programme notes tell us that the playwright, Peter Gill,…
Why do critics claim to adore the waffle-fest that is Long Day’s Journey into Night?
It’s considered the great masterpiece of 20th-century American drama. Oh, come off it. Long Day’s Journey into Night is a…
Bold, in its way, but Ben Whishaw is ill-suited to Shakespeare: Julius Caesar reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s new show is a modern-dress Julius Caesar, heavily cut and played in the round. It runs for two…
What’s it like being the only right-wing comic?
Geoff Norcott is lean, talkative, lightly bearded and intense. Britain’s first ‘openly Conservative’ comedian has benefited enormously from the Brexit…
There are many scenes in this overlong play that consist, literally, of drivel: John reviewed
The NT’s new production, John, is by a youngish American playwright, Annie Baker. We Brits tend to assume that ‘john’…
Unlike most Pinter plays, this one doesn’t bore or baffle: The Birthday Party reviewed
The Birthday Party is among Pinter’s earliest and strangest works. It deconstructs the conventions of a repertory thriller but doesn’t…
Another American playwright felled by her own trophy collection: Belleville reviewed
A pattern emerges. A hot American playwright, dripping with prestigious awards, is honoured in London with a transfer of their…
The latest astonishing achievement from the creators of War Horse
The Twilight Zone, an American TV show from the early 1960s, reinvented the ghost story for the age of space…
As a musical, it’s overwhelming – politically, it’s an outrage: Hamilton reviewed
It’s all about the rhythm. Hamilton is a musical that tells the story of America’s foundation through the medium of…
Parliament Square at the Bush is theatre that believes it knows politics better than professional politicians
A new play at the Bush with a catchy political title. Parliament Square introduces us to Kat, a young Scots…
It’s impossible to muff the role of Scrooge – yet Rhys Ifans manages: A Christmas Carol reviewed
Maximum Victoriana at the Old Vic for Matthew Warchus’s A Christmas Carol. Even before we reach our seats we’re accosted…
Huge audiences, gongs galore and Broadway awaits Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie opened at the Sheffield Crucible in February for a standard three-week run. The show is based…
An overrated news satire directed by an inexplicably popular director: Network reviewed
The inexplicable popularity of Ivo Van Hove continues. The director’s latest visit to the fairies involves an updated version of…
Christian Slater is mesmerising: Glengarry Glen Ross reviewed
David Mamet’s plays are tough to pull off because his dialogue lacks the predictable shapeliness of traditional dramatic speech. He…
Rarely has the West End seen such a draining and nasty experience: The Exorcist reviewed
The Exorcist opened in 1973 accompanied by much hoo-ha in the press. Scenes of panic, nausea and fainting were recorded…
Why has the Bridge Theatre opened with this lightweight new play? Young Marx reviewed
Bang! A brand new theatre has opened on the South Bank managed by the two Nicks, Hytner and Starr, who…
Family planning
Beginning starts at the end. A Crouch End party has just finished and the sitting room is a waste tip…
