London Theatre Reviews

Review - Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 the Musical at the Savoy Theatre

Sometimes theatre is all in the timing. When the 1980 comedy 9 to 5 was first turned into a Broadway musical in 2009, it was just the latest in a run of film titles being opportunistically adapted for the stage; and it duly ran for only five months there. But now, in the wake of #MeToo, its story about sexual harassment and bullying in the office place, as well as unequal pay and opportunities for female workers there, carries a new resonance and relevance.And now when the tables are turned on...

Review - All About Eve starring Gillian Anderson and Lily James at the Noel Coward Theatre

Another opening night in the West End, and two exciting talents hit the stage in Gillian Anderson and Lily James. But as Ivo van Hove's hotly-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve opens at the Noel Coward, perhaps it pulls back the curtain and reveals a thing or two about power, age and the stage.Based on the 1950 film by Joseph L Mankiewicz - which in turn is based on an earlier play by Mary Orr - it's a true Broadway story. Eve Harington (James) arrives at the stage door, fresh from seeing...

Review - The Price starring David Suchet at Wyndham's Theatre

London is in the midst of a mini-Arthur Miller season - this week will also see the opening of a new production of The American Clock at the Old Vic, directed by the American director Rachel Chavkin, while down the street at the Young Vic Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell will co-direct Death of a Salesman in May.But first, there's this exemplary revival of Arthur Miller's 1968 slow-burning family drama The Price, transferring in a production first seen at Bath Theatre Royal last year. The...

Review - Pinter 7 starring Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman at the Harold Pinter Theatre

For the last six months, something remarkable has been happening at the Harold Pinter Theatre - it has been given over to a seven-part season of brief celebrity-cast runs of all of the theatre's namesake playwright Harold Pinter's short plays, sometimes presented in rep, to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing. It's been bracing and brilliant to be able to see these plays, from the earliest part of his career to its final lap, back to back. For completists, there's been nothing better (I...

Review - Home, I'm Darling at the Duke of York's Theatre

The West End may be catching up with the times, but it's via characters who either live, or want to live, in the past. This month and next, contemporary women playwrights are seeing two new plays of theirs transfer to town - Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's historical Emilia, set 400 years ago, will come from Shakespeare's Globe to the Vaudeville, while Laura Wade's smart and engaging Home, I'm Darling, set today but whose characters try to live in an imagined version of the 1950s, has just arrived at the...

Review - Cost of Living starring Adrian Lester at Hampstead Theatre

The UK premiere of last year's Pulitzer Prize-winning play - premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016 and seen Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2017 - is the 100th world, European or UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre since Edward Hall began his tenure as artistic director there in 2010.So it's a numeric milestone - but it also marks a more important cultural one: the play puts disabled lives centre stage - and boldly (though this shouldn't be bold at all) - uses disabled actors...

Review - Notre Dame de Paris returns to London at the London Coliseum

In the onslaught of tried-and-already-tested imports that are arriving on our shores in the coming months from Broadway, here's a musical from the other side not of the pond but of the channel: a 20-year old Paris-born phenomenon which, during its London run at the Coliseum, will play its 5,000th worldwide performance, having played in no fewer than 23 countries in eight languages.It was previously seen in London in a commercial run at the Dominion back in 2000, when it was presented in an...

Review - Leave to Remain at the Lyric Hammersmith

First things first, relax: despite the title, Leave to Remain has nothing to do with Brexit. Instead, it is a fascinating new musical about the individual struggles of a gay couple looking to marry for more reasons than just love. It marks the musical theatre debut for established Bloc Party songwriter Kele Okereke, who brings his fresh sound to the stage. American Alex and Londoner Obi have been together for ten months, but reach an impasse when Alex's firm are relocated to Abu Dhabi (no...

Review - Showstoppers! The Improvised Musical celebrates 1,000 performances at The Other Palace

Getting on stage and performing a brand new show for the first time is a daunting task for any actor. Now, add into the mix that you won't know what you will do on stage until the curtain rises and that's exactly what the Showstoppers have managed to achieve 1,000 times.Creating a new, full-length musical every night, the Showstoppers are an improvised musical theatre troupe that perform a full length improvised musical, based entirely on audience suggestions. With an Olivier Award to their...

Review - Cate Blanchett in When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other at the National Theatre

This is the single most 'exclusive' theatre event since the Tom Hiddleston Hamlet at RADA in 2017: demand for tickets was anticipated to be so high that prospective theatregoers had to likewise enter a heavily over-subscribed lottery for the chance to actually buy them.But here's the good news for those who didn't succeed in getting them: they were the lucky ones. It's just torture, on both sides of the footlights. (But the actors, I assume, knew what they were getting themselves into having...