London Theatre Reviews

‘Magic Mike Live’ is not what you think — it’s better

Let go of every expectation you have about a show called Magic Mike Live. Yes, there will be shirtless, attractive men dancing. Yes there will be bottomless prosecco. Yes there will be the Pony song. But the evening of talent, dancing, and, honestly, joy and empowerment taking place at the Hippodrome Casino is a feat of live entertainment.Rather than writing a traditional review, we (London Theatre editors Suzy Evans and Sophie Thomas) broke down the experience on Slack after seeing the show....

'Heathers' returns as an elevated teen dark comedy with a fresh-faced cast

'Dear Diary. July 12th, 2021.' Veronica Sawyer opens Heathers with the phrase "Dear Diary", so it feels fitting to mark the day I battled through the wind and rain to see Heathers in the West End.The growing domination of cult teen musicals is alive and well as the West End reopens. Be More Chill and Six are playing in their largest West End venues to date. Dear Evan Hansen is set to reopen in the autumn. But for all the shared playground politics in teen musicals, no show takes on adult themes...

'Romeo and Juliet' at Shakespeare's Globe plays against the natural poetry

The parade of late of Romeo and Juliets - whether online or in three dimensions - continues its uneven pace with the Globe's new production of a time-honoured tragedy that here has been so textually butchered that it often feels as if you're getting the outtakes of Shakespeare's play rather than the work itself. Ola Ince, the director, has done astonishing work elsewhere, not least her brilliant staging of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Appropriate for the Donmar Warehouse in late-summer 2019.But not...

If Gen Z is a musical, it’s definitely 'Be More Chill'

We've all behaved questionably as teenagers succumbing to peer pressure. It's easy to make irrational decisions when being cool is the only thing that seems to matter. But could a super computer change lives? One nerdy high schooler, Jeremy Heere, attempts to change his life in Be More Chill, an eccentric blast of teenage delirium that isn't actually that chill.Based on a book by Ned Vizzini, this buzzing musical sees Jeremy swallow a Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor (or SQUIP for short) in an...

Multiple casts bring depth and dimension to the multiverse in 'Constellations'

In 2012, playwright Nick Payne dazzled audiences with his fiendishly clever play that merges relationship drama with theories about quantum mechanics, superstrings, and the multiverse. Now it's back in the West End.If, after a year of Chris Whitty's "Next slide, please," you're feeling positively allergic to science, fear not: it basically boils down to there being infinite variations in parallel universes — so one in which lovers Roland and Marianne meet, don't hit it off and never see each...

'Hairspray' brings the beat and a big heart back to the West End

On a night of jubilation for English football fans, there was ample cause for celebration in the West End, too. Theatre came roaring back with a bright and big-hearted musical, ecstatically received by the London Coliseum audience.As star Michael Ball pointed out in a post-show speech, we're not there yet: that audience was 1,000 instead of 3,000, with social distancing and capacity caps still in place. It was a smaller band, too, looking lonely in the cavernous pit. All of which exacerbated a...

'The Tempest' and 'As You Like It' at The Globe are charming, stripped-down Shakespeare

If you're feeling anxious about returning to the theatre, Shakespeare's Globe is really the perfect compromise: outdoors and socially distanced, the only conspicuous difference from the usual configuration, roped-off rows aside, is the presence of seating in the area normally packed with standing groundlings. But the Globe Touring Company is back outdoors, with two outdoor-set plays. The Tempest and As You Like It share a cast and a costume-trunk aesthetic (excellently versatile costumes...

'Under Milk Wood' starring Michael Sheen at the National Theatre is achingly poignant

Why do we tell stories? Lyndsey Turner's emotive staging of Dylan Thomas's 1953 play for voices proffers some profound ideas: to heal familial bonds, to find lucidity in the murkiness of dementia, and to reach much-needed catharsis after a long period of suffering.Of course, for audiences returning to theatre — albeit with social distancing, meaning the Olivier is still in the round and with restricted capacity — there is joy simply in the process: seeing a world conjured live before us. So, I...

Amanda Wilkin proves she is a talent to watch with her brilliant play ‘Shedding a Skin’

Specificity yields universality, and Amanda Wilkin's intimate one-woman show about a 30something woman staring over and trying to find herself proves this concept. I'll be honest: I was a bit nervous to review Shedding a Skin. Who am I — a white, American woman — to weigh in on this stunning story by a Black, British female playwright? But watching Wilkin radically embody Myah (single, broke, unemployed) as she navigates unknown waters, I realized this is exactly why plays like Wilkin's are...

'J'Ouvert' is a soul-soaring, exhilarating piece of theatre

What an electrifying explosion of joy J'Ouvert is, incandescent with rich colour, fiery passion, and coruscating wit. It's the debut play of Yasmin Joseph, first seen pre-Covid at the brilliant, future-forging fringe venue Theatre 503, then on TV as part of the BBC's recent Lights Up strand, and now, triumphantly, storming the West End stage in Sonia Friedman's Re:Emerge season of new work. It's not a perfect piece, but it displays the kind of fresh talent that makes theatregoing truly exciting....