London Theatre Reviews

Review - Stephen Sondheim's Company is 'stunning' at the Gielgud Theatre

Company, first premiered on Broadway in 1970, was always a bold, brilliant musical: a series of brief vignettes (by George Furth) and dazzling songs (by Stephen Sondheim) about the challenges of dating and marriage and the fears of being trapped. The songs and scenes flow in and out of each other in an impressionistic haze as a man, about to celebrate his 35th birthday, confronts his deep-rooted fears about long-term relationships and the loneliness of being on his own.But in the show's third...

Review - The Inheritance is 'a courageous piece of theatre' at the Noel Coward Theatre

During one of the intervals for The Inheritance, newly transferred from the Young Vic where it premiered in March to the West End's Noel Coward Theatre, I ran into Martin Sherman, who wrote one of the great gay plays of my lifetime in Bent, a shattering account of gay life (and death) in a Nazi concentration camp. I was a 17-year-old gay man just coming to terms with my sexuality when this forever-potent play first premiered in 1979 at the Royal Court and it exposed me to a heart-breaking legacy...

Review - Heathers the Musical starring Carrie Hope Fletcher at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Given its colourful design and glittery pop soundtrack, you'd be forgiven for thinking Heathers is a light-hearted coming-of-age, high school comedy, but it's bloody dark: murder and suicide, bulimia and bullying dominate the Westerberg campus. Based on the '80s Winona Ryder film, this musical offering has earned a cult following over the years on the back of its zany humour and infectious soundtrack, and it now lands in the West End starring musical theatre stalwart Carrie Hope...

Review - Home, I'm Darling at the National Theatre

Prim, polished and proper: that's what the 50s were all about, right? The husband made the money, and the wife stayed at home, cooked, cleaned and made sure the house was in order. That's the world Laura Wade has created in her new play, Home, I'm Darling, a modern dissection of second- and fourth-wave feminism. That is until housewife Judy opens a drawer in the breakfast table and pulls out her Macbook.Despite what Anna Fleischle's stunningly authentic set and costumes have you believe, we're...

Review - Sounds and Sorcery celebrating Disney Fantasia at The Vaults

Following the unprecedented critical successes of Walt Disney’s first animated classics Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, many regarded his next venture – a collection of largely unrelated animated segments accompanying classical music – as a huge risk. Of course, we’re talking about Walt’s 1940 masterpiece Fantasia, the first commercial film to be presented in stereophonic sound. In a similar, yet admittedly smaller fashion, Sounds and Sorcery celebrating Disney Fantasia could also...

Review - As You Like It at Shakespeare's Globe

In her first production as artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, Michelle Terry brings the theatre back to basics with the introduction of an ensemble cast of 12 who will perform several plays throughout this summer season. The jovial As You Like It is the curtain raiser, and it sets the bar at a very decent level. The ensemble have been in rehearsals for 12 weeks, and although there are two designated directors - Federay Holmes and Elle White - the cast have been given a lot much freedom in...

Review - The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre

Stop a person on the street and ask them to name a West End musical, they'll probably say one of two things: Les Mis, or The Phantom of the Opera. The latter has been impressively running non-stop at Her Majesty's Theatre for over 3 decades now, but does Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical still have the same sense of wonder as it did all that time ago. There's no question that it's a complete classic: the story tells of the titular phantom who haunts an opera house, the tales of his presence in the...

Review - Tina - The Tina Turner Musical at the Aldwych Theatre

If you drew up a list of everything you wanted from a Tina Turner musical, you wouldn't be disappointed by Tina, which gets its world premiere at the Aldwych Theatre. It's got the anthems, it's got the moves, it's got the hair. But on a deep-dive into the life of one of the world's best-selling recording artists, we witness some of the moments of genuine turmoil she's had to endure on her way to stardom.Born Anna Mae Bullock, the young Turner grew up in the small Tennessee town of Nutbush, whose...

Review - Girl from the North Country at the Noel Coward Theatre

2017 was certainly a banner year for new musicals: not just the UK premiere of Hamilton, of course, but also the homegrown thrills of Everybody's Talking About Jamie (which transferred from Sheffield's Crucible to the Apollo), The Girls (which originated at Leeds and came to London's Phoenix Theatre), The Grinning Man (which transferred from Bristol Old Vic to the Trafalgar Studios) and the utterly delightful Romantics Anonymous (at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse). Those all contained original...

Review - Hamilton is 'here to stay' at the Victoria Palace Theatre

What's left to be said about Hamilton that's not already been said? One of the central questions the show asks is precisely who the storytellers are of our personal and collective histories: "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story", as the final number asks of the life story the show has just relayed and replayed of Alexander Hamilton, one of the key players in defining and refining the American constitution. By the same token, who is now telling the stories about the show it comes from? And...