London Theatre Reviews

'Iphigenia in Splott' review — Sophie Melville gives a career-defining performance in a ferocious call to arms

Time has been both kind (if that’s the right word, in this context), but also not to Iphigenia in Splott, the fierce monodrama that I first saw at the National Theatre early in 2016 prior to an onward life that included an improbable engagement Off Broadway: improbable only because one wonders what New Yorkers may have made of the rather, um, unbridled content not to mention an accent unfamiliar to many American ears. Splott is a district of Cardiff, in Wales, unlikely ever to have been...

'The Upstart Crow' review — David Mitchell and Gemma Whelan shine in theatre's love letter to Shakespeare

To tweak a line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night — if The Upstart Crow be the food of theatre, play on. Ben Elton’s Bard-based television comedy, originally commissioned for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing, is now a stage smash hit. Shakespeare and his contemporaries couldn’t have fathomed our 21st century way of living. Would women be allowed to star in plays? Would a “notes app” Instagram post equate to a sonnet? As The Upstart Crow crashes modern-day ideas with an Elizabethan...

'Jews. In Their Own Words.' review — a series of remarkable testimonies and reflections on British Judaism

When is a play not a play? When it’s the extended exercise in expiation offered by Jews. In Their Own Words, the verbatim play from Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland that brings self-flagellation – alongside some remarkable testimonials - to the London stage. The given venue, the Royal Court, is significant: this is the hugely important new writing playhouse that got into hot water late last year via a play, Rare Earth Mettle, that featured a central character whose name, Herschel Fink, was...

'The Crucible' review – Lyndsey Turner unleashes the full dramatic power of Arthur Miller's masterpiece

Water is cascading down onto the Olivier stage, creating a tight, claustrophobic box within which a similar outpouring of accusations is about to rock the small town of Salem. It’s an unforgettable opening to Lyndsey Turner’s magnificent revival of The Crucible, setting up the chilling horror in which humanity turns in on itself with deadly consequences. Arthur Miller, of course, had a very specific analogy in mind when he penned his 1953 play: the Salem witch trials of the 1690s represented the...

'Eureka Day' review – an incredibly funny satire of a modern conundrum

How do you weigh duty to yourself and your loved ones versus duty to the whole community? It’s a theoretical conundrum which became extremely concrete for us all during the pandemic, but it was an ongoing issue in the United States long before that – as Jonathan Spector’s sharply comic and fascinatingly prescient 2018 play, Eureka Day, attests. And, although aspects here do feel very specifically American, there’s also plenty of resonance in this slick European premiere. The setting is a...

'The Clinic' review — an invigorating play connects the political and personal with ease

Dipo Baruwa-Etti has been busy of late, the 27-year-old British-Nigerian writer penning plays arriving in seemingly quick succession each of which packs a different surprise punch. The Clinic, at the Almeida Theatre, immediately catches one unawares in telling of a successful Black couple in London who just happen to be Tories – yes, that too can happen! — and the fractious household over which they come to preside. Paul Wills’ elegant, elevated set shows the sort of spotless, state-of-the-art...

'Antigone' review — Inua Ellams adapts Sophocles' Greek tragedy with high emotions

Can a centuries-old tragedy resonate anew? The answer is yes and then some in Inua Ellams’s wholesale rewrite of Antigone, the Sophocles title here freshly invigorated by the same Anglo-Nigerian writer who refashioned Three Sisters for keeps at the National Theatre pre-pandemic. In the interim, Ellams’s solo play An Evening with an Immigrant at the Bridge constituted one of the a bracing pandemic-era offering that took us out of our homes, and – in its sweeping empathy - of ourselves. Ellams...

'Who Killed My Father' review — Ivo van Hove directs a singular feat of commitment and endurance

There’s no denying the novelistic origins of Who Killed My Father, the solo marathon that the superb Dutch actor Hans Kesting has brought to the Young Vic for a limited run, under the ever-incisive directorial eye of Ivo van Hove. This is the same venue, of course, where van Hove made his leap to auteur-director stardom in 2014. That was due to his revelatory, stripped-back revival of A View from the Bridge, which transferred to the West End and to Broadway, garnering kudos and trophies along...

'A Different Stage' review – Gary Barlow shines in this gem of a one-man show

A million love songs later, here he is. We’ve seen the Take That line-up shrink over the years, from five down to three; now Gary Barlow unveils his own solo show, and it’s an absolute cracker. A Different Stage, which visits the West End during its national tour, could easily have been just a greatest hits concert peppered with some smug anecdotes. Instead, Barlow has teamed up with Tim Firth, his co-creator on musical The Girls and book writer for Take That musical The Band, for this tightly...

'The Tempest' review — a cut down Shakespeare loses its magic

Shakespeare’s valedictory, to comply with the received scholarship on this climactic play of his, lands with muted force in Sean Holmes’s curate’s egg of a production – engaging and vital at some moments, flat and curiously lacking in impact at others. The news value is surely that Ferdy Roberts, as Prospero, spends most of the performance wearing nothing but snugly-fitting yellow swimming trunks, which may be fine during these hot summer days but might be less comfortable for the actor as the...