Juliet Stevenson is a powerhouse in an underpowered drama

Dorfman at the national theatre

The critics welcomed David Lan‘s well researched play about the Nazis’ policy of abducting children from occupied countries to replenish their ‘Aryan stock’. When a victim turns up years later at a woman’s flat and demands to know why she presumed to ‘rescue’ him from the Germans at the end of the War, she recalls the events of the past. The morality of her actions is questioned but there is a strong message that it is better to do something than nothing.

There was lavish praise for Juliet Stevenson‘s lead performance, Stephen Daldry’s direction and Miriam Buecher‘s set, but there was a feeling the play was too long.

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld declared: ‘this timely production reminds us of the human side of war, and highlights the subjectivity of morality in highly pressurised situations. Gripping, poignant and, at times, chilling – put it on your ‘must watch’ list.’

Marianka Swain popped up in the Telegraph and commented: ‘Lan’s sprawling, near-three-hour piece needs a firm edit. But Daldry often gives it the heart-pounding tension of a thriller’.

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Nearly all the critics would probably agree with Tim Bano’s statement in The Stage: ‘Stevenson is superb, conveying someone who cares deeply but brusquely, with a thorny moral absolutism that seems to reverberate through her body as physical agony.’

‘Juliet Stevenson gives a powerhouse performance’ said Theo Bosanhquet of LondonTheatre. He noted: It’s easy to feel numb to genocidal horrors but Lan humanises them and shows that intervention, however difficult the consequences may end up becoming, is always the right answer. In the end it’s a plea and a defence of good people doing something, and that’s a message we all need to heed.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton described the production: ‘Stephen Daldry’s direction is devastatingly vivid, filling the small space of the Dorfman with an entire world of action and activity, letting still moments breathe. Miriam Buether has covered the long stage, with the audience packed around three sides, with a yellowing map of Europe, contested as the Allied powers seek to impose order and carve out influence.’ However: ‘the direction cannot disguise the fact that the play is too long, circling back on its arguments, and becoming over-extended and flat in the process.’

The Times’ Clive Davis declared: ‘If the occasionally baggy drama doesn’t quite justify a running time of nearly three hours, it’s held together by an imperious performance by Juliet Stevenson’.

Tim Bano for Time Out was concerned that ‘there is also a stiffness that stifles the emotion. It’s a blast of theatricality and a triumph of intellect which has obvious lessons for our times, even if they sometimes drown out the heart.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar had reservations too: ‘the pace is too slow (almost three hours) and the characters around Ruth are generic…And there is so much plot that it does not leave enough space for you to feel the play’s big emotional jolts, despite the stupendous central performances. Buether’s set design is superb, but its middle span of empty space does not lend itself to emotional intimacies.’

Anya Ryan for the Standard was a lone voice in being dissatisfied with Juliet Stevenson’s performance: ‘Stevenson, although as assured onstage as ever, seems to lack compassion.’

Critics’ average rating 3.2⭑

Complex and long but compelling story of toxic masculinity

Almeida theatre

We often talk about mixed reviews but rarely are they so diametrically opposed as the 5 and 1 star scores that greeted Romans: A Novel. Alice Birch’s tale of the roots of toxic masculinity, told through the stories of three brothers and a whole century of events, managed to grip some critics but completely repel one. The fans liked her complex expressive writing and were interested in what she had to say, but.. well, see the extract below from the one star review in The Times for an alternative viewpoint. The actors were universally praised.

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

5 stars ★★★★★

Lucinda Everett for WhatsOnStage explained: ‘this is no shaming takedown; there are no cheap shots at manhood here (OK, maybe a few). It’s something much more useful. An era-spanning, heart-shattering exploration of the male experience – so often drenched in loneliness, repression and impossible expectation’. She was full of praise for the author: ‘Few working playwrights can match her instinct for story and form, but her mastery of language is almost mystifying. The stylistically kaleidoscopic script is also rhythmic, poetic, fiercely funny, deeply rooted in character, and at times literally breathtaking; it winds with brute emotional force.’

Katie Kirkpatrick for BroadwayWorld held it in high regard: ‘With an ever-shifting form, an array of subtle references, and an intricate, thought-provoking script, this is a play that many will find difficult and impenetrable. At its core, however, it’s a truly perceptive piece that understands masculinity like little else.’ She insisted : ‘It’s a play that really has something to say, beyond the standard ‘men are bad’ – Birch explores loneliness, honour, and a feeling of deserving more that really confronts our present moment’.

4 stars ★★★★

David Jays for The Guardian wrote: ‘Romans is a fascinating, upsetting project, and Sam Pritchard’s alert production quivers with tension under Lee Curran’s sculptural lighting. Ultimately, patriarchy seems a legacy of damage, its ravening adventures dwindling unhappily into domestic life.’

’it’s the writing that dazzles: surreal, savage and at times startlingly empathetic’ said Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski. He told us: ‘Birch’s darkly hilarious prose is gripping, and Sam Pritchard’s production agreeably taut and minimalist, a showcase for the words and actors’.

The Standard’s Nick Curtis found it: ‘an effortful watch, but a rewarding one.’ He described how ‘Birch tracks the progression of the novel through romance, realism, modernism and postmodernism… Through all the playful shifts in mood, pace and tone, her voice remains sharp and unsparing: she has an uncanny ability to bring things into crystalline focus with a chilling image or a phrase.’

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage explained: ‘This is no straightforward act of adaptation. Birch has constructed an intricate analysis of form and structure, sampling widely from literary genres – Bildungsroman, epistolary, Boys’ Own adventure – to tell a timely story of toxic masculinity and the lifelong search for purpose and meaning. The result is bewildering, bleak and often darkly funny.’

Claire Allfree for the Telegraph called it a ‘formidable if provocatively unwieldy three-hour play, which examines the last 150 years of testosterone-fuelled cultural narratives through the diverging stories of three estranged brothers.’

3 stars ★★★

LondonTheatre’s Theo Bosanquet liked it but: ‘This near-three-hour sweep of the patriarchy in its various iterations is a piece that throws up no end of provocative moments and ideas. It will keep you talking long into the night. But it also feels baggy and unfocussed at times, a smorgasbord of ideas that never quite cohere into a satisfying whole.’

1 star ★

The Times’ Clive Davis was having none of it: ‘What’s particularly irritating about Alice Birch’s terminally dull play… is that it spends nearly three hours congratulating itself on its grand psychological insights when it has, in fact, nothing original to say.’ He saw it as symptomatic of today’s playwriting: ‘Romans is an empty vessel but it does convey a worrying truth about the state of theatre: we’re awash with outstanding actors but they’re starved of good new writing.’

Critics’ average rating 3.8★

Romans: A Novel can be seen at the Almeida Theatre until 11 October 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen Romans: A Novel, please leave a review and rating below

 

The year’s best show so far, say the critics

Garrick Theatre

Now transferred to the West End, the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Mel Brooks‘ musical The Producers has gone down even better with the critics. The reviewers lavished praise on Brooks, director Patrick Marber, and stars Andy Nyman and Mark Antolin who play the Broadway producers who try to create a flop in an effort to fleece their backers, the flop in question being a tribute to Hitler. The average rating of 4.5⭑ is as high as any current West End show. Reviews of the original Menier run are included after the reviews of the West End opening.

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

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

It’s ‘the funniest show in London’ said the Standard’s Nick Curtis. ‘I honestly can’t find fault with it.’ For Chris Omaweng at LondonTheatre1 it was ‘a fantastic night out, just the tonic for anyone who doesn’t mind generous doses of impertinence delivered with exuberance and joy’.

The Times’ Clive Davis declared: ‘this feels like the show we need right now: a comedy that holds nothing sacred except the right to hold nothing sacred. Marber, the choreographer Lorin Latarro and the costume designer Paul Farnsworth blend spectacle, discipline and daftness. The chorus are supremely well drilled’.

Theo Bosanquet at WhatsOnStage called it ‘a giant slab of feel-good escapism and genuine hilarity’. He said: ‘It’s anchored by a pair of outstanding performances from Andy Nyman and Marc Antolin’. BroadwayWorld‘s Aliya Al-Hassan was pleased to see: ‘The whole main cast returns to the show and don’t miss a beat with their energy, deft movement and incredible comic timing. The ensemble is one of the best I have seen, each actor bringing huge character to the smallest parts.’

Anya Ryan at LondonTheatre announced: ‘Only a true misery guts could pick faults in Patrick Marber’s revival of Mel Brooks’s The Producers.’ (Andrjez Lukowski at Time Out take note!) She found: ‘it delivers one belly laugh after another. And still, there is so much more to this production than good, old-fashioned tomfoolery. Sewn together with an unceasing ability to laugh at itself, it is a musical as radical and joyously subversive as when it first appeared on film in 1967.’

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish referred to it as ‘a winningly funny proposition for a new generation – and Marber pulls out all the stops to raise the Garrick roof.’ Paul Vale for The Stage noted that Patrick Marber ‘saturates this slick musical comedy with a wealth of physical gags, exquisitely timed double takes and an expertly judged sense of the absurd that enhances the show’s momentum.’ Adam Bloodworth at CityAM labelled it ‘a comic masterpiece’.

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Only Andrzej Lukowski of Time Out was lukewarm: ‘The Producers is a fine musical that had its moment a quarter century ago.’ But he added ruefully: ‘you’d have to be made of stone not to laugh at it’.

Critics’ Average Rating 4.5⭑

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

The Producers can be seen at the Garrick Theatre until 19 September 2026.  Buy tickets directly from the theatre

Read Paul Seven’s review of The Producers here

Reviews from the run at the Menier –

Aliya Al-Hassan in BroadwayWorld (5) gave top marks: ’It’s far from subtle, but is funny, irreverant and witty.’ She praised the stars: ‘Nyman revels in his lank-haired, slightly chaotic persona. He has a palpable chemistry with Marc Antolin‘s adorably coy and neurotic Bloom.’ And the creative team: ‘Patrick Marber shows astute direction in his first musical. Lorin Latarro’s vibrant choreography defies the constrictions of the space, never seeming to be over-crowded or too busy.’

Helen Hawkins on The Arts Desk (5) called it ‘an uproarious adult panto.’ She said,  ‘Andy Nyman is the dynamo of the show, a convincing wheeler-dealer…His Leo Bloom, Marc Antolin, is spot on too, nervous and silly, but equally amiable’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (4) said, ‘Still so original, and delightfully – daringly – funny, it is revived by director Patrick Marber with such vigour, sparkle and controlled wildness that it renders itself the London show of the festival season – funnier, camper and more outre than pantomime.’ She found it ‘irresistible, absurd and joyful, both celebrating and sending up the power of theatre. A blast of a show.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton (4) declared, ‘It’s not at all subtle, but speeds along with such pleasure at its own absurdity that it’s hugely entertaining.’ She said, ‘Nyman and Antolin anchor the show while everyone else goes so far over the top that the roof is in danger of coming off. Both Harry Morrison as the Nazi-loving author of the show and Trevor Ashley as the fabulously gay director Roger de Bris are unleashed into wild excess’.

Matthew Hemley for The Stage (4) pointed out, ‘this is a musical that still guarantees laugh after laugh after laugh, with a genuinely brilliant score from Brooks.’ He continued, ‘Marber keeps the show whizzing along, and Lorin Latarro’s slick choreography makes brilliant use of a tight space’. He described the stars:  ‘Nyman and Antolin work delightfully together, Nyman a ball of frustrated energy, Antolin on top form as his nervy, blanket-hugging sidekick. They sing and dance wonderfully, and they’re very funny, too – both the physical and verbal comedy is a genuine treat.’ He went  on, ‘The highlight, however, comes in the form of Trevor Ashley’s Roger De Bris, the director tasked with helming Springtime for Hitler, who eventually finds himself playing the Nazi leader…(his) expressions, voice and comic timing are spot on. His Judy Garland-infused Hitler is a wonder.’

The Financial Times‘ Sarah Hemming (4★) said, ‘director Patrick Marber, choreographer Lorin Latarro and the versatile cast go at it with unadulterated glee, plundering every cliché in the book and mischievously pickpocketing the musicals tradition.’ She continued, ‘At its heart are Nyman and Antolin, both terrific and a wonderful double act’ and concluded, ‘Despite all the absurdity…it’s rather sweet: a ridiculous love-letter to friendship and to the sheer craziness and passion of show business.’

Over at LondonTheatre (4) Olivia Rook showered praise all round and picked out various members of the cast: ‘Trevor Ashley is perfectly cast as the scene-stealing director Roger De Bris…Harry Morrison also gives a stand-out performance as the crazed Hitler fanatic Franz, spitting out his words with relish in a throaty German accent, and Joanna Woodward’s endearing, Marilyn Monroe-esque Ulla is a delight.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (4) decided, ‘The Producers is a bit dated, a bit slow in getting going… But its pillorying of fascist iconography remains hysterically funny and steely sharp – perhaps sharper than it was before.’

Although Dominic Cavendish at The Telegraph (4) spent a chunk of his review comparing Nyman and Antolin unfavourably with the stars of the original movie, nevertheless he found it ‘perfectly suited for the festive need for cheer’.

Louis Chilton in The Independent (4) commented, ‘as a satire both of fascist nationalism and showbiz, The Producers remains ever-relevant. Directed by Patrick Marber … this production does a lot with a small, intimate stage; Lorin Latarro’s choreography is showy and dynamic – but lets the comedy rightfully hoard the focus…The jokes are rapid, the satire outrageous. How could it possibly fail?’

Critics’ Average Rating of Menier production 4.2★

If you’ve seen The Producers at the Garrick Theatre or the Menier Chocolate Factory, please share your review and rating below

‘A marvel of a show’

Royal Court Theatre

A town turns deaf overnight after a deaf boy is shot dead by a soldier. What follows in Dead Centre’s adaptation of a long poem by Ukrainian writer Ilya Kaminsky, mixes a show-within-a-show, puppetry, projections, and more, in a dizzying spectacle that looks at the nature of both war and theatre. It is written and directed by Dead Centre’s Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel in collaboration with BSL poet Zoë McWhinney.

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

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

‘This is capital-T theatre: every moment of it thrills’ said Holly O’Mahony for LondonTheatre. She detailed many of those thrills in her review, ending: ‘It’s a brilliant showcase of what theatre can do, and a beautiful story of resilience, performed with spectacular creativity.’

Katie Kirkpatrick for BroadwayWorld agreed: ‘Deaf Republic is a marvel of a show. Using puppetry, live video, aerial, and a combination of spoken English, BSL, and captions, this is the kind of theatre that steps not only out of the box but into a whole new world.’ She explained; ‘It’s a visual spectacle, sure, but behind every gasp-worthy moment lie smart, prescient ideas. Parallels are drawn between sign language, poetry, and theatre, illustrating the amount of thought that has gone into the adaptation process.’

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Independent‘s Alice Saville declared it to be ‘an experimental epic of war and resistance that’ll make you rub your eyes and reach desperately for something real to hold on to. Puppets, circus, signing, film projections, spoken word – in scene after surreal scene, they pile on different storytelling techniques to explore how we talk (or don’t talk) about terrible things’. She concluded: ‘Deaf Republic is a slippery thing… It resists the easy, misleading clarity of a news report to show a world where normal life has been upended, exploded, silenced. And, fittingly, it leaves its audience grasping for a language to express what they’ve seen.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej  Lukowksi told us: ‘Dublin’s Dead Centre is a true marvel, a theatre company that makes intensely visceral works that feel like they’ve been wrenched from a beautiful dream and a screaming nightmare simultaneously.’ He described some of the details: ‘Kevin Gleeson’s droning sound design is gorgeous and primal. The interplay of Grant Gee’s dreamy video work and the gauzy scrims that descend from the ceiling is beautiful and disorientating. Jeremy Herbert’s set includes a full-sized car, which is just very cool.’

Dave Fargnoli reported for The Stage: ‘the piece plays, sometimes dizzyingly, with ideas of language, empathy, agency and resistance. The playful, metatheatrical text is delivered in a blend of British Sign Language, spoken lines, and surtitles. Moukarzel and Kidd’s lucid, confident direction holds the many threads together, employing video segments, live footage and some cheekily subversive puppetry, each new layer intentionally highlighting the artificiality of live performance.’

The Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming found ‘the sign language that runs through Kaminsky’s original takes on living form as an ensemble of deaf and hearing actors act out the story, buzzing between sign languages, surtitles, film and spoken dialogue. And language is just one strand of a richly textured, shape-shifting piece (directed by co-writers Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel) that draws on age-old theatrical tools of resistance — allegory, irony, puppetry — to add nuance and depth and, most significantly, to switch perspective.’ She vividly explained: ‘Perhaps most potently, Deaf Republic foregrounds the act of translation at the heart of all theatre: that this is manifestly not real, and yet it can express a reality that we struggle to articulate.’

Claire Allfree in the Telegraph called it ‘a wondrous two hours of storytelling’.

Chris Omaweng of LondonTheatre1 noted: ‘Some intriguing ideas are introduced in a visually impressive and marvellously unsettling production.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

For Theo Bosanquet at WhatsOnStage: ‘It suffers somewhat from over-ambition, as it struggles to tie its disparate ideas together.’ However, ‘there’s a dystopian darkness underscoring it that leaves a lasting impression, and the fact it ends with a joke, told by the soldier, is as bleak a coda as one could imagine.’

David Jays for The Guardian described how ‘signing impels the show: a vivid choreography of communication. Signing, speech and surtitles are variously combined; panic and violence are loud in every register.’ He observed: ‘Dead Centre are masters of meta-theatrical dazzle. Here, we rarely watch in a single register. Live film sits atop the stage picture. Scenes are screened in dollhouse miniature then replicated at full scale (ingenious designs by Jeremy Herbert). A hovering drone scans the audience. There are so many moving parts that spectatorship becomes a testing exercise in awareness.’

The Times‘  Clive Davis had reservations. He acknowledged that the writers ‘have conjured up hallucinogenic tableaux, combining puppetry with video close-ups and a sliver of circus theatrics which demonstrate how easily everyday life can slip into random bloodshed.’ But he felt ‘At times, Deaf Republic has more of the static quality of an art installation.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9⭑

Deaf Republic can be seen at the Royal Court Theatre until 13 September 2025. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

If you’ve seen Deaf Republic at the Royal Court, please leave your review and rating below

Dark immersive production Bowles critics over

Playhouse Theatre (KitKat Club)

Cabaret is the top rated West End show of the 2020s. Only the eye-watering ticket prices have prevented it from being top value. The original stars Eddie Redmayne and especially Jessie Buckley (as Sally Bowles) were a significant focus of the many 5 and 4 star reviews, but the many subsequent replacements have shown that Rebecca Frecknall’s production is the true strength of the show. It is a dark interpretation of Kander and Ebb’s musical that uses a dazzling transformation of the Playhouse into the KitKat Club, and immersive elements within the performance to dupe the audience into being complicit in the growth of Nazism. The extracts from the reviews from the opening night that are reproduced below concentrate on the production rather than the stars.

5 stars ★★★★★

Nick Curtis of the Standard was Bowlesd over: ‘Wow. Rebecca Frecknall’s new revival of Kander and Ebb’s musical set in interwar Berlin is a stunning, breathlessly exciting theatrical happening. It feels loyal to the 1966 original yet astonishingly contemporary, and properly immersive.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton declared: ‘The stamp of a great work of art is that it can bear many interpretations. Director Rebecca Frecknall…has taken Kander and Ebb’s 1966 musical and completely reimagined it. The result is both shattering and utterly magnificent.’ She went into detail: ‘ Scutt’s costumes are a riot of soft colour and texture, and Julia Cheng’s extraordinarily detailed choreography creates a tawdry, sexualised world, where everyone gets to express themselves and no-one is quite what they seem. By the close of a devastating night in the theatre, that image has been replaced with beige uniformity and straight lines of movement…The result, central to Frecknall’s thinking, is terrifying, with a darkness that reaches all the deeper because the audience has been made to feel complicit.’

Marianka Swain for BroadwayWorld said: ‘We came here to escape, but we emerge shattered. This is musical theatre at its absolute finest. A total knockout.’ She described ‘Julia Cheng’s rich choreography’: ‘a mix of styles, from jazz and contemporary to waacking, with angular freezes, chest pumps, swaying and shimmies – knowing and challenging.’ And how ‘Isabella Byrd’s exceptional lighting design creates eerie shadows, casts the characters in sudden shafts of light, or uses the lamps in the audience to draw us into the performance.’

Tim Bano at The Stage pointed out: ‘Frecknall’s direction doesn’t let style sideline substance. Perhaps her strongest play is the careful balance she maintains in terms of the Nazis as metaphor and as literal Nazis. This is a production specifically about antisemitism and the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany. It’s also about attacks on sexuality, gender, ethnicity and religion – or any other marker of identity at any other time.’ He ended: ‘While the whole nonsense of the Kit Kat Club – the secret entrance, the champagne – is completely at odds with what the musical is really about (not to mention the eye-watering ticket prices), it’s also perfect: the production dupes us, turns us into delusionists just like Sally, Cliff and the rest. It tricks us into feeling as if we’re at a party when really we’re at the most visceral display of political theatre in the West End.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish wrote that Rebecca Frecknall ‘creates an immersive evocation of the Kit Kat Club, the early-1930s Berlin dive in which much of the action is set. She supercharges the ambience, though. The whole Playhouse has become a louche playground. In the modified auditorium, ranged with tables and with a raised, often revolving circular wooden stage at its heart, old-world decorum mingles with wild abandon.’

Roz Wyllie for LondonTheatre1 said: ‘The whole production is about as good as theatre gets; with every shade of emotion and absolutely no wasted dialogue or scene. It’s tight, it’s tender it’s shocking… it’s sinfully brilliant.’

Alexandra Pollard for The Independent commented: ‘Back in the Sixties, the musical’s original director Hal Prince called Cabaret “a parable of contemporary morality”. In such capable hands, it’s a parable that still packs a punch.’

4 stars ★★★★

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski described the design: ‘the Playhouse Theatre has been heavily retooled by designer Tom Scutt, and literally renamed the Kit Kat Club… Scutt’s revamp is extremely classy. From opening up backstage areas and drenching them in atmospheric lighting to creating a secondary, gold-draped performance space for the fun (if inessential) pre-show cabaret-with-a-small-c entertainment, it’s full of quietly spectacular little flourishes.’ He continued: ‘costumes are angular, vivid, somewhat grotesque; the performers’ faces are sardonic, or sinister, not submissive or lusty. There is an alien harshness and a sense of confrontation and mischief, a feeling we have left the world behind: you really can picture this place as a strange nocturnal bubble removed from the increasingly grim realities of the Germany outside.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar found: ‘Rebecca Frecknall’s production on the whole lives up to its hype, magnetising us with flamboyant camp and then delivering menace that feels freshly charged.’

Suzy Evans at LondonTheatre noted: ‘Coupled with Tom Scutt’s immersive design and Isabella Byrd’s atmospheric lighting, this production feels like a world away from outside…And Frecknall doesn’t pull any punches with her high-concept approach…The approaching horror and absurdism of this escape is at the forefront, and her highly choreographed tableau feels like a ballet or a marionette show, where someone calculating is pulling all the strings.’

Fiona Mountford of the i pointed out: ‘Despite the immersive backdrop – all credit to designer Tom Scutt – this is a Cabaret that has been stripped back and cleansed of the reassuring layers of jollity that it often wears. Sex might be everywhere, but no one is enjoying it.’

Clive Davis of The Times was harder to please.  ‘Julia Cheng’s choreography for a blowsy set of dancers…never quite overcomes the limitations imposed by the lack of space.’

The Mail’s Patrick Marmion was less impressed than most but still gave it high marks: ‘It may be a little parsimonious in its pleasures, but this eagerly anticipated new staging of Cabaret certainly looks good, sounds good – and runs like clockwork.’

Critics’ average rating 4.5⭑

Value rating 36 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Cabaret is currently booking to 23 May 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

If you’ve seen Cabaret at the Playhouse/KitKat Club, please add your review below 

Charismatic stars save the play when Shakespeare meets Marlowe

Wyndham’s theatre

Born With Teeth is an RSC production receiving its premiere in London rather than Stratford, and directed by the company’s co-Director Daniel Evans. The critics were generally agreed that Ncuti Gatwa  and Edward Bluemel were the saviours of the drama. They liked the concept of rising playwrights William Shakespeare (Bluemel) and Christopher Marlowe (Gatwa) revealing their differing characters as they collaborated on a play, but many felt the execution was repetitive and lacking wit.

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

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

In a review that must have had some of his readers reaching for the smelling salts, the Daily Mail’s Patrick Marmion detailed the outrageous behaviour of Ncuti Gatwa’s Marlowe before declaring: ‘Daniel Evans’s steamy production fizzes with rare theatrical chemistry.’

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Marianka Swain for LondonTheatre called it ‘a seriously steamy cat-and-mouse game, as American dramatist Liz Duffy Adams places these two brilliant men in one room so we can watch the sparks fly.’  She assured us: ‘this is an accessible romp that honours Shakespeare’s populist spirit, jubilantly reclaims queer history, and explores a literary mystery that continues to fascinate.’

The Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming (sadly often hidden behind a very expensive paywall) said it was ‘a tantalising piece — for better and for worse. It’s greatly entertaining, peppered with literary gags and impish anachronisms, and delivered with immense flourish. What holds it back is a reluctance to dive deeper into the huge themes it raises and give its characters more time to explore loaded issues such as religion, artistic freedom and self-preservation.’

Nick Curtis of The Standard needed a bucket of water thrown over him: ‘Phwoar! The chance to see a jacked and shirtless Ncuti Gatwa snogging his snake-hipped, chisel-cheekboned former Sex Education co-star Edward Bluemel is undoubtedly part of the appeal of Liz Duffy Adams’s seductively clever two-hander.’ He liked the play, saying it ‘blends intrigue and shifty eroticism with in-jokes and a discourse on creativity. The keynote of Daniel Evans’s production…is fluidity: nothing is every quite what it seems.’ He ended: ‘the way Duffy’s script entwines the vicissitudes of sex, celebrity and Elizabethan politics is enormous fun. And as star vehicles go, Evan’s production is a smart and subtle one.’

Cindy Marcolina for BroadwayWorld was star struck: ‘The production would be a resounding flop without Gatwa and Bluemel. Their bond is fun and attractive, magnetic in how it compels us to forgive the flimsiness of the script, the fluctuating quality of its dialogues, and its (mis)use of specific terminology’. Both she and Time Out’s critic described the play as ‘slash fiction’, which she helpfully explained is ‘a genre of fanfiction that focuses on the romantic relation between preexisting fictional characters of the same sex.’ So now you know.

Heather Neill sitting at TheArtsDesk told us: ‘under Daniel Evans’ spirited direction, Ncuti Gatwa as Marlowe and Edward Bluemel as Shakespeare grab every opportunity to explore their versions of these fascinating, contradictory characters’. She told us the playwright ‘is interested in the cause of – and often barriers to – artistic freedom now as well as in Elizabethan England. This is echoed in designer Joanna Scotcher’s set, the stage surrounded by banks of lights that might suggest interrogation as well as theatricality, and her costumes combining punk materials with Tudor shapes.’

TheatreWeekly‘s Greg Stewart was more enthusiastic about the script than others: ‘a bold and cerebral imagining of a clandestine creative collision between Christopher (Kit) Marlowe and William (Will) Shakespeare.’ He continued: ‘Adams’ writing is dense and richly layered, peppered with references and easter eggs that will delight aficionados of both playwrights. While the dialogue occasionally veers into the overly verbose, it remains riveting, especially when delivered with the electric chemistry of its two leads.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Sarah Crompton of WhatsOnStage summed it up as ‘an odd confection, at once challenging and comic, slightly circuitous and oddly revealing… it’s brought to vital, charismatic life by its casting’.

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski found it ‘comes across like a particularly insane workplace comedy’. He went on: ‘Born with Teeth is pretty trashy. I rolled my eyes at the whole sexual tension thing: our two heroes do end up snogging, but it mostly seems to be because that’s what happens in slash fiction’. Getting down to the nitty gritty, he said: ‘ultimately what Born with Teeth suffers from the most is asking us to imagine a sex and paranoia crazed Elizabethan society while not actually showing it to us.’ He concluded: ‘Born with Teeth is a lot of fun: two charismatic actors having a ball pinging off each other while chomping down on a script that spikes the trashiness with some genuine wit.’

For The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar, ‘this is Gatwa’s show. His boisterous Kit sweats in Zoë Thomas-Webb’s leather two-piece, his every lithe action a flirtation’. For her, the play promised more than it delivered: ‘The stakes simmer throughout but never reach boiling point.’

Sam Marlowe of The Stage described the production: ‘The aesthetic of Evans’ staging is chic modernity. Andrzej Goulding’s video design intercuts fever-dreamlike, monochrome scenes of the two playwrights being subjected to torture by the Elizabethan state with pixellations and static – designer violence, MTV-style. Meanwhile, their interactions take place on a set by Joanna Scotcher, lit by Neil Austin, of enclosing walls made up of banks of lights.’ She ended: ‘We know where this story is heading – after all, there’s no Royal Marlowe Company – and Duffy Adams never builds much tension on the way there. But this is a diverting enough double act, glinting with wit and style.’

Praising the actors’ performances, Fiona Mountford of i-news said: ‘Bluemel gives an understated performance of someone growing in confidence, growing into themselves, whereas Gatwa’s Marlowe is a flame that burns with explosive brightness and is then extinguished.’

‘It’s tragi-comical-farcical-ludicrous’, said the Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish, ‘What keeps you watching is the lusty bravura of Gatwa … with Bluemel…neatly evoking Shakespeare’s growing confidence and gnawing doubts.’ He concluded: ‘It’s diverting enough, but ultimately toothless.’

Alice Saville of The Independent took a balanced view about Ncuti Gatwa: ‘Gatwa revels in his role to an almost distracting degree: brandishing an implausibly long feathered quill, making an Olympics-worthy leap across the stage, and baring his gleaming chest. It’s all incredibly enjoyable. But what he doesn’t do is bare his soul, or show the inner torment of a man so obsessed with power and political intrigue that he’ll sacrifice everything else, even his happiness.’ And about the play: ‘It sings with all the sex and politics and religious iconoclasm that the bard handled so carefully in his plays, showing that every literary choice he made was freighted with danger. What it doesn’t do is show the emotional cost of living in this world. And that makes it hard to get deeply invested in this impossible literary love story, however intriguing its twists and turns might be.’

The Times’ Clive Davis found: ‘You wait in vain for this Marlowe to acquire some nuance when he flirts with Edward Bluemel’s ingenuous Will’.  For all its literary references, ‘At its heart, though, it hovers at the level of conscientiously researched fan fiction.’ He was not amused: ‘the attempts at humour soon begin to pall. Each line lands with the same thudding note, so much so that, halfway through, I found myself harbouring nostalgic memories of the much more deft wit of Ben Elton’s Shaftesbury Avenue version of Upstart Crow.’

2 stars

Dominic Maxwell at The Sunday Times couldn’t wait for it to end: ‘Born with Teeth is the kind of night at the theatre I like least: it’s too good in its execution to simply dismiss, too pointless for me not to long for it to end.’

Critics’ average rating: 3.5⭑

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

Born With Teeth can be seen at Wyndham’s Theatre until 1  November 2025.  Buy tickets directly from the theatre

If you’ve seen Born With Teeth at Wyndham’s Theatre, please share your review and rating below

A well acted, old fashioned family saga

Park200

The Gathered Leaves seems to have been missed by some of the heavyweight media amidst all the reporting from the Edinburgh Fringe. I admit I missed its opening, but here’s a belated roundup of the limited number of reviews. The critics praised both the acting and Adrian Noble’s direction in this revival of Andrew Keatley’s family saga. Despite it being only ten years old, many felt the play was old fashioned (not always a bad thing) and a little too long.

[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 declared: ‘It’s an old-fashioned and at times schematic family saga that nonetheless treats its multiple themes with seriousness and care and eventually exerts a cumulative power…Adrian Noble’s elegant revival is peopled with thoroughbred stage actors, who plough determinedly through the boggier bits of dialogue and exposition.’

Louise Penn for BroadwayWorld found: ‘Keatley’s writing rewards his starry cast in every line. The length of the play (2hr 20 of performance) allows storylines to shape and realities to be revealed. Director Adrian Noble and designer Dick Bird allow the beautifully realised set to spread beyond the confines of the stage, spilling out onto the sidelines and into the audience.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Miriam Sallon for WhatsOnStage claimed: ‘It’s not that Keatley’s writing isn’t sharp and witty, and at times insightful. It’s that it could have been excellent, and instead, he’s settled for something closer to fine.’

Over on TheArtsDesk, Rachel Halliburton wrote: ‘Dick Bird’s fastidiously observed design in beiges and pale greens sets the scene for emotional daggers in the drawing room.’ She ended: ‘You emerge from this play simultaneously feeling as if you’ve taken a gentle walk back in time and thankful that the world has moved on. Keatley’s script holds up well enough, but it’s Noble’s subtle direction – in which the cast doesn’t strike one false emotional note – that gives the evening its pull.’

Holly O’Mahony at The Stage felt it could have done more: ‘While avoiding melodrama is no bad thing, this staid story craves a s midge more disrepute.’

Alan Fitter at LondonTheatre1 had some thoughts about the set: ‘A special mention should go to Dick Bird’s set which is startling. The walls go all the way up to the ceiling of the auditorium, some 25 feet or so, with picture rails, architraves and cornices – just like the walls of a grand house would be. However, it does look as if most of the budget has been spent on the walls, as the furniture in the very grand house is sparce and quite cheap looking – not what you’d expect.’ He concluded: ‘The Gathered Leaves is interesting, if a little old-fashioned and long …What makes it work and what’s at the heart of Keatley’s play is that, amidst all the angst of a family in disarray, is the love and humanity of two brothers who will stick together whatever life throws at them.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.3⭑

The Gathered Leaves can be seen at Park200 until 20 September 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

If you’ve seen The Gathered Leaves at @sohoplace, please add your review and rating below

Conflicting views over play about clashes

Donmar warehouse

Despite the mixed reception to Unicorn, his play advocating the merits of a menage-a-trois as an alternative to the traditional couple, Mike Bartlett continues to push radical re-thinking in his latest play. This time he explores farming and the land. A couple played by Sam Troughton and Hattie Morahan consider extreme living off the grid. Many ecological and generational debates are explored, with a state of the nation motif running through it. It was too didactic for some critics but others liked the challenge. Most found it funny. If you want to read a thoroughly positive review, go to Sarah Crompton’s at WhatsOnStage. Her customary insight and meticulous detail make her one of our best reviewers. For the polar opposite point of view, try the damning review from Clive Davis in The Times.

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton called it ‘a questing, knotty, philosophical piece, often circular and didactic but always utterly gripping as the arguments twist and turn. Juniper Blood does exactly what theatre has always done: offers a forum for debate, lining up the arguments with a clarity and courage that is rare.’ As for the set, ‘Designer Ultz has turned the Donmar into a patch of the countryside, with a living bank of grass surrounding a wooden platform.’ She concluded : ‘It has the feeling of being ancient myth and a report from the front line. It is utterly absorbing.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish reassured us: ‘Although Juniper Blood suffers from some trowelled-on exposition, Bartlett’s ability to dig deep into a rich subject with flair and wit is again to the fore.’ ‘Hattie Morahan and Sam Troughton lead the small cast, superbly, as a flaky middle-aged couple making a go of it as “permaculture” farmers in north-west Oxfordshire, forging a sustainable life in the sticks. Think Chekhov meets Clarkson…Bartlett’s asking if something more radical is needed.’

Aleks Sierz at The Arts Desk found it ‘more cerebral than emotional’. He decided ‘The main problem with the play is that the deadlock between its conflicting ideas is never really resolved in a satisfying way…Nevertheless, for all its imperfections, this is a compelling evening mainly because of James Macdonald’s directing and the acting of his cast. Macdonald’s production has the vibe of hyperrealism.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar had reservations: ‘The cast give excellent performances and the action is intriguing, the arguments holding us, but the story in itself seems contrived around the play’s ideas.’ However, ‘Despite its lecturing and trowel-load of ideas, it is compelling and ambitious, Chekhovian in glimmers. Bartlett masterfully weds levity through social satire with complexity and depth of subject matter.’

Holly O’Mahony popped up at Time Out with an equivocal review: the ‘production directed by Barlett’s regular collaborator James Macdonald is really very funny. But for a play that holds a mirror up to the gaping chasm between idealism and pragmatism, it has some disparities of its own. Though rivetingly performed all round, several characters become wildly different people between its three acts, while its form is slippery too.’

For Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre ‘There are keen observations here and sharply witty lines, but rather than developing the characters’ inner lives’.

Adam Bloodworth at CityAM took a similar line: ‘Bartlett’s writing, as it always has been, is often funny, though too much of the script feels didactic. The talk about tech solutions to climate problems, and idealism versus pragmatism, starts to feel a little too on-the-nose and gets a bit dreary.’

Mary Beer for LondonTheatre1 summarised: ‘As a showcase for a thoroughly brilliant cast, including younger faces to watch, Juniper Blood succeeds.  With some decent bits of theatrically and a winning set by ULTZ along with some zinging lines, there is pleasure to be found in taking in this play.  But it is not fresh or revelatory or frankly remotely important or urgent despite the themes that underpin it.

After a long analysis at BroadwayWorld, Cindy Marcolina summed up her review regally: ‘It generates enough of a conversation to get you going, but is it Bartlett at his best? We don’t think so.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Times’ Clive Davis had no time for it, calling it ‘a maddeningly self-indulgent play of ideas, tosses around one half-formed notion after another…you sit there, gazing at the mound of turf on the set, wondering who thought this script was worth inflicting on the audience at the Donmar’.

The Standard’s Nick Curtis was of the same mind: ‘the play itself feels thin and undercooked, the plot twists and emotional revelations unearned. Every character is underwritten’.

Sam Marlowe’s review in The Stage was also dismissive: ‘Static, effortful and irredeemably verbose, it pits its dislikeable characters against one another in a series of overworked debates…James Macdonald’s rather languid production…fails to inject Bartlett’s contrivances with much nuance or urgency.’

Juniper Blood can be seen at the Donmar Warehouse until 4 October 2025. Click here to buy tickets directly from the theatre  

Critics’ average rating 3.0⭑

If you’ve seen Juniper Blood at the Donmar, please add your review and rating below

‘Joyous’ or ‘empty’?

Shakespeare’s Globe

Carnival’ and ‘carnivalesque’ were words that cropped up frequently in reviews of Twelfth Night at The Globe. However there were contrasting views on Robin Belfield’s production (‘joyous’ vs ‘empty’, ‘strongest rapport with an audience’ vs ‘may try a little too hard to engage the crowd’), the performances (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Viola gives a ‘delicious central performance’ or needs to play the part  ‘with more depth’), and the design. Take from them what you will.

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

4 stars ★★★★

There was a rare but welcome review from Dzifa Benson in the Telegraph. With her usual perspicacity she analysed the gender themes of the play and how the production exploits them before praising the actors and concluding: ‘this summer jamboree is riotous fun and joyfully tongue-in-cheek’.

Rachel Halliburton for The Times liked the way ‘in Robin Belfield’s joyous, kaleidoscopically coloured production, Quigley makes (Malvolio’s) humiliation in love every bit as resonant as the gender-swapping romances of the main characters.’ She said: ‘Amid the prevailing colourful whirligig, this is the production’s darkly beating heart.’

Dave Fargnoli for The Stage stated: ‘Belfield’s production never lets us forget that a dangerous current of lust and cruelty lurks beneath the whimsical frivolity.’ He was not alone in praising the design: ‘The bold aesthetics of Jean Chan’s gorgeous costumes are integral to evoking the play’s weird world and marking shifts in the characters’ emotional states.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis said: ‘Inclusion and exclusion are the keynotes of Robin Belfield’s carnivalesque production of Shakespeare’s play, which features a delicious central performance from as Viola. The cast build what’s possibly the strongest rapport with an audience that I’ve ever felt at the Globe and the comedy is delightfully on point.’

3 stars

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre disagreed with The Standard (above) about Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, finding that ‘this fine performer only intermittently lands the passion and pathos that help drive the play forward’. He also disagreed about the rapport with the audience: ‘The production may try a little too hard to engage the crowd in a vapid clap-along’. However he was impressed by ‘Jos Vantyler’s beautifully spoken (and danced), Harlequinade-adjacent Feste’ who ‘steers an expert course through the contrasting shores of the sublime and the sad between which this play navigates.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski was unimpressed: ‘Robin Belfield’s production falls into a very Globe-ish trap of having a lot of fun individual turns but failing to really cohere into a whole that makes much sense. And the lack of set changes leaves it without any sense of place, just groups of characters mucking about in front of Jean Chan’s unhelpfully abstract sun-ray set design.’

Clementine Scott for BroadwayWorld felt ‘Belfield’s direction too often allows the complex, gender-bending love triangle between Viola (in disguise as ‘Cesario’), Olivia and Orsino to play second fiddle to the Saturnalian slapstick.’ To support this view, she pointed out: ‘it’s a shame that our audience avatar, Viola (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ), the only character who’s experiencing this fantasy world for the first time alongside us, isn’t played with more depth.’ She conceded: ‘This production might not probe Twelfth Night’s nuances as far as it could, but even the most hardened critic can’t resist the serotonin hit.’

2 stars ★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar summed up: ‘A period-dress production with passing modern-day asides, it is extremely knockabout, steering away from the play’s anguished layers.’ She explained: ‘You do not feel the pangs of unrequited desire, and much of the verse is dampened by unremarkable delivery in general.’ For her, Malvolio was ‘ almost loveably crabby’ and his ‘gulling never enters the realm of the tragic’. It was, she said, ‘a baggy production whose japery spills into messiness, leaving some plot points opaque.’

Alun Hood at WhatsOnStage was disappointed: ‘Belfield certainly rips through the play with commendable pace and attack, but the overall lack of subtlety or real emotion robs this entrancing comedy of much of its magic. When the majority of the characters are reduced to clownish ciphers, it’s pretty hard to care about them and that ultimately renders this Twelfth Night, for all its freewheeling irreverence and high energy revelry, a disappointingly empty experience.’

Critics’ average rating 3.2★

Twelfth Night can be seen at Shakespeare’s Globe until 25 October 2025. Buy tickets directly from shakespearesglobe.com