London Theatre Reviews

‘Wicked’ review — the West End hit flies high at the Apollo Victoria Theatre

Read our five-star review of Wicked, the Stephen Schwartz musical starring Lucie Jones and Helen Woolf, at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. Get Wicked tickets now.

The Comedy About A Bank Robbery review of new comedy at the Criterion Theatre

The appropriately named Mischief Theatre have been making merry mischief with the West End since 2014 when their fringe-born hit The Play That Goes Wrong transferred to the Duchess, which went on to win last year's Olivier Award for best comedy and is still running, and is now Broadway-bound. Their second show Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which ran at the Apollo last Christmas, was also Olivier nominated. That, too, was honed via a pre-London tour; but now for the first time they are even more...

The Glee Club

The Glee Club has arrived in the West End after an extended sell-out run at the Bush Theatre. Set in the summer of 1962 the story concerns the lives of five miners and a Church Organist that sing variety hall music songs in working men clubs. We meet the six men as they prepare for their annual appearance at the local Gala.Phil the Church Organist is trying to cope with being a homosexual in a small Yorkshire mining village at a time when there was little acceptance or toleration of sexual...

Ghost The Musical

Any production which focuses on a love story needs careful handling if it is not to become mawkish. With 'Ghost, The Musical', there's an added complication and that lies in the plot which asks the audience to believe in ghosts. Combine those two elements, and you could easily be looking at a recipe for total disaster. However, even though I had been expecting something overtly sentimental and possibly a little corny, this new musical turns out to be both interesting and impressive.Based on the...

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

"This is really, really depressing. But a wonderful play" said a woman sitting behind me to her friend before the start of this play. She had obviously seen it before - maybe the last time it was on at the Young Vic in the summer of 2010. I didn't catch it then, so I was intrigued to see if my neighbour's comments were accurate.The setting, brilliantly conceived by designer Ultz, is certainly about as depressing as you can get. There is just a living room with a door at one side and a kitchen...

Review - Equus

Call me an old cynic, but I can't help feeling that someone just couldn't resist the opportunity of making shed loads of cash by having Daniel Radcliffe - the young actor who's played the lead in all the Harry Potter films to date - get his kit off in this play. With the enormous media coverage the production has already received, I'm sure I could write about a totally different play here - as indeed every other reviewer and critic could too - and it wouldn't make even a minor dint in the...

True West

This is a review of the 2014 production. For the 2018 production starring Kit Harington, click here. Originally premiered in 1980 in San Francisco and first produced in the UK at the National in 1981 with the late Bob Hoskins and Antony Sher, Sam Shepard's True West is now an established contemporary masterpiece, and much beloved of actors wanting to test their acting mettle. I saw the National's production, and have since seen the pairings of Mark Rylance and Michael Rudko (at the Donmar...

Rabbit Hole Review 2016

Hampstead Theatre is fast becoming the go-to London address for new American plays originated amongst the vibrant Broadway and off-Broadway producing companies to receive their U.K premieres at. Two years ago they scored a hit (and a subsequent West End transfer) with David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, a penetrating portrait about being reminded of your roots and past when you've seemingly left them behind, and now the theatre has produced Lindsay-Abaire's earlier play Rabbit Hole, which...

Round The Horne: The 50th Anniversary Tour Review 2016

Round The Horne was a popular BBC radio comedy sketch show which regularly pulled in huge weekly audiences of 15 million listeners. It ran for four series from 1965 until 1968 and consisted of a regular line-up of performers, including Carry On star Kenneth Williams. The show has now been brought back to life by Producer/Director Tim Astley, Artistic Director of the Apollo Theatre Company, recreating some of its best sketches by using material from the original radio broadcasts. For some, this...

The Lion King Review

It's been fifteen years almost to the week that I first saw Disney's The Lion King in what was its first year in the West End. I don't think even Disney could have predicted that sixteen years later the show would still be London's most popular musical, selling out performances eight times a week and playing to packed crowds.Judging the show against the current climate of the West End, I worried some of the magic may have faded, but Julie Taymor's staging and costume design remains some of the...