News & Reviews

REVIEW: 2071, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs ✭

Billed and promoted as "a play exploring the future of life on earth and climate change", 2071 may be many things, but a play it is not. Nothing theatrical h…

REVIEW: Wildefire, Hampstead Theatre ✭✭

Director Maria Aberg certainly confronts the challenges Wildefire offers head on. There is some starkly realistic violence - the murder of Spence and it's af…

REVIEW: Made In Dagenham, Adelphi Theatre ✭✭✭✭

When Made In Dagenham is focussed on the fairy tale, it is completely engaging, very funny, heart-warming and genuinely affecting. And intrinsically British.…

REVIEW: Side Show, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

On any rational view of it, this is not a revival but a complete re-imagining of the original work. It is not an attempt to recapture the magic of a first ru…

Philip Quast Joins Sweeney Todd Cast

The Railway Children Trailer Released

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, Sam Wannamaker Theatre ✭✭✭✭

If incest between siblings remains one of the great taboos (and the success of Games of Thrones may suggest otherwise) then, in this production, Longhurst ru…

REVIEW: The Last Ship, Neil Simon Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

If you are the kind of theatre-goer who believes that the musical theatre is capable of anything in the right hands; if you like difficult themes and complex…

Made In Dagenham New Trailer Released

REVIEW: John, Lyttleton Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

It's confronting from start to finish; challenging and disturbing in many ways. But, ultimately, as we hear John settle into a calm, perhaps contented sleep,…

New Into The Woods Trailer Released

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Hedwig And The Angry Inch (Michael C Hall), Belasco Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

It's a much more masculine turn than Harris gave; yet, simultaneously, it is a performance charged with grim sexual power, with alarming, overbearing feminin…

James Dreyfus To Star In New Production Of Harvey

Rehearsal Photos: Irving Berlin's White Christmas

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Jason Donovan To Star In King's Speech 2015 Tour

Pippin To Close On Broadway

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: It's Only A Play, Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre ✭✭✭

The night belongs to Nathan Lane who is hilariously vicious as James Wicker, an actor who turned down the lead role in the play written by his best friend be…

Kristen Scott Thomas Plays Queen In Audience Revival

Bat Boy The Musical Revived At Southwark Playhouse

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Lenny Henry Joins Company For The Listening Space

REVIEW: Grand Guignol, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭

There may be plenty of blood, guts and severed body parts but there is little reason to faint as audience members regularly did at the original Grand-Guignol…

Mark Ludmon

News & Reviews

Cast Announced For The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at Rose Theatre

Paines Plough's Every Brilliant Thing Transfers To New York

Bend It Like Beckham The Musical Announced

Ian McDiarmid To Play Shylock At Almeida

REVIEW: On The Town, Lyric Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The dancing has a style, a language of its own and, certainly as choreographed by Bergasse, is more articulate than pages of dialogue. The steps are tricky, …

Side Show Revival Starts Broadway Previews

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: You Can't Take It With You, Longacre Theatre ✭✭✭✭

There are forced laughs, natural laughs, gentle laughs, belly laughs and many, many smiles over the course of the production. By the final Act, however, you …

Richard Armitage In The Crucible Hits Cinemas

The Cat In The Hat Returns This Christmas

REVIEW: The Wild Duck, Barbican Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

It is, in every way, a complete theatrical triumph; a marvellous reimagining of Ibsen, set firmly in an Australian idiom, resonating with thrilling power, an…

REVIEW: Neville's Island, Duke Of York's Theatre ✭

The prospect of discovering what the blood was about, where Angus' wife was, what Roy's secret was and how the four get along was not sufficiently compelling…

REVIEW: James III - The True Miror, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Sansom imbues this play with a reckless, frenetic energy, a listlessness that reflects the monarch's temperament and a sexy, splendid pulse that tantalises a…

REVIEW: James I: The Key Will Keep The Lock, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Spare, visceral and gripping, this is an extraordinarily wonderful production of an important and difficult new play, which shines a light onto forgotten eve…

REVIEW: James II - Day Of the Innocents, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The script and treatment of the material in the writing of this play is so different than the first, that one could be forgiven for thinking that a different…

REVIEW: The Scottsboro Boys, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

The Scottsboro Boys relies on the skills of its acting company, giving them chairs and tambourines and a few costumes, as their only tools and the show becom…

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: The Cherry Orchard, Young Vic ✭✭✭✭

Set firmly in the present, this version lacks languid notions about the past, does not spend too much time on the intricacies of character and prefers shock …

Jason Manford To Headline The Producers UK Tour

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Into The Woods - New Trailer Released

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Matilda Heads Down Under

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Memphis, Shaftesbury Theatre ✭✭✭✭

As Calhoun, Killian Donnelly is a revelation...His mania, energy and sheer talent explodes off the stage driven by some of the finest rock vocals that I have…

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Speed-The-Plow, Playhouse Theatre ✭✭

It's a mystery why Lindsay Lohan chose this play as her world stage debut. Perhaps she knew she would be the best thing about it? That would seem the only ra…

REVIEW: Our Town, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

This is a phenomenally effective and ambitious revival of a masterpiece. It restores one’s faith in the power and magic of theatre and shows, in a very clear…

Listen To Preview Tracks From The Sunny Afternoon Cast Album

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Joey And Michael Morpurgo Walk Amongst The Poppies

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris, Charing Cross Theatre ✭✭

The best aspect of this production is the musicianship on display from the gifted Dean Austin and the four members of his band who, with piano, accordion, gu…

Our Critics Choice - The Top 10 West End Plays

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: This Is My Family, Lyceum Sheffield ✭✭✭

This Is My Family is unlikely to win a Tony award for Best New Musical, but it is an engaging and very happy musical theatre experience. It's new, British th…

Our Critics Choice: The 10 Best West End Musicals