It’s hard to walk out of Every Brilliant Thing at Soho Place without feeling that something unsparingly true, somehow, has been laid bare. In this West-End staging of a one-person play, the premise is deceptively simple and the effect quietly powerful. Written by Duncan Macmillan (with original co-creator Jonny Donahoe) and directed by Macmillan alongside […]
The premise of this show is the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society attempting to perform a 1920s murder mystery called ‘The Murder at Haversham Manor’. Everything that can go wrong does, starting with missing props and mis-built scenery then escalating into mis-timed cues, doors that refuse to open, actors knocked unconscious, understudies shoved on who do […]
Reviewing this a year on, with a new cast, Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre is a smart, high-energy musical comedy-spy thriller that fully delivers on its clever promise. Directed by Robert Hastie, with book, music and lyrics by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts (written by the troupe SpitLip), and starring […]
This production of The Code at Southwark Playhouse is gripping and polished from the get-go. Under the direction of Christopher Renshaw and with a sharp script by Michael McKeever, it offers a witty but unflinching look at fame, identity and the hidden rules of early Hollywood. The play is set in 1950s Hollywood and centres […]
The latest revival of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Noël Coward Theatre offers a lively and lavish re-imagining of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comedy, directed by Max Webster and featuring a cast led by Olly Alexander (Algernon Moncrieff), Nathan Stewart‑Jarrett (Jack Worthing) and Stephen Fry (Lady Bracknell). On balance, the production succeeds in refreshing […]
Walking into Salomé at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, you have a sense of foreboding. If anything, the whole experience of getting into the theatre felt more like airport security than theatre. Bags were being searched, full pat downs and even water bottles were being confiscated from the audience. The bar was shut so no buying […]
This Assassins at the Bridewell Theatre is ambitious but not successful. Directed by Dan Edge for SEDOS, the production announces itself as sharp, timely political commentary. In truth it is a cluttered slog, largely due to Sondheim’s unmemorable and cumbersome material. The Americon 2025 frame is clever in theory but bloats the storytelling and muddies […]
James Graham’s Punch, directed by Adam Penford, arrives at the Apollo with all the subtlety of its title. It is urgent, unvarnished and at times unbearably heavy-handed. But when it connects, it hits with force. Based on Jacob Dunne’s memoir Right From Wrong, the play traces the aftermath of a single reckless punch thrown by a nineteen-year-old […]
Penn & Teller at the London Palladium is a magic comedy show, starring Penn Jillette as the talker and Teller as the near silent foil. It marks their first West End residency as part of their 50th anniversary tour. The show unfolds in two acts, each built around a handful of major set piece tricks […]
This is a dark comedy by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran about a young Adolf Hitler who visits a new kind of doctor in Vienna, Sigmund Freud, and keeps reappearing in Sigmund Freud’s life as Europe tilts toward disaster. The opening is brutal and direct. Adolf’s father whips him with a belt for bedwetting while […]