London Theatre Reviews

'Jitney' review — August Wilson's drama is worth the ride

You’ll be mouthing the words “car service” for some while to come following the vivid Old Vic revival of Jitney, the 1982 play by August Wilson that arrives in London as a co-production with Leeds Playhouse and Headlong and that will continue on tour following this monthlong engagement. (This staging was first seen in Leeds last October.) The play’s previous London incarnation – imported from New York – won the Olivier for Best Play 20 years ago, and if this production doesn’t quite have the...

'The Car Man' review — Matthew Bourne's steamy dance drama is back with a bang

Never mind the summer heatwave – the hottest place in London right now is the Royal Albert Hall. As part of the venue’s 150th anniversary celebrations, Matthew Bourne has retooled his turbo-charged 2000 production The Car Man, which riffs on both the opera Carmen and the film noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice. This new version is bigger and bolder than ever, with a massive cast of 39, a full orchestra (giving a magnificent account of Terry Davies’ reworking of the Rodion Shchedrin...

'Britannicus' review — classical drama brings fresh energy and adventure

French neoclassical drama sits alongside English Restoration comedy as perhaps the two Western theatrical genres least frequently revived these days, for the simple reason that they require two very particular (if different) skill sets. I last saw Jean Racine’s 1669 play Britannicus in a fine revival from Jonathan Kent in 1998 that starred Toby Stephens and the late Diana Rigg and was played alongside the same writer’s best-known play, Phèdre. This current iteration boasts a robust version of...

'The Glass Menagerie' review – Amy Adams leads a touching but excessively gentle revival

The big draw of this revival of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie is Hollywood star Amy Adams making her West End debut. In fact, this is only the second professional theatre credit for the six-time Academy Award nominee, who previously played the Baker’s Wife in Sondheim’s Into the Woods at New York’s open-air Delacorte Theater. She takes on the iconic role of Amanda Wingfield, based on Williams’s own formidable, faded Southern Belle mother in the playwright’s semi-autobiographical...

'Henry VIII' review — Tudor history and contemporary gender politics collide

Six the Musical informs every moment of Amy Hodge’s adventurous production for Shakespeare’s Globe of the history play about the onetime monarch who made that sleeper London and Broadway hit possible: the much-married, famously rotund Henry VIII whose treatment at the hands of Shakespeare and his late-career collaborator John Fletcher remains one of the Bard’s least-performed plays. Up till now, I have mostly associated this play with various pageant-heavy productions for the RSC and a 2012...

'Legally Blonde' review — what you want is to see this joyous musical

“Is this the face of Harvard Law?” the admission team asks in Legally Blonde. They’ve received a last-minute application from Elle Woods, a blonde Barbie-eseque UCLA grad who doesn’t scream “typical lawyer.” In the space of a few months, she charms her way through the Ivy League school, proving that being yourself never goes out of style. We first fell for the Legally Blonde story two decades ago, when Reese Witherspoon played the spunky, feminist law student in the original film. Sheridan Smith...

'The Drifters Girl' review — Beverley Knight wows in a doo-wop musical celebration

"There’s only one New York Yankees, you can’t have another just because it features some ex-players” says Faye Treadwell in The Drifters Girl. The pioneering African-American music manager has the unenviable job of managing The Drifters, a doo-wop band who on hand dominate the music world, but also suffer from an ever-changing lineup and “copycat” rivals who look to steal their identity. But rest assured, while The Drifters Girl storyline shines a light on the band's issues, there's nothing...

'My Fair Lady' review — a loverly revival that balances old-fashioned charm with fresh ideas

My Fair Lady has come home. Bartlett Sher’s celebrated New York production is now playing in the city where its action unfolds, two decades on from Trevor Nunn’s Martine McCutcheon-starring revival. But is this classic musical still an enchanting treat, or does its gender politics preclude our enjoyment of Lerner and Loewe’s incandescent score? The London run of Sher’s production feels more progressive immediately thanks to its casting. It shouldn’t be this revolutionary in 2022 to have a black...

'The House of Shades' review — a compelling intergenerational drama loses its way

Death shadows every moment of The House of Shades, the ambitious new play by Beth Steel that promises an intergenerational epic of O’Neill-like proportions only to seriously lose its way. A top-flight cast can’t make something coherent of writing that wants to conjoin the personal and the political, the realistic and the fantastical, but as often as not settles for bald-faced pronouncements along the lines of “we’re all living through change; it isn’t easy.” Or, later, “we are all moving toward...

'Grease' review — this fitfully gritty take on the beloved musical still gives you chills

This seems to be the summer of reinvented classic musicals, from the moody Oklahoma! at the Young Vic to a revamped Legally Blonde at Regent’s Park Open Air. In that vein, Nikolai Foster dishes up his “gritty” Grease, which began Leicester Curve, toured the UK and is now playing in the West End. But is this the one that audiences want? Yes and no. Foster has gone back to Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s original stage musical version, rather than the John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John 50s...