London Theatre Reviews

'Rockets and Blue Lights' at the National Theatre review - a meditative, surrealist work

Two women look at a painting by J. M. W. Turner: The Slave Ship. We can see the painting only through their descriptions: the blood-red sky, the churning waves, the faceless bodies half-submerged in the sea. It is, as playwright Winsome Pinnock has characters meditate at several points in the play, a scene that is all world and no people: the ship, the sky, the ocean. The enslaved people being thrown to their deaths over the side of the ship are deliberately obscured. Pinnock's new play Rockets...

Review - 'Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia' mixes drama with dark comedy

In a time long ago, well 1943 to be exact, Tunisia was home to Arabs and Jews who lived together under French rule. The Nazi's invasion of Tunisia introduced violence, suffering, and betrayal between neighbours. Such is the setting for the Almeida's new drama about war, survival, and identity which playwright Josh Azouz serves drenched in sickly black humour.In the play's striking opening scene, designer Max Johns has innovatively recreated a Tunisian desert using sand coloured boxes of various...

'Operation Mincemeat' at Southwark Playhouse speaks to the current political moment

From its opening chorus, Operation Mincemeat is a fizzy, clever, compelling new musical. Though billed as a work-in-progress, don't come in expecting a half-finished evening: this is a tight and carefully considered piece that deserves to be seen on a much larger stage soon. Composition and writing team SplitLip (consisting of David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoe Roberts, who also make up four of the five members of the acting company) have been publicly workshopping the show...

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cinderella’ is the revisionist fairytale we all need

We could all use a fairytale right now after the year (and a half) we've had. A little escapism to drown our troubles and remember that sometimes happy endings and dreams do come true. Well, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella is a different kind of fairytale, one that, instead, reminds us of our humanity and that sometimes things turn out as you least expect them to. Who wants to ride off into the sunset anyway when you could make mistakes and learn some things along the way?That's certainly been...

'Jersey Boys' offers 'sheer entertainment' in a welcome return to the West End

The gorgeously revamped Trafalgar Theatre (formerly Trafalgar Studios) christens its new auditorium with an old favourite: 2005 biographical jukebox musical Jersey Boys, which last ran in the West End from 2008-2017. Well, the boys are back in town - a strong lure for those audiences still working their way back to theatre.Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice's show makes a virtue out of the Four Seasons members' conflicting recollections of their rise to fame and subsequent acrimonious split. The...

‘Constellations’ continues to triumph with new acting pairs in the multiverse

The inspiring multiple-cast run of Nick Payne's multiverse play Constellations continues to wow in the West End. Us lucky critics have already seen two pairs - Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah, and Zoë Wanamaker and Peter Capaldi (reviewed here) - as cosmologist Marianne and beekeeper Roland. In Payne's skilful dramatisation of the infinite variations in parallel universes, the couple variously get together or don't, break up for different reasons, get married or don't, and face a major health...

Lily Allen makes an admirable stage debut in the scary and shouty '2:22: A Ghost Story'

Lily Allen shrieks before she even says a word in 2:22: A Ghost Story, which tips you off immediately as to the way Danny Robins's debut West End play is due to proceed. But the name-grabbing debut on view is, of course, singer-songwriter Allen, who was due some years back to be penning a major musical of Bridget Jones's Diary from which she parted company along the way.Instead, here Allen is, looking sleek and glam and very much forming part of the four-person ensemble that has been assembled...

Sophocles rewrite ‘Paradise’, starring Lesley Sharp, is brave, bold, and bruising

This summer's barrage of theatre openings comes to an unexpectedly heady climax with Paradise, the poet and polymath Kae Tempest's brave and bruising modern-day adaptation of Sophocles's Philoctetes. Marking the first show in 18 months or so to open at the National Theatre to full capacity, Ian Rickson's production reminds us of this director's singular gift for theatrical transliteration and, indeed, translation, as reflected in his magnificent revival at this same address a few years ago of...

A raucous ‘Twelfth Night’ at Shakespeare’s Globe struggles to balance humour with heart

Welcome to Illyria, where it's Mardi Gras every day, and the now-ramshackle town has been overrun by the Countess's vagabonds and fools. Imagine being ship-wrecked in this sin-laden land, where debauchery and jokesters seem to rule in the inconsistent-yet-jubilant production of Twelfth Night at Shakespeare's Globe. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, and for those who don't remember the tale from school, the story starts with a shipwreck that separates twins Viola and...

A reimagined ‘Carousel’ at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre revitalises the classic

"When you walk through a storm Hold your head up high And don't be afraid of the dark"Those powerful lyrics from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "You'll Never Walk Alone" hit a little differently after over a year of a pandemic, a "storm" that has shuttered our theatres, separated our families, and devastated our world. There was also a literal storm brewing on Monday night at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, and the company of Carousel definitely walked on through the wind, rain, and...