New star plays old star in triumphant transfer

Apollo Theatre

Ryan Calais Cameron‘s Retrograde, which centres on a pivotal moment in Sydney Poitier‘s early career, appears to have gone even better at the West End’s Apollo Theatre than it did when first seen at The Kiln. Some reviewers returned for a second bite, some media sent new writers, and The Guardian opted out, deeming one review back in 2023 to be enough. All the critics loved the script and the star Ivanno Jeremiah who plays the great actor. In the play, Poitier arrives at a Hollywood office expecting to sign a simple contract for a new film only to come under pressure from both a lawyer and a scriptwriter friend to sign an oath of loyalty and to denounce the activist and prominent black performer Paul Robeson. There are clear but unstated parallels with today when people are under pressure of ‘cancellation’ if they don’t conform with the views of influencers or indeed President Trump.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

5 stars ★★★★★

The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish declared: ‘This darkly comic three-hander … is still a must-see piece of theatre’. ‘The piece brilliantly builds and builds,’ he continued, ‘combining fact with fiction, and fusing jittery wisecracking worthy of Mamet into something nerve-shredding, with seismic ramifications about US culture, and who owns it.’ As for the cast, ‘As well as showcasing Ivanno Jeremiah’s performance as Poitier, Oliver Johnstone and Stanley Townsend now take on the pincer-like roles of screen-writer Bobby and studio lawyer Mr P`rks – and find more detail, nuance and wit in them.’

Maygan Forbes at WhatsOnStage wrote, ‘Balancing precision with fluidity, every movement feels intentional and emotionally charged. Even throughout the comedy, there is an upset that hovers over the stage and a fear that something is about to go very wrong.’ She concluded, ‘Calais Cameron consistently shows up as a writing force to be reckoned with. The acerbic one-liners, the comedy underpinned by threat, and the witty playwriting not only captivates, but also confronts and challenges the audience to address their own societal blind spots. His status as a trailblazing voice in contemporary theatre echoes Poitier’s own groundbreaking journey.’

4 stars ★★★★

‘Retrograde is fast on its way to becoming another vital and vibrant classic,’ declared Anya Ryan for LondonTheatre, calling it ‘a complex, knotty play with zingy, quick-fire dialogue.’ She continued, ‘Amit Sharma’s production is a slow-burn conversation. But the high stakes of the drama are always there’.

Nancy Durrant for The Observer praised the writing: ‘Calais Cameron’s script, echoing the fast-talking, wise-cracking style of the era’s movies, fairly crackles. It’s talky but funny, entertainingly sweary (never Poitier, at least almost never) and saturated with what we’d now call micro-aggressions, not all of which are all that micro.’ Of Ivanno Jeremiah she said, ‘It is a stonking performance – you can’t take your eyes off him, and when Poitier allows his emotions to propel him, Jeremiah commands the stage completely.’

Time Out (no reviewer credit) picked out the star performance: ‘it’s Ivanno Jeremiah as Poitier who is completely transfixing. He’s one of those actors that has proper presence, captivating the moment he steps on stage. One of those actors who can take a long stretch of silence – Sidney considers whether to sign a piece of paper – and make it one of the most riveting moments of the play.’

‘it’s part thriller, part melodrama — the wisecracking, racially-charged dialogue full of heightened cinematic crackle and snap,’ declared Nick Curtis in  The Standard. Anya Ryan for LondonTheatre called it ‘a complex, knotty play with zingy, quick-fire dialogue.’ She continued, ‘Amit Sharma’s production is a slow-burn conversation. But the high stakes of the drama are always there’.

The Independent‘s Alice Saville decided, ‘This isn’t a morally complicated story, really. But it’s a hugely satisfying one – a well-crafted period piece with lots to say about the present-day pressures on minority artists at the mercy of corporate agendas. And it’s lit up with so many moments of pure, awkward, hilarity, too: as when a mortified Bobby is forced into a rendition of Belafonte’s “Day-O” by his silver-tongued boss – realising just how uncomfortable it is to sing along to someone else’s tune.’

‘Is there grandstanding in the script?’ asked Dominic Maxwell in The Times, ‘A bit. But the evening earns it not just with the righteousness of Poitier’s perspective but also with the wit of the writing and playing.’

Laurie Yule for The Stage pointed out: ‘There are nods to cinema: snappy lighting from Amy Mae; a moment of interminable silence where Sidney is under pressure to sign a loyalty oath; and Beth Duke’s sound design uses a ticking clock to build tension.’ He ended’ ‘It’s a passionate work that ends with a clarion call to artists to hold to their principles and harness their potential for change – and it achieves that rare feat of being fun, cerebral and poignant.’

Alexander Cohen at BroadwayWorld found: ‘It’s curiously old school: slap happy dialogue is soaked in vinegary wit unfolding in real time over a snappy ninety minutes.’ Chris Omaweng at LondonTheatre1 noted: ‘the implications – and applications – of the decisions faced by Poitier back then still resonate today: to what extent is it appropriate to compromise in order to realise one’s ambitions? There are no clear cut answers in this nuanced and engaging production.’

You may be interested that Arifa Akbar gave retrograde at The Kiln 4 stars in her Guardian review.

Critics’ average rating 4.2 ★

Value rating 56 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Retrograde is at the Apollo Theatre until 14 June 2025. Buy tickets from the theatre here.

Read Paul Seven Lewis’s review of retrograde at The Kiln here.

If you’ve seen Retrograde at The Apollo Theatre or The Kiln, please add your review and rating below

 

Vampire musical lacks bite

Menier chocolate factory Theatre

Originally seen off-Broadway, Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors, written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen is given its English premiere. James Daly, who originated the role of Dracula back in New York, is joined by Charlie Stemp, Dianne Pilkington, Safeena Ladha, and Sebastien Torkia. The cast were praised but while WhatsOnStage enjoyed their ‘pleasure at the sheer preposterousness of it all’, The Standard detected ‘you feel they’d all rather be elsewhere’. Only one review scored four stars but many quite liked its ‘batty’ humour. It seems you’ll probably enjoy it if you like silly jokes, but the more critical reviews suggested even those could have more bite.  Titanique seems to be the benchmark.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ✭✭✭✭

Let’s start with the good news. Cindy Marcolina of BroadwayWorld  loved it: ‘This is the lovechild of Mel Brooks and Monty Python, a side-splitting, rib-tickling, neck-biting, hysterically racy show….You’ll be screaming with laughter.’

3 stars ✭✭✭

Sarah Crompton at  WhatsOnStage commented, ‘A lot of the humour arises from the cast’s sheer glee at their lightning-quick changes of costume and character, their pleasure at the sheer preposterousness of it all. Their timing is excellent, their delivery ironic. It’s all very silly, you might even say totally batty. But gently enjoyable all the same.’

‘Presiding over the whole affair is James Daly’s wickedly hot, pansexual vampire,’ said Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times. ‘Charlie Stemp brings sharp timing to the naive Jonathan Harker’ ‘Battiest of all is Dianne Pilkington’s double turn as both stuffy Dr Westfeldt (the girls’ father) and one of his eccentric patients, which at one point obliges Pilkington to hurl herself out of a window and turn up dressed as the other character almost instantly — deservedly drawing a round of applause.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar pronounced: ‘The performances are superb all round, full of fun and mischief, but the low-hanging jokes of the script short-change the actors’ talents. This comedy needs sharper fangs.’

The show got it in the neck from a few critics but The Times’ Clive Davis conceded, ‘If you abandon yourself to the Mel Brooks-style mood of excess, you can still have a jolly time .’

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre made a similar point, adding an incentive: ‘Resist its go-for-broke loopiness, and the play, performed without an interval, may seem a long sit. But those who go along for the ride will encounter the best scene of sex in a horse-drawn carriage you are likely ever to see.’

2 stars ✭✭

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis got his fangs out: ‘Toothless, bloodless and lacking in bite, this arch spoof of Bram Stoker’s vampire tale is not nearly funny enough…This sort of stuff requires absolute conviction in order to land properly, and it doesn’t get it here. Though there’s some fun to be had from the cleverer bits of business and the grandstanding hamming of the talented cast, you feel they’d all rather be elsewhere.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.0✭

Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors can be seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 5 April 2025. Click here to buy direct from the  theatre 

If you’ve seen Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors at The Menier, please add your review and rating below

Football drama scores again in extra time

Olivier at NatiOnal Theatre

James Graham’s Dear England, telling the story of Garteh Southgte’s term as manager of the England men’s football team, has returned to the National Theatre with a new cast and a new ending. The reviewers were as enthusiastic as ever, with 4 star reviews across the board with the exception of one full house

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

5 stars ★★★★★

Fiona Mountford in i-news reassured us: ‘Dear England remains a towering achievement. Graham and director Rupert Goold, each the best of their kind working today, remain a dream team of a strike force, with Graham’s lively and often larky dialogue matched by Goold’s gloriously kinetic production.’

4 stars ★★★★

Ben Dowell for The Times confirmed, ‘That it remains powerful and poignant theatre is a sign of how convincingly the play speaks to profound themes beyond results on the pitch. The idea of an England manager being a storyteller is obviously a playwright’s fantasy but it remains a beguiling one.’

’it is consistently, relentlessly entertaining,’ declared Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski.

The Standard’s Nick Curtis found ‘A return fixture proves James Graham’s end-to-end, heart-in-mouth football drama a winner.’ ‘this is a team effort, which captures the communal joy and heartache of sport, while taking a sharp look at our national identity. The lads done good. Again.’

Abbie Grundy for BroadwayWorld called it ‘a powerful and punchy production’.

Mark Lawson for The Guardian decided, ‘Rupert Goold’s staging (with Elin Schofield credited as revival director) is slicker and swifter than ever and movement directors Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf – in sequences re-creating matches, penalty shootouts and changing room dance-offs – extraordinarily put the ball into ballet.’

LondonTheatre’s Aliya Al-Hassan found ‘You do not have to know very much about football to be caught up in the whirlwind of emotion in the production, from the delirious joy of a win, to the hope and expectation weighing on such young shoulders, and the disturbing racism inflicted on Black players.’

‘Gwilym Lee makes a fantastic Southgate: he looks and sounds eerily like the manager, and captures that perplexed, rabbit-in-headlights demeanour, the ticks of discomfort with the limelight, as well as the thoughtful, articulate sincerity’, opined Demetrios Matheou at TheArtsDesk.

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish noted, ‘The way Graham marshals information is a wonder – here a stat, there a gag; the way Goold co-ordinates his (mainly recast) players a wonder too, combining fancy footwork (with mimed footballs), laddish horseplay and telltale unease as these barely-men are asked to open up, under the aegis of Liz White’s shrewd psychologist Pippa Grange.’

Chris Omaweng for LondonTheatre1 pointed out ‘It’s a crowd-pleaser, whilst acknowledging the individual and collective pains, not only of the players but of their supporters. In the end, the dramatic tension is there, and so is the enthusiasm and dedication of those committed to the beautiful game.’

Critics’ average rating 4.0 ★

Value rating 50 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Dear England is at The National Theatre until 24 May 2025. Buy tickets from the theatre here. Dear England will perform at The Lowry in Salford 29 May – 29 June 2025, then on a national tour in the autumn.

If you’ve seen the revised version of Dear England at the The National Theatre or elsewhere, please add your review and rating below

 

Did the critics all love this musical? As if!

Trafalgar Theatre

There was a significant disagreement between those critics who found Clueless The Musical a lot of fun and those who found it uninspiring. Amy Heckerling has adapted her own movie script- some reviewers found it funny, others not so much. KT Tunstall’s music was either clever and catchy or generic and unmemorable depending on who you read. All agreed that the lead Emma Flynn was terrific.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ★★★★

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis made life difficult for me by awarding 4½★. He declared it to be ‘like, kinda fun’ and went on to say ‘Great songs keep coming, accompanied by superior choreography from Lizzi Gee’. He concluded, ‘In the ranks of musical adaptations of cult movies, this is almost as good as Legally Blonde, and it’s what Mean Girls should have been.’ Praise indeed

Alun Hood at WhatsOnStage proclaimed: ‘it’s a lot of fun’. He noted, ‘Amy Heckerling… wrote the original screenplay and here provides the frequently laugh-out-loud funny book for Clueless on stage’. While acknowledging ‘It’s not the greatest of musicals’Clueless fundamentally works, especially when Flynn’s gorgeous Cher is centre stage, and Tunstall’s earworm tunes, in Simon Hale’s sparkling orchestrations, are surging through the theatre’.

Rachel Halliburton at The ArtsDesk thanked it for providing ‘a spirit of escapism that’s more than welcome in these turbulent times.’ She liked the ‘snappy new score by KT Tunstall’ and was impressed by the way ‘Amy Heckerling, has freshened up the dialogue and added subtle tweakments, so that it can strut into the twenty-first century with all the glitz and carefully-manicured chutzpah that made it such a hit in the first place.’ She was confident ‘Lovers of the film will certainly love this’.

Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld declared: ‘Is it good fun? Absolutely.’ She decided ‘KT Tunstall has done an excellent job in mining the 90s for inspiration…The songs are incredibly catchy, and are sure to be stuck in your head for days afterwards.’ Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail said it had ‘plenty to sing about. That’s largely down to the bright and breezy score by Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall. But it’s also thanks to a sustained burst of Californian sunshine from American starlet Emma Flynn’.

Paul Vale for The Stage summed up: ‘Less cynical than Mean Girls and more fun than Heathers, this is a bright, breezy satire that thrives with its era-evocative new score.’

3 stars ★★★

Olivia Garrett in Radio Times declared, ‘West End newcomer Emma Flynn is fabulous as the lead’. She likened the musical to ‘the airy coffee friend who breezes into your life, shows you a good time and swans off again without leaving the biggest impression – but as long as you had fun, what’s wrong with that?’

Time Out‘s Andrjez Lukowski spent some of his review comparing it unfavourably to Mean Girls and decided it’s ‘nothing like as coruscatingly funny’ but concluded ‘It’s a witty, charming musical that winningly celebrates a great film and even better book.’ The Independent’s Alice Saville declared ‘it’s a bit light on the catchy songs and easy-to-imitate dance routines that can pull in younger fandoms. Still, it’s a welcome excuse to revisit a classic, sewn together just enough originality to make it feel like a stylish homage, not a cynical knock off.’

Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre felt ‘There is far more inventive work going on in the West End right now, but this is an adaptation that will delight fans and makes for a fun and pacy two hours of theatre.’

The songs, said the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, ‘are so generic they don’t ring with real-world authenticity.’ He concluded ‘despite all the effort, it’s a “whatever” not a forever kinda affair’. The Times’ Clive Davis felt ‘It is mainly in terms of visuals that the show falls short’ but gave ‘All credit to the young ensemble for working so hard to keep  our mind off the shortcomings.’

2 stars ★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar found much to fault. ‘where the film pulled off the outlandish melange of Austen and Americana, Rachel Kavanaugh’s production is a more lumbering hybrid,’ she said. ‘The songs, composed by KT Tunstall, are disappointingly flat-footed except for two belters’ she noted, and ‘The characters are peculiarly flat’. She took some comfort in the thought that ‘Still, the performances are strong’

Greg Stewart for Theatre Weekly found ‘Despite a talented cast, the show struggles to elevate itself beyond a lacklustre retelling of a beloved classic.’ He expanded, ‘It’s a tale of self-discovery, but feels more like a series of vignettes than a cohesive narrative arc. Despite its charm, the musical fails to deliver a compelling story, leaving audiences with more of a nostalgic trip than a meaningful theatrical experience.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.3★

Value rating  37 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Clueless The Musical can be seen at the Trafalgar Theatre until 27 September 2025. Click here to buy direct from the theatre.

Click here to see where Clueless stands in the list of Best Value West End shows

If you’ve seen Clueless The Musical at The Trafalgar, please add your review and rating below

Powerful play about killing and forgiveness

Young Vic Theatre

James Graham’s latest ‘state of the nation’ play Punch looks at the kind of environment that breeds macho violence in young men. It’s based on the memoir of Jacob Dunne who enjoyed fighting and punched another young man James Hodgkinson who subsequently died. In a moving second half, the play looks at ‘restorative justice’ when the dead man’s parents meet his killer and transform him and themselves with understanding and forgiveness. The small-scale production was first produced at Nottingham Playhouse, in James Graham’s home county, was generally well received on its transfer to the young Vic. The cast were universally praised, from David Shields as the killer to Julie Hesmondhalgh and Tony Hirst as the parents. Some reviews thought the play was too didactic.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

5 stars ★★★★★

Lindsay John for The Telegraph called it ‘a compelling examination of the human cost and consequences of violence.’ ‘Punch gets you in the gut in a way that is rare in theatre’ wrote Aliya Al-Hassan in BroadwayWorld. She praised the cast: ‘David Shields is extraordinary’ and ‘Julie Hesmondhalgh and Tony Hirst are both wonderful as James’s bereaved parents’. WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton declared: ’It’s not a perfect play, but it is one that every single person should see.‘

4 stars ★★★★

‘Punch is on the smaller side for a James Graham play, but its climax will have you blubbing,’ said Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski.

The Guardian stuck to its policy of not reviewing West End transfers. Arifa Akbar ‘called the Nottingham premiere ‘a powerful study of problematic young masculinity that defines itself through swagger, reputation and recreational violence.’

3 stars ★★★

‘(I)ts thoughtful search for meaning in a senseless act leaves the audience noisily sobbing‘ said the Independent’s Alice Saville. Her reservation was: ‘this play often feels overly didactic, with little moral complication.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe was disappointed that ‘the manner of its telling, in a production directed by Adam Penford, is disappointingly pedestrian; it’s a shame the approach isn’t more theatrically inventive, and less literal.’ She was impressed by ‘a raw, compelling performance from David Shields’.

Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre commented it ‘often feels heavy-handed. Ultimately, there is no need to preach in a show which already has such a powerful and devastating message.’

Calling the script ‘heavy handed’, The Times’ Clive Davis found ‘the primary-colour writing left me feeling the message undercut the drama.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★

Punch can be seen at the Young Vic Theatre until 26 April 2025. Click here to buy direct

If you have seen Punch at Nottingham Playhouse or The Young Vic, please give your review and rating below

Cate Blanchett shines in a panoply of stars

Barbican Theatre

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

5 stars ★★★★★

Tim Bano for the Standard announced: ‘it’s got a performance from Cate Blanchett that may well be the best of the year’. He goes into much detail, the essence of which is ‘It’s an immensely skilled performance from Blanchett, to act acting like that, and to do it in so many different ways.’ He ended with this eulogy: ‘Why exactly HAVE we paid all this money to watch a three-hour self-pity party? Is there a point to watching a play about art and love when the world is so horrible? That’s what the production wrestles with, so uncomfortable in its own skin, so unhappy to be doing what it’s doing, but along the way turning itself into an exquisite piece of theatre that becomes the answer to its own questions.’

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre described it as ‘Magnificent theatre’. She said, ‘Blanchett is fabulously entertaining as this self-involved, limelight-hogging, needily territorial diva…the shattering moment comes when she fights against another, unwelcome role, that of the rejected woman begging her lover not to leave her for a younger model. Blanchett breaks out of the “scene”, her whole performance shifting to raw, vulnerable and softly naturalistic. It’s naked emotion, startling amid the studied artifice, and it is electrifying. But, magnetic though Blanchett is, this is a unified ensemble effort. Tom Burke is tremendous as a compulsively vampiric writer whose detachment, which initially seems amusingly eccentric, is revealed to be chillingly sociopathic.’

Neil Norman in the Express called it ‘A dazzling, powerfully entertaining night.’ He declared ‘Cate Blanchett is as distinguished on stage as she is on film. As Irina Arkadina, the over-the-hill, over-the-top actress of Chekhov’s play, she is both venomous and vulnerable’.

4 stars ★★★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar found that it ‘rather magically balances lightness, wit and melancholy’. She said ‘Blanchett may be the glitteriest of castings but this is a powerhouse ensemble that first matches and then outshines her in intensity.’ She liked the way ‘The play’s love triangles are beautifully accomplished and full of intensity, humour bringing a contrapuntal energy to the characters’ sadness.’ She also praised the ‘overt sense of performance throughout, which is fitting for a play that grapples with questions about the purpose of art and the value of theatre in a time of crisis.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish asserted ‘Blanchett’s performance is unmissable…she has the measure of a woman using lofty control to mask mid-life and maternal pain.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton was impressed by ‘how serious and sensitive it is in unpicking both the comic and tragic notes in Chekhov’s study of a group of unhappy, arty, self-obsessed people who can’t make any sense of their lives in a time of crisis – and have a miserable habit of falling in love with the wrong person’.

Alice Saville in The Independent commented that the ‘staging is languid and thoughtful, sucking you into the self-fixated inner worlds of these awful, fascinating people.’ Having said ‘The first few acts sing, powered by these characters’ ravening, punchily expressed hunger for fame, love and meaning’, she cautioned: ‘But when disillusionment sets in, the play loses momentum’.

3 stars ★★★

Not everyone was an enthusiast for this interpretation. Gary Naylor for BroadwayWorld said: ‘The greatest writer of subtext is buried under too much text, the great Russian peeking out occasionally from beneath the director’s suffocating concept’. He complained that ‘half comic and half tragic instead of fully comic and fully tragic at the same time.’ Although muted in his praise of Cate Blanchett’s ‘wildly over the top’ performance, he complimented other members of the cast: ‘As her lover…Alexander Trigorin, Tom Burke catches both the seductive charm of the pseudo-intellectual and his destructive narcissism’. For him, ‘Emma Corrin is superb’ and ‘The biggest laughs are reserved for Jason Watkins’ terrific turn as Peter Sorkin’.

Time Out’s Andrzej Luwokski called it ‘an enjoyable but somewhat indulgent three-hour show, in which the Seagull’s considerable ambiguities (is it a comedy? A tragedy? Both?) often feel pushed to their limit in all directions.’

The Stage‘s Sam Marlowe said it was ‘relentlessly self-aware and archly meta, constantly confronting us with the artificiality of the spectacle we’re witnessing and demanding that we question what we’re doing there. But even as it sends up theatrical conventions and trends – those modish microphones come in for some mockery, for a start – it can’t resist them. It’s clever, and excellent performances from a cast led by Cate Blanchett mean it’s always engaging. Yet there’s something faintly smug about it; the experience is akin to watching a purring cat assiduously lick itself all over.’ Miaow!

2 stars ★★

The Times‘ Clive Davis found it ‘a very long evening’. He explained, ‘it’s a little like seeing a classic rewritten with children’s crayons’.

Critics’ Average Rating 3.8★

Value rating  19 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Seagull is at the Barbican until 5 April 2025. Click here to buy direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen The Seagull at The Barbican, please add your review and rating below

Acting giant rises above disappointing play

Theatre Royal Haymarket

Brian Cox has brought his well-received 2023 portrayal as Bach from Theatre Royal Bath to London’s West End. Oliver Cotton‘s play that sets the great composer in opposition to a warmongering Frederick II of Prussia was too long (and meandering) for most reviewers but redeemed by the central performance. Trevor Nunn‘s period production went down well.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars

Greg Stewart for Theatre Weekly found much to like: ‘This is a play that is intellectually stimulating more than entertaining, but it also resonates on an emotional level, exploring universal themes of power, faith, and artistic integrity. The pacing is generally strong, though the whole thing could benefit from tighter editing.’ Like all the other critics, he found ‘Brian Cox delivers a masterclass performance as Bach, capturing the composer’s inner turmoil and unyielding principles with gravitas and nuance.

Laurie Yule for The Stage declared, ‘ it’s a treat to hear Cox…in an auditorium, where his vocal technique, pitch and projection can really grab you.’ She stated, ‘The story, as with all worthwhile historical plays, resonates with our times, and the portrayal of Bach is irresistible and bittersweet.’

Two prominent outlets decided not to review the West End run, presumably because they reviewed it in Bath-

This is what Dominic Cavendish of the Telegraph said in 2023 of the moment the composer and the King meet: ‘After a slow-burn set-up, it’s a blazing scene that plays to Cox’s strengths as a stage animal, forbidding as he stoutly stands his ground and locks eyes with Stephen Hagan’s haughty Frederick, but also invested with deep humanity.’

3 stars

Lucinda Everett for WhatsOnStage called it a ‘musing, meandering play’ ‘Despite Robert Jones’s sumptuous set and costumes, free-flowing jokes, and the kind of consummate directing you’d expect from Trevor Nunn, it feels turgid at times.’ ‘But this play has a trick up its sleeve: its Bach is Brian Cox …and he is mesmerising.’

Tim Bano writing for the Standard states ‘while the play has lofty ambitions and director Trevor Nunn knows how to stage them grandly, and despite a towering Cox as the main man, unlike Bach’s music too often the whole thing clunks and flounders.’

Theo Bosanquet from LondonTheatre said ‘Trevor Nunn’s detailed, expansive production makes for a long evening (two hours 40 minutes) and there are several longueurs, particularly in the first act, that could be excised. But it’s a fascinating chapter of history that feels deeply pertinent in light of the current European conflict – particularly when Bach and Frederick argue over whether his military operation constitutes an invasion.’

Dominic Maxwell for The Times had his own gripe: ‘while much of the acting is strong, while the ideas are intriguing if underdeveloped, the musical element is only just adequate.’ The reason being what he called ‘naff’ miming. At the Bath premiere, The Times’ Clive Davis gave four stars.

Back in 2023, Arifa Akbar in The Guardian said ‘The production is redeemed by its star billing in Brian Cox, who plays the genius musician with such magnetism that he almost singlehandedly saves this play…Even when the script is careening from period comedy to philosophical debate on doubt and salvation, Cox has the ability to dart from light to dark which the others can’t quite navigate.’

2 stars

Rachel Halliburton at The Arts Desk summarised her reaction: ‘The Score is a curious beast of a play – part comedy of manners, part Blackadder-style history, part impassioned rhetoric against the abuse of power. The higher the emotional stakes, the more compelling Cox is in his disgruntled disdain for Frederick’s gilded tyranny, but the rest of the play just doesn’t hold together.’

Cindy Marcolina of BroadwayWorld felt she was shortchanged: ‘The marketing makes it out to be an explosive meeting between church and state, between a god-fearing, scripture-quoting composer and an atheist, belligerent, ruthless monarch. That’s not exactly how it goes and the theatricality of the event is rather underwhelming.’ She blamed ‘a lengthy and inconsistent script that swiftly turns into a vehicle for anecdotal politics and bite-size philosophy.’

A worthwhile revival or simply worthy?

Lyttelton Theatre

Morecambe, Cooper & Monkhouse generate laughter & nostalgia

Noel Coward Theatre

Paul Hendy‘s The Last Laugh imagines Eric Morecambe, Tommy Cooper and Bob Monkhouse meeting in a dressing room. For many of the critics, it was more of a tribute show than a fully formed drama but most enjoyed the laughter and nostalgia. All three actors were complimented for their impressions of the great comics: Bob Golding as Morecambe, Simon Cartwright as Monkhouse and Damian Williams as Cooper, with the latter receiving the highest praise.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Gary Naylor at BroadwayWorld (5★) loved it: ‘we’re indulged in the incomparable pleasure, that greatest of therapies, the opportunity to sit in a room and laugh and laugh and laugh in commune with the men who sacrificed much for that rare, joyous and uniquely human(e) experience.’

Chris Omaweng for LondonTheatre1 (4★) was feeling nostalgic: ‘It might be easy for some to dismiss a show of this nature as an unnecessary venture into an era that has gone and will not return. But it was a pleasant reminder, or otherwise a pleasant revelation, that there was a time when ‘eff, cee and effing cee’ was never required to draw laughs from an audience, and the comedic appeal was more than sufficiently universal that it would be unlikely they would be cancelled even by today’s supposedly over-sensitive standards. The dialogue was very, very contrived, but that doesn’t matter too much when a show is as entertaining and engaging as this.’

LondonTheatre‘s Aliya Al-Hassan (4★) said, ‘The Last Laugh is a gently funny, affectionate, poignant show, and as comfortable to watch as putting on your favourite slippers.’ She described each performer: ‘Golding (as Morecambe) has lovely, amiable energy, wiggling his glasses and chuckling at everything. Williams is a hard-drinking, throaty-voiced, slightly morose Cooper. Physically he is an excellent version of the comic, lumbering around and getting laughs effortlessly. Cartwright likewise is an uncanny Monkhouse with pitch-perfect vocal cadences and a creosote-coloured face. He also shows the sadness behind the facial animation beautifully.

Theo Bosanquet at WhatsOnStage (4★) felt ‘Much of it feels like an elongated gag-off as the three trade one-liners and compete for the last laugh’, however, ‘This is a welcome chance to remember what made them so beloved’. Greg Stewart for Theatre Weekly (4★) called it ‘a nostalgic yet fresh exploration of humour, legacy, and camaraderie’, concluding ‘this play is an unmissable treat.’

Brian Logan for The Guardian (3★) explained: ‘There is no plot, there are no narrative surprises, just chat and banter among the threesome about their lives and the nature of comedy. Oh, and jokes. Lots of – usually terrific – jokes.’ ‘The script doesn’t dig deep,’ said the Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish (3★), ‘but still cuts below the surface, broaching what lasts and what doesn’t’.

The Times’ comedy expert Dominic Maxwell (3★) wrote, ‘This nostalgia act..is an excuse for talking, reminiscing, analysing.’ He declared, it ‘is thoughtful, often pretty funny, not quite as substantial as it wants to be, but done with enough panache that the time goes quickly all the same.’ Tom Wicker for The Stage (3★) commented: ‘What makes something funny? And what makes a comedian? Writer-director Paul Hendy’s production…is fairly compelling when answering the first question. It’s less successful as theatre when tackling the second.’

Nick Curtis of the Standard (2★) acknowledged there were ‘impressive impersonations’ and that it ‘generates easy chuckles from their old gags, gurning and bits of physical business’ but ‘the script is one of the laziest I’ve come across in a long time, with the three men merely insulting and encouraging each other to do old routines by turns.’ He ends with a paraphrase of one of Bob Monkhouse’s jokes: ‘I laughed when I heard this play was coming to the West End. I’m not laughing now.’

Critics disagree about play on womanhood

Almeida theatre

Chris Bush, best known for Standing At The Sky’s Edge, has written a play with music that draws on her experience as a trans woman. It asks ‘what is womanhood?’ and tells the story of two women, one born a woman, the other trans. The second half moves into magic realism involving an alien as a metaphor for a trans woman. The critics took very different views- many admired the story and the poetic writing, while others thought it saccharine and confusing.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage (5★) said, ‘Bittersweet, uplifting and profoundly enlightening, this deeply felt drama from Chris Bush brings remarkable clarity to some knotty and tremendously contentious topics.’

Unexpectedly, perhaps, it was the anti-woke Telegraph (4★) that provided one of the most positive reviews. Dzifa Benson described it as ‘a thoughtful and ultimately moving examination of womanhood and its implications – personal, familial, romantic and societal – in a world lacking gender parity and full of stereotypical expectations.’ Ms Benson, a poet herself, talked of ‘the poetic tendencies of Bush’s language’ and said, ‘the music works multiple duties here by heightening emotions, moving the story forward, containing the poetry and counterpointing the beautiful singing in close harmonies by the eight-strong female cast.’ The shocked readers’ comments remind us why Chris Bush wrote the play.

Emma John for The Guardian (4★) said it ‘brims with humour and compassion’ and called it ‘a powerful reminder of how theatre lets us live beyond our own bodies’. Rachel Halliburton writing at TheArtsDesk (4★) was impressed: ‘The visceral emotion, the poetry and the wry humour about the quirks of humanity sweep you through a story that’s as heart-breaking as it’s funny.’ She spoke of her ‘fascination with where each character’s story is taking them’.

Chris Omaweng for LondonTheatre1 (3★) wasn’t as fascinated as the previous reviewer: ‘I didn’t come away with any takeaway messages. Everyone seemed to be getting on with life, and so I came away thinking I had better just carry on and get on with mine.’

‘What a quietly radical act it is to lay a trans and cis experience side by side, and say look: this is what it is to be a woman,’ claimed Kate Wyver for Time Out (3★). She went on, ‘Though at times the storytelling feels heavy-handed, with lyrics pointing out the obvious and messages overstated, in other moments the story challenges us with knotty, thorny, nuance.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis (3★) appreciated that ‘Though dramatically uneven and necessarily inconclusive, it’s very thoughtful, which is welcome in this era of yammering culture-war hatred.’

Alexander Cohen for BroadwayWorld (3★) described how ‘Otherland playfully melts into a swirling magical realist standoff between gothic and sci-fi.’ He advised, ‘It’s not perfect, but embrace it’s bittersweetness, especially when the sweetness triumphs.’

Dominic Maxwell in The Times (3★) praised the actors: ‘Jade Anouka is outstanding…Fizz Sinclair impresses’. As for the play, ‘it ends up taking us somewhere memorably surprising and satisfying’.

Julia Rank at LondonTheatre (3★) had this to say: ‘As a whole, it is an unwieldy and erratic piece of work but nevertheless big-hearted and watchable, bringing home the point that transgender people are not a threat and aren’t trying to “steal” anything’.

Miriam Sallon for WhatsOnStage (2★) complained ‘Chris Bush has attempted to grapple with the behemoth question of the zeitgeist: “What is womanhood?” Unfortunately, she stumbles under the weight of it, and her answer, in the end, is simply and unsatisfactorily: “it’s hard to define.”’ She had more to criticise: ‘This attempt at portraying a nourishing, knowing sisterhood is admirable, but the results are saccharine, and any individuality from the supporting characters is lost in a mulch of earnestness.’ For good measure, she also said, ‘The second half loses the plot, or rather it clings desperately to it, losing all subtlety of message’.

Steve Dinneen at City AM (2★) didn’t like it: ‘it’s a play with two gears: boring and daft, forever gravitating towards the saccharine and the melodramatic, eventually drowning in a paddling pool of good intentions.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.3★

Overland can be seen at the Almeida Theatre until 15 March 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct

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