Problem play is still a problem

Shakespeare’s Globe

A rare production of Shakespeare’s romantic story set within a satirical look at the Trojan War. Many of the critics’ reminded us this is a ‘problem play’, incoherent in tone, and neither comedy nor tragedy. Some thought Owen Horsley’s comic interpretation skewing toxic masculinity was inspired, others found it inappropriate. The reviews were a good example of the way critics can help our understanding of a play. Many displayed their knowledge of this obscure play and provided analyses of why it is a ‘problem’ and the extent to which this interpretation did or did not succeed in solving it.

[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: ‘Owen Horsley’s bracingly ribald, mordant staging is a study of toxic masculinity in which war is treated as a game, or a reality show, that suddenly stops being funny.’ He pointed out: ‘Horsley’s greatest stroke is to gender-swap (some of the roles). Samantha Spiro – a mistress of grotesque comedy – exudes bawdy relish as “auntie” Pandarus, tottering on her heels and twittering filth. Meanwhile, the dazzling Lucy McCormick folds the role of prologue into that of her goth-girl Thersites…who generates an easy, sardonic rapport with the audience.’
The evening is, he said, ‘a vivid, kaleidoscopic exploration of human foibles’.

Rachel Halliburton for The Times came down in favour of the interpretation: ‘for my money this bawdy, ballsy interpretation…arrestingly captures the play’s spirit.’ She explained: ‘Horsley captures the cynical disillusion in a script that punctures heroic myth to convey a nihilistic wasteland of war.’ Against this backdrop, the two lovers pursue their romance: ‘Kasper Hilton-Hille presents a nuanced, sensitive Troilus, alert to his world’s pain and absurdity. There’s real warmth in his connection with Charlotte O’Leary’s cheerful no-nonsense Cressida, a sense that amid the turbulence here is something worth living for.’

Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld liked the comedic treatment but didn’t think it was a total success. She was swayed by the actors: ‘An almost omnipresent Lucy McCormick is the key to the tone and entertainment value of the production. As Thersites, she is part of the Greek camp but also acts as a de facto Chorus’.

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski warned: ‘May the gods help you if this is your first Shakespeare play, or you’re unfamiliar with the basic plot outline of the Iliad. But…Horsley’s production is rewarding, an engaging mix of jet-black cynicism and unfettered silliness.’

3 stars ★★★

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre also wondered: ‘Quite what audiences new to the play will take away from this production by Owen Horsley, here making his Globe debut, is anyone’s guess. You have to admire both the vigour and rigour of an exceptionally committed cast…Horsley’s judicious cuts to the text keep proceedings from resembling a fusty history lesson, but this play’s singular dark, depraved centre never quite lands.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar pointed out it was a difficult play to mount but seemed happy with the director’s response to it: ‘this is satire – if not war-farce – in which the “heroes” of classical antiquity are roundly ridiculous.’ She concluded: ‘It is a heroic attempt at comedy all round.’

Helen O’Mahony for The Stage found the production ‘straddles light and dark, leaning into the play’s lack of clear emotional direction or resolution, to varying effect.’ While finding elements enjoyable, she wasn’t happy overall: ‘it’s a production that never wants you to get too invested in the story’s pretence, and this can be jarring.’

Julia Rank at WhatsOnStage damned with faint praise: ‘it’s probably about as accessible as this deliberately un-crowdpleasing play ever will be.’

2 stars ★★

Fiona Mountford, writing for the Telegraph, made clear she loves the play and didn’t take kindly to the interpretation: ‘the magnificence of the work is lost in an ill-advised attempt to jolly things along by introducing moments of comedy.’

Critics’ average rating 3.3★

You can see Troilus And Cressida at Shakespeare’s Globe, London until 26 October 2025. Buy tickets directly from the theatre 

If you’ve seen Troilus And Cressida at The Globe , please leave your rating and review below 

Star performances in a fragmented play

Old Vic Theatre

In Tracy Letts’ play, eleven scenes go back and forth through a woman’s life.  The theme of the play, as explained by Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage, is: ‘What is the significance of an ordinary life? Are there turning points where we could engineer change or does existence just unfold with an inevitability that we barely notice?’ Questions that were not really answered, said the critics. Even if the play itself left them unsatisfied, reviewers liked Matthew Warchus‘ in-the-round production, and loved the cast, including the screen luminaries Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough.

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Aliya Al-Hassan at LondonTheatre liked what she saw: ‘Matthew Warchus has reconfigured the space to make an intimate in-the-round experience for the audience. We may see Mary from every angle, but never know the complete person; it is a clever conceit. Warchus handles the fractured timeline well, creating fluidity and really allowing the quieter scenes to breathe. It is the excellent acting that vividly brings every Mary to life, as Letts asks (but never answers) the eternal question of what is fated to happen in a life and what we can control.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton found: ‘The effect is like watching fragments of a shattered vase, glued back together. The pieces don’t quite fit and the cracks start to show, but the truthfulness of the writing – and of the performances – is the way that they suggest that behaviour is not always tangential. Bad choices are made, and generational trauma is handed down. But also, things happen. Dreams die.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe was impressed: ‘Matthew Warchus’ production, performed by an impeccable cast led by Hollywood royalty Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough, could hardly be more finely calibrated.’ She fixed on what she thought might be ‘the nub of Letts’ play: the impossibility of truly knowing another human being, the many selves we all inhabit and present to the world. It’s an elusive piece of writing that changes shape as you stare at it, wriggles away if you try to pin it down. The impact is muted, but the overall effect is disquieting. The execution is faultless.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford noted: ‘Playwright Tracy Letts offers us tantalising “fragments of a life” and leaves it to us to piece them together and fill in the gaps.’ She commented on the set: ‘The Old Vic auditorium has been strikingly reconfigured into an in-the-round setting, which adds to the thrilling sense that we are being allowed to eavesdrop on something fiercely personal, the inner workings of another person’s world.’ She praised ‘Matthew Warchus’s sensitive direction (that) points up the question that Letts floats throughout: how much agency do we really have in our own lives? Is it more or less than we think?’

‘The play is not as profound as it thinks it is’ opined Nick Curtis in The Standard ‘…But it is a subtle and elegantly constructed piece of work.’ Like many of the other critics, it was the acting opportunities that interested him most: ‘The fireworks go to a shifty, slippery Rosy McEwen and a wracked and haunted Andrea Riseborough who play the title character from her later 20s to the age of 50, as a wife, mother, adulteress, divorcee and alcoholic.’ And ‘Sarandon reappears at the end as a 59-year-old Mary Page, careworn but upbeat and absolutely radiant. Pretty amazing.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar acknowledged: ‘It is beautifully directed by Matthew Warchus, who elicits magnificent performances from the ensemble. Sarandon performs with ease, assurance and total ownership of her character; Riseborough, in scraped back ponytail, is astonishing as a woman whose life has hurtled off-course. Rosy McEwen, as an unfaithful wife who feels like an actor in her own life, is a scintillating, dangerous force on stage.’ However, ‘The play raises (…) questions and then lets them fall away, unanswered.’

Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski was delighted to see Andrea Riseborough back on stage: ‘chewing the scenery, yes, but with nuance and feeling and a devastating arsenal of facial expressions: she elevates the blank stare into art, and her delicate face acting is probably the best justification for the in-the-round set up.’

The Times’ Dominic Maxwell said Susan Sarandon is ‘so casually excellent in her three shortish scenes that you want the Old Vic to impound her passport and keep her here for an entire season.’ He loved the individual scenes but: ‘You sit waiting in vain for them to add up to something greater than the sum of their parts…Letts wants to let us join the dots for ourselves, but the end result can feel more like a writing exercise than a fully satisfying play.’

For BroadwayWorld, Laura Jones concluded it was: ‘a thoughtful and often moving exploration of a life lived. The performances from each Mary and the excellent supporting cast give the piece its heartbeat, even when the episodic structure keeps the audience slightly at bay. It is a production worth seeing for its remarkable acting and for the way it asks us to piece together, from fragments, the mysteries of an ordinary, complicated life.’

Alice Saville of The Independent noted: ‘To be a woman is to play a part, we’re told. And if all these bodies somehow fail to fit together into a single living, breathing portrait of an actual person, each still brings some brilliance of its own to this fractured story.’

Referring to The Years, Clare Allfree for the Telegraph observed: ‘it’s hard to shake the nagging feeling that we have seen this theatrical conceptualising of a woman struggling to fit inside the various pieces of her life before.’ Nevertheless, she was captured by Susan Sarandon: ‘her deceptively artless performance at once sexy, tricky, playful, effortlessly lived in.’ Even so, ‘she is, whisper it, outclassed here by Andrea Riseborough (who..) delivers a masterclass in pathetic, bravado-charged despair.’

Critics’ average rating 3.4⭑

Value rating 26 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Mary Page Marlowe can be seen at The Old Vic theatre until 1 November 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen Mary Page Marlowe at The Old Vic Theatre, please leave your rating and review below

Not to be

Lyttelton, National Theatre

After Bacchae provided a faltering start to Indhu Rubasingham’s launch season, she might have hoped her deputy Artistic Director Robert Hastie would get it back on track by directing a memorable modern dress Hamlet. Sadly, it was not to be. The Olivier Award-winning Hiran Abeysekera was thought by most reviewers to be fast and funny at the expense of the play’s depth. One bright point was the praise heaped on Francesca Mills’ Ophelia.

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

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

For Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld, ‘This is exactly the kind of Hamlet you would hope to see at The National Theatre. Challenging, entertaining, and compelling, it takes one of the most well-known plays in the English language and shows us something new.’ The main reason she was an outlier in her five star review is that she had a different opinion to other critics on Hiran Abeysekera’s hyperactive approach to the part: ‘We recognise now that grief can manifest itself in many different ways, so our titular prince doesn’t have to mope around and be visibly melancholic throughout the play; he can outwardly appear to be coping, whilst his interior monologue says all sorts of things. As an audience we are given an insight into this via his soliloquies, which almost spill out of him at times – Hiran Abeysekera’s Hamlet’s mind is working at 100mph as it tries to process everything that’s going on around him. There’s a ring of truth to this, as your mouth can often struggle to keep up with your brain in times of stress.’ She falls in line with the others in her opinion of Francesca Mills’ Ophelia: ‘her breakdown is all-consuming and visceral, the raw emotion from Mills enough to shatter even the iciest of hearts.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

‘It’s very funny but does it mean anything?’ wrote Andrjez Lukowksi at TimeOut, ‘I’m not sure it does. Abeysekera’s character basically seems to be ‘crazy guy’, which is entertaining scene to scene but it’s hard to remain sympathetic or invested in his fate as he ruins an ever increasing number of lives without a twinge of self-doubt.’

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis had this insight: ‘Hiran Abeysekera brings a manic, impulsive, boyish energy to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Robert Hastie’s uneven production. It’s the first I’ve seen that implies the 30-year-old prince has ADHD or some similar disorder. This arguably makes sense of the character’s mood swings, his introspection and inertia, and his complete inability to read a room or recognise others’ emotional needs.’ As for the production as a whole:’Hastie’s interpretation is full of novel ideas and subtly revelatory touches but feels ponderous and staid overall.’

Anya Ryan for LondonTheatre picked out many qualities, such as: ‘Abeysekera is marvellous as the Danish prince – impish, breathless and full of new ideas. Visually, too, everything is done well.’ But she was confused: ‘It’s an active, pacy production that doesn’t pause for breath. And all of it makes for a perfectly pleasant night out at the theatre. But with so many ideas thrown at it with no explanation, it remains unclear what Hastie is actually trying to say.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton disagreed: ‘Hastie has provided a handsome, clear-sighted production.’ However, ‘It’s original to see a Hamlet who isn’t a melancholic poet, but the disadvantage of the approach is that it strips the play of its thoughtful centre.’ She thought: ‘Francesca Mills’s Ophelia…brings this intelligent, thoughtful production to its most vivid life.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar agreed about Ophelia: ‘Mills …steals the show with her astonishing portrayal of Ophelia’. She summed up the production as ‘a well-put together, beautifully choreographed production but one with a frustrating emotional vacuum at its centre.’

Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph was disappointed with Hiran Abeysekera: ‘In broad terms, he contends capably with the heaving cargo of lines yet goes overboard with his frenzied attacks on the soliloquies, rushing trains of thought so you’re left short-changed of lyrical beauty and psychological insight. For all his charisma, the evening winds up fast-paced but fatally unmoving.’ ‘The noble idea implicit in the production that “anyone” can play Hamlet translates into something too conversationally workaday.’ Like others, he reserved his highest praise for a relatively minor part : ‘The true star of the night is Francesca Mills, who is an irresistible and irrepressible Ophelia, every line, and look, hits home. The actor, who has a form of dwarfism, commands the stage’.

The i’s Fiona Mountford started with praise: ‘Where Hastie scores most highly is in the sense of hurtling momentum that his slick and sinuous production creates’. She had mixed feelings about the star: ‘Abeysekera gives his tortured modern prince a manic energy and a smile of deep existential emptiness…but the performance is let down by the fact that he takes the soliloquies at an almighty lick, racing through “To be or not to be” with little sense of truth or profundity. This lack of gravitas creeps insidiously outwards to colour everything else’.

The Independent‘s Alice Saville took a different slant: ‘it does feel fitting that this Hamlet’s catharsis should come through laughter, not through mass murder. It creates a posh, slick, morally bankrupt vision of a court that takes nothing seriously, until they’re forced to. And in a theatre climate where showy, weighty revivals of Shakespeare with big stars and massive concepts are the norm, it’s a reminder that a lighter touch can be powerful, too.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage stuck the sword in. Here are some of the elements of the production he skewered: ‘After a taut, promisingly eerie opening sequence, the production loses momentum, lurching to a boisterous modern wedding scene full of recognisably awkward family interactions, then on to a half-hearted stab at the palace intrigue’; ‘Hiran Abeysekera is a manic, wild-eyed Hamlet, more stand-up comedian than prince. He races through his lines in a breathless blur, rarely pausing to consider the intention behind his words, but straining to turn everything into a joke as a defence mechanism, quipping and mugging to the audience’; ‘its lack of focus means it never grips as it should’.

The Times‘ Clive Davis was another strong critic: ‘Hiran Abeysekera spends so much time smirking and joshing with the audience that it’s hard to care what happens to him in that final duel.’ He still had fresh in his mind Giles Terera’s triumphant Hamlet in Chichester: ‘Abeysekera — who, to be fair, does look every bit the wayward student — possesses a thinner voice and rattles along at such a frantic tempo that the effect is like listening to a podcast where someone has been toying with the speed settings.’ He summed up: ‘we’re left with a fitful evening that lurches from one lush tableau to another.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.0⭑

Value rating 43

Hamlet can be seen at the National Theatre until 22 November 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen Hamlet at the National Theatre, please add your rating and review below

Olly Alexander & Stephen Fry excel in panto-style Wilde

Noel Coward Theatre

After a sell-out run at the National Theatre, Max Webster’s ‘queer’ interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s light-hearted romantic comedy has moved across the river to the West End. All the new cast went down well with the critics- Olly Alexander has replaced Ncuti Gatwa, Stephen Fry has become Lady Bracknell. The reviews of the production were similar to the ones that greeted its last outing: some loved the OTT outing of the queer subtext, others felt it didn’t do justice to Wilde ‘s subtle wit. The average rating is almost identical.

Below are extracts from reviews of the West End version. Click here to read reviews of The National premiere.

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

‘it’s the thinking person’s panto this season, and a revival to remember’ declared The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish. Describing its Lady Bracknell, he said: ‘Clad in garish bustle-dresses, Fry, 68, lends his intellectual fluency and towering presence to Wilde’s verbally pyrotechnic and subtly anarchic script. He doesn’t attempt much female impersonation, and instead gives us the crisp, snooty essence of Lady B: demanding, commanding, formidable. This is a stately, mannish creature with pursed lips and a withering stare.’ (Not sure why the reviewer tells us Mr Fry’s age.)

Julia Rank for LondonTheatre declared: ‘pop star Olly Alexander proves himself to be the genuine article as a stage star. Diminutive and fey, his Algernon is like a spoiled-sweet child who knows just how precociously clever and charming he is’. As for Stephen Fry: ‘In full regalia, he resembles the great Hermione Gingold in A Little Night Music, but he doesn’t ham it up and remains grounded, beginning in a fairly mellow mood and building up to the crescendo of “A handbag?”.’ She was also pleased with the look of the show: ‘Rae Smith’s enchanting production design is filled with the bright, often gaudy colours that the Victorians adored.’

The Mail‘s Patrick Marmion spent much of his review of this ‘joyfully exuberant production’ praising Stephen Fry: ‘(he) becomes a 6ft 5in taffeta tank as Wilde’s memorably scathing widow.’ (In point of fact, she wasn’t a widow, she specifically mentions her husband more than once.) Mr Marmion wasn’t quite so impressed by the other big name replacement: ‘Popstar Olly Alexander, from Years & Years, now plays Algie with boyish zip, but some of his gags fail to land and he misses Gatwa’s megawatt charisma.’

Alex Wood for WhatsOnStage thought the transferred production was even better than the original: ‘the take on Wilde’s play about confused identities, deceptions, romances and, of course, handbags, feels tighter, slicker and funnier. A heady shot of a sweet liqueur to help us escape these trying times. Part of the success has to come down to Webster’s direction – deftly mining Wilde’s text for the comic opportunities and rattling along at a necessarily chipper pace, laced with lashings of queer fun.’

Time Out‘s Andrjez Lukowski explained: ‘Webster undoubtedly breaks Wilde’s play, by hauling the subtext up to the surface, and basically yelling THEY’RE GAY at us over and over. But whether you want to look for deeper meaning in the production’s every quirk or simply treat it as a funny, fresh, irreverent way of tackling a comedy that has become mired in sexually repressed cliche, well, that’s entirely up to you.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

David Jays at The Guardian said: ‘Max Webster’s shameless production merrily queers the comedy, shoving subtext from the shadows.’ He described the young people in the cast: ‘The dizzy chaps are cute – Nathan Stewart-Jarrett’s Jack in fine fluster, Olly Alexander’s Algy giving good smirk – but it’s their sweethearts who gleam. Kitty Hawthorne’s fanny-fanning Gwendolen and Jessica Whitehurst’s scowling Cecily both tap the production’s libidinous undertow.’

Dave Fargnoli for The Stage was not enthusiastic about Webster’s approach: ‘There is a certain cheeky charm to all the clumsy cavorting, but it’s too tame and obvious to feel properly subversive, and the intentionally overblown delivery tends to interrupt the exquisitely poised flow of Wilde’s witty repartee.’ He even quotes a line from the play to back his case: ‘“In matters of grave importance…style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.” That certainly seems to be the guiding principle in this big, bright production, which puts shallow laughs firmly over substance.’

The Times‘ Clive Davis wondered if the production had gone too far in its interpretation: ‘Webster is pushing a classic comedy of manners to breaking point. A delicate puff pastry of a play is smothered in dollops of pink icing.’

2 stars ★★

The Sunday Times’ Dominic Maxwell had a miserable time: ‘Never have I seen a show that so conspicuously and so repeatedly busts a gut trying to amuse. And forcible fun is quite my least favourite kind…the campery comes as if by the yard’. He continued: ‘Everyone’s frantic but few actors connect. So it’s slow too. Take Fry: his line readings are exemplary. He celebrates the nuances and rhythms of Wilde’s wit. He has more variety in the role than Sharon D Clarke did at the National, yet without her galvanising sense of disdainful pressure. He just sort of stands or sits there and says the lines. Very well, but he has so little sense of physical presence that he might be a hologram.’

Critics’ average rating 3.6⭑

Value rating 38

The Importance of Being Earnest can be seen at the Noel Coward Theatre until 10 January 2026. Buy tickets direct from earnestonstage.com

If you’ve seen The Importance of Being Earnest at the Noel Coward Theatre, please add your rating and review below

Actors praised in over ambitious play

Trafalgar Theatre

Two young Americans in a rut meet at an out-of-town Costco store. They form a relationship while lamenting the lack of opportunity and adventure in modern life. The critics were impressed by Heartstopper’s Joe Locke as Jake who has a degenerative disease, but reserved their highest praise for Ruaridh Mollica’s brooding Chris. The reviewers had reservations about US playwright Samuel D Hunter’s 2015 drama. They liked the poetry but found it fell short of its ambitious subject matter.

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

4 stars ★★★★

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish was taken by the play: ‘This isn’t a conventional gay romance, more a soulful meditation on the need for connection with someone worth trusting and a return to a spirit of possibility’. And the acting. Locke, he said, ‘is funny and touching as Jake…battling prejudice and Huntington’s disease. Locke draws us in with his fawn-like stare and scrawny vulnerability…Ruaridh Mollica is excellent too as Jake’s tougher co-worker, Chris’.

The Mail’s Patrick Marmion liked the acting, the play and the production: ‘it’s a slow burn, pivoting on emotional nuance and the pains of intimacy.’

3 stars ★★★

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe summed up: ‘It’s all very meticulously done, and the affection that gradually emerges between Chris and Jake is touching, but it just doesn’t seem quite enough. A languid, low-key chamber piece, in the end it leaves you unsatisfied.’

Dominic Maxwell of The Times felt the play didn’t quite come off: ‘There’s some gorgeous writing, but not enough plotting to stop the conceits from feeling like conceits. It starts to feel theatrical rather than engagingly lifelike.’ But he liked the acting: ‘Locke brings an unsentimental, compellingly awkward spirit of yearning…Ruaridh Mollica is equally excellent as the outwardly sturdier Chris, a working-class wannabe writer’. He concluded: ‘Clarkston is lovely, it really is. But it’s slight.’

Kate Wyver in The Guardian decided: ‘Despite the show’s overly expository dialogue, Clarkston gradually gives way to an intimate story about trying to make the best of the hand you’ve been dealt.’ ‘Mollica effortlessly breathes life into this hard-shelled character who doesn’t know how to talk to a man romantically’ ‘The script is often heavy-handed, with a backstory handed to us on a plate and little left unsaid.’ ‘Strangely, some of the audience sit on stage with the actors, their presence adding little but trip hazards.’

For Theo Bosanquet at LondonTheatre: ‘The cast deliver lively and empathetic performances, though it has the feel of a chamber piece that has been stretched beyond its natural size in the Trafalgar’.

Tom Wicker for Time Out noted: ‘Hunter’s writing is perceptive about the doubts that lurk beneath people’s hopes, but its aim at a grander poetry about life can fall short.’

Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld expressed a similar sentiment: ‘The play is mostly of a serious bent, with some gentle humour thrown in along the way…It tiptoes around the edge of the profound, but never quite gets there.’ In common with quite a few reviewers, she commented on the cost of tickets: ‘A large chunk are priced at £100 (including fees) or more, which always feels scandalous for an interval-less play like this – regardless of the show’s quality.’

Alun Hood at WhatsOnStage declared: ‘The writing is subtle but blistering: a morose yet eloquent meditation on lives not well lived, with precious little hope, but an abundance of challenges. It’s blunt and bleak, and almost nothing happens, but the acting and the oblique humour ensure that it is engaging for the most part.’

2 stars ★★

Martin Robinson for The Standard lamented: ‘Maybe a better production would jerk the tears, but static direction by Jack Serio turns most scenes into a bit of a slog…and the most poignant moments become mawkish’. Most of the play, he said, ‘is pure American cheese, as natural as those bright orange balls stacked in their thousands on the Costco shelves.’

Critics’ average rating 3.1★

Value rating 31

You can see Clarkston at the Trafalgar theatre until 22 November 2025. Click here to buy  tickets direct

If you’ve seen Clarkston at the Trafalgar theatre, please leave your rating and review below

Evergreen or dated- the verdict on Joe Orton’s classic

The Young Vic

For her first production as artistic director of the Young Vic, Nadia Fall has chosen a neglected modern classic. Joe Orton’s 60-year-old Entertaining Mr Sloane is a black comedy that the critics indicate has lost little of its shock value, although some found it dated.  The mysterious, sinister young man, who arrives at a house and proceeds to ingratiate himself with the occupants is played by Jordan Stephens (from the hiphop duo Rizzle Kicks) in his first major stage role. A mature woman played by Tamsin Outhwaite and her brother  (Daniel Cerqueira) are both attracted to him, but he is viewed with suspicion by their father (Jordan Stephens).

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

David Jay for The Guardian said: ‘Jordan Stephens … gives the mysterious stranger a bold, open smile, and Tamzin Outhwaite’s Kath blinks like a moth to flame.’ He declared: ‘Six decades on, Orton’s play shows its age: drum-tight, then increasingly chasing its tail. But Fall’s opening show as artistic director of the Young Vic grins with the worst of human behaviour – and that never grows old.’

The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish was struck by the way ‘Nadia Fall’s faithful production at the Young Vic, with Tamzin Outhwaite as the kinky landlady Kath, and Jordan Stephens … as her adoptive orphan “boy”, taps into something timeless: as the action proceeds, we observe the way people driven by extreme emotional, sexual and financial need will stoop to anything.’ ‘Recommended’, he concluded.

Clive Davis of The Times complimented members of the cast, particularly Tamsin Outhwaite: ‘It’s a stunning performance. Orton’s ornate language can be every bit as sinister as Pinter’s, yet the shafts of manic humour constantly catch you off-balance. Tottering around the stage, Outhwaite is a human gargoyle who cradles a cloth like a baby and offers the newcomer a “motherly kiss” before turning into an unlikely seductress’.

Matt Wolf at LondonTheatre felt the production did the play justice: ‘Six decades on, the four-hander hasn’t lost its power to sting, at least as staged in the round on a fascinating set by Peter McKintosh that relegates the memorabilia of the characters’ lives (a crib, chairs etc.) to an aerial collage suspended above the action.’ He commented: ‘The cast across the board mines the dark humour of the piece, while hinting at a “depraved” (the script’s word) landscape beyond’.

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Theo Bosanquet for WhatsOnStage had this to say about the cast: ‘The cast combines well, including Stephens, who gives an accomplished stage acting debut. Although he could dial up the menacing aspects of the character – he never quite convinces as a man capable of killing – he has an enjoyably understated comic delivery and successfully hints at the boyish vulnerability underneath Sloane’s leather-clad exterior. Outhwaite meanwhile embodies the louche lustiness of Kath, whose air of cornered desperation is reminiscent of Mike Leigh’s Bev, and nicely contrasts with the besuited, chain-smoking Cerqueira and Steptoe-ish Fairbank. All told, it’s an enjoyable, if concurrently rather cautious, kick off for the Fall regime.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Stage‘s Sam Marlowe was disappointed: ‘Unfortunately, Fall’s staging is – pun fully intended – all to cock. Her production is stylistically muddled and unevenly acted, with the result that neither its shocks nor its savage comedy really register.’ The cast didn’t live up to her expectations: ‘Jordan Stephens … appears hopelessly out of his depth. An amoral chancer who deploys his sex appeal like a lethal weapon, Sloane needs a potent menace to go with his dubious charms. Instead…Stephens just looks slightly gormless.’

Katie Kirkpatrick at BroadwayWorld didn’t see the point: ‘Fall’s revival leaves it bizarrely lodged in the past: there’s nothing about this production that makes it clear why this play is worth watching in 2025, with potential themes of bisexuality and xenophobia left at the wayside. It feels as though this production could have been made any time in the past sixty years, in terms of both the play’s themes and the way it is staged.’ She conceded: ‘For all its flaws, Entertaining Mr Sloane is, well, entertaining. The tried-and-tested jokes get plenty of chuckles, it’s visually impressive, and the story’s pacing means it keeps the audience on board throughout. For those with a love of classic plays or farce, there’s plenty to enjoy.’

Andrjez Lukowski’s Time Out review appeared without stars but would likely be a 2 star review: ‘Fall’s take feels both wilfully dated – very much a ’60s period piece – and pointedly unfunny, trading the menacing comedy associated with Orton (‘dark farce’ is the usual term) for drab naturalism.’

Critics’ average rating 3.1⭑

Entertaining Mr Sloane can be seen at the Young Vic Theatre until 8 November 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

If you’ve seen Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Young Vic, please leave your rating and review below

A faltering start for the National’s new director

Olivier Theatre, National Theatre

Indhu Rubasingham has started her first programme of events as the National Theatre’s new Artistic Director with a headline grabbing choice- the first time a debut play has been staged in the giant Olivier auditorium. Nima Taleghani has written a new version of Euripides’ Bacchae that takes a feminist view of the tragedy and uses rap and rude comedy to make his points about family loyalty, political power and human desire.
There was something of a gender division in the reviews. The three 4 star reviews were all by women, who found it entertaining. Coincidentally, the rest were by men (apart from The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar) and ranged from 3 to 2 to a paltry 1 from The Times’ Clive Davis who called it ‘a travesty’.

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

4 stars ★★★★

The Independent‘s Alice Saville declared: ‘It’s a headspinningly smart, visually spectacular, and hugely entertaining opening move from new National Theatre artistic director Indhu Rubasingham.’ She continued: ‘for all his play’s delicious bloodthirstiness and queer excess, Taleghani also explores the pressures within protest movements with surprising subtlety.’

Sarah Crompton of WhatsOnStage reported: ‘As a statement of intent, the production couldn’t be more bold. From the dazzling opening when a huge, ghostly horse drops through a lighted ring from the flies, to the direct challenge of a closing scene which asserts the power of theatre as a forum for debate in a messy world, it has confidence stamped all through it.’ She noted: ‘Events unfold with remarkable pace on Robert Jones’ impressive set, which piles four square platforms on top of one another, spinning, rising and lowering them to create different dynamics within the space’. Her greatest praise is reserved for the director: ‘Within this vibrant setting, Rubasingham marshals the action with absolute assurance. She’s brilliant at driving things forward, but also at creating tableaux that constantly focus the eye on the important thing.’

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre was impressed by the playwright’s ‘colloquial yet lyrically dexterous, rhyme-packed spoken-word poetry building to audacious rap, and, with anarchic wit and judicious changes, bringing a classic bang up to date.’ The director, too: ‘Rubasingham’s assured production balances emotional moments and heavier subjects with zippy irreverence.’ She ended: ‘I for one can’t wait to see what else Rubasingham has in store.’

3 stars ★★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar laid into the writing: ‘the script often sounds off-key: unfocused, tonally untextured, its knockabout comedy smothering the emotional core of the play.’ She continued: ‘The raps burst with verve and a speed of ideas but lack the sharpness, poetry and emotional power to make the satire soar. The humour is hit-and-miss, characters broad and clownish.’ There was good news: ‘Rubasingham’s direction is nevertheless as polished as ever and the show has pace, with thrilling lighting by Oliver Fenwick…Kate Prince’s movement is a highlight and it is in the interludes of dance…that the show feels at its most elemental.’

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis wasn’t so sure: ‘If it were a triumph, life would be easier; the National in safe hands, theatre saved. If it were a dud everyone could cluck and crow. Instead it’s both, and also everything in between. Refugees, feminism, gender, sexuality, dictators, set to rap and dance…this is a production of wild mood swings, mediated through a production whose beauty often outstrips its substance.’

The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish said: ‘It’s a relief to report that Rubasingham – the first person of colour and the first woman to run the NT – passes her high-pressure test in surprisingly flamboyant style (aided by a shifting set of giant slabs by designer Robert Jones), and, though it takes time to emerge, with a saving dollop of substance… it serves as a statement of intent about the kind of populist, accessible work that Rubasingham, 55, intends to programme.’

Describing the evening as ‘entertainingly messy’, Time Out‘s Andrjez Lukowksi said: ‘It’s fun to spend time with [the characters], as they swear and argue and rage, but there’s the nagging sense that it’s not clear where their story is going. Frankly it also seems a bit unexpected that a male writer would be out to reclaim Bacchae as a feminist work.’ He advised: ‘There’s … the question as to whether it even works as a tragedy after all Taleghani’s fiddling, jokes, microsubversions and humanising of both Pentheus and Dionysus. I would say… no, it doesn’t, and you’ll get more mileage out of it if you don’t treat it as a tragedy.’

2 stars ★★

Alexander Cohen at BroadwayWorld was unimpressed: ‘Bacchae arrives trumpeting fist clenched rebellion, only to implode into hashtag politics. In remoulding crudly Euripides’ tragedy into tawdry cabaret, the National Theatre has committed the deadliest artistic sin of all: cringe.’ He explained: ‘Tragedy requires sharp focus. Satire requires wit. Taleghani and Rubasingham proffer neither. What remains is noisy brashness straining itself in its attempts to be something it isn’t.’

1 star ★

Having called it ‘a travesty’, The Times’ Clive Davis lamented: ‘Nima Taleghani’s update of The Bacchae, studded with ultra-crude, in-yer-face banter, is so leaden that it makes the average panto look like a treatise on existentialism.’ Hardy any aspect of the production seemed to please him: ‘you’re left with a comedic storyline that’s dull and often confusing. Rubasingham’s staging is oddly pedestrian, too, while the designer Robert Jones’s functional asymmetrical platforms fail to summon up much sense of the divine.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.0★

Value rating 43 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Bacchae can be seen at the National Theatre until 1 November 2025. Buy tickets direct from nationaltheatre.org

Click here to read Paul Seven Lewis’ review of Bacchae

If you’ve seen Bacchae at the National Theatre, please leave your rating and review below

Modern classic returns in triumph and Brendan Gleeson makes an impressive West End debut

Harold Pinter Theatre

In the thirty years since its Royal Court debut, Conor McPherson’s first play The Weir has become a modern classic. Deceptively simple, it describes an evening in an Irish bar where a handful of male regulars tell spooky tales to impress a female newcomer, in the course of which much is revealed about their dreams and disappointments. The latest revival is directed by the author himself with, said the critics, much sensitivity. The great actor Brendan Gleeson makes his West End debut and received huge praise for his performance. The original production’s designer Rae Smith has returned to provide another impressive (said the reviewers) naturalistic set.

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

5 stars ★★★★★

Chris Wiegand in The Guardian was pleased to see The Weir return. He called it ‘a revival of such exactness it appears effortless’… ‘it’s an endlessly rewarding evening that proves McPherson’s play is built to last.’

Holly O’Mahony of LondonTheatre opined: ‘this production, almost 30 years on, is quite perfect’.

Brendan Gleeson was the centre of attention of the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish: ‘He’s the craggy-faced poster-boy for Conor McPherson’s spellbinding, atmospheric revival (of) the Dublin playwright’s early masterpiece of laughter, grief and supernatural anecdotage in a rural Sligo bar.’ He called the play: ‘a drama of breathtaking craft, tilting line by line between levity and profundity, the far-fetched and the truth, superstition and faith’.

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton declared: ‘What a great play Conor McPherson’s The Weir is. It seems so simple, five people gathered in a pub on a winter’s night, telling each other stories. Yet within that frame, McPherson weaves words with such care and precision that it never loses its tautness.’ She called it ‘a staggeringly good production of a play that is already a classic’.

The Mail’s Patrick Marmion noted: ‘it’s impressive how The Weir has stood the test of time. It catches an Ireland on the cusp of change, haunted by a mythic and painful past. But the warmth of the laughter that rolls off the audience is remarkable. And what better actor to pop the cork on such intoxicating liquor than the inscrutable, bearlike Gleeson?’

4 stars ★★★★

The Times’ Clive Davis was sceptical about just how good the play is ‘But an accomplished group of actors can find depths in glances and silences. Whether or not The Weir…really is an all-time classic, as many insist it is, this production, directed by McPherson, is worth catching to see Brendan Gleeson give a display that is as unyielding and enigmatic as a neolithic rock carving.’

David Nice for The Arts Desk thought: ‘This new staging of a long-running hit, directed…by the playwright, sustains the atmosphere of curious meetings in a rural Irish pub saloon (perfectly designed by Rae Smith) all the way through to the quiet coda’.

The Independent’s Alice Saville commented: ‘its carefully interwoven strands of the mundane and the supernatural give this play an enduring strength’.

BroadwayWorld’s Alexander Cohen explained: ‘What makes it magnetic is not the ghost stories themselves, but the way they open windows into the souls of those telling them. Beneath the spookiness lies something far more human: grief, regret and endless longing.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis found: ‘The Weir retains its power to beguile and unnerve. It also proves a splendid vehicle for the mighty presence of Brendan Gleeson‘.

3 stars ★★★

Chris Omaweng at LondonTheatre1 was left cold: ‘Some interesting and mildly amusing stories helped to maintain interest, but I was never deeply invested in proceedings.’ He explained: ‘Something atmospheric appears to be lost by presenting this play in a West End proscenium arch playhouse, a distancing effect, if you will, that would not have been there in a studio space.’

Critics’ average rating 4.4★

Value rating 49 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

The Weir can be seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 6 Dec 2025. Buy tickets direct from theweirplay.com

If you’ve seen The Weir at Harold Pinter Theatre, please leave your rating and review below

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⭑