Fabulously sophisticated or theatrical gimmickry?

Noel Coward Theatre

The much anticipated collaboration of superstar actor Cynthia Erivo and avant garde theatre director Kip Williams received mixed reviews. Some critics thought it was a ‘magic’ (Telegraph), ‘manifestation of desire within us all’ (Standard), while others found ‘there is neither chill nor heat here’ (Guardian) and ‘not enough substance’ (BroadwayWorld). For some, the acting on stage and screen was ‘ingeniously interlaced’ (Times) and ‘fabulously sophisticated’ (Financial Times), but others described this as ‘theatrical gimmickry’ (WhatsOnStage) and ‘Overly elaborate’ (Independent). The star, who played all 23 parts on stage and on screen, was ‘burningly intense’ (Time Out) and a ‘one–woman tour de force’ (Mail).

[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 summed up the quality Cynthia Evrio brought to the production : ‘Shaven-headed, preternaturally physically ripped and androgynous, her expressive hands lengthened into talons by nail extensions, the Wicked star juggles costumes and accents, interacting with onscreen versions of herself in a hectic 120-minute canter through the Gothic tale. Her performance triumphantly walks a knife edge between virtuosity and absurdity.’ He explained that ‘Williams accentuates the Victorian novel’s barely-repressed queer subtext and general air of heavy-breathing lasciviousness’ and that he ‘foregrounds the idea that Dracula is not an external monster but a manifestation of desire within us all.’

The Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming called it a ‘fabulously sophisticated cine-theatre adaptation’. She was bowled over by the star: ‘It’s an outstanding performance: Erivo, a tiny, mercurial figure, ricochets between 23 characters…a switch of wig, a shift in stance, a lacy skirt or a pair of spectacles, and suddenly she’s someone else’. She was also impressed by the production: ‘It’s clever, technically. But it’s also an ingenious contemporary response to the themes of death, desire, transgression and identity running through the novel, and to prejudiced attitudes to outsiders.’ Unfortunately: ‘As the plot rumbles on, the text itself becomes a drag and the show begins to feel overlong.’

The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish was almost over-the-top in his enthusiasm: ‘It’s feats of stamina like this that keep British theatre un-dead.’ He gave more detail: ‘Over almost two hours, Erivo – sporting elongated nails and with a formidable muscular athleticism – shape-shifts and gender-flips, with costumes and wigs changed swiftly by stagehands. But also she can talk to, and is superimposed beside, a raft of other pre-recorded characters on screen – as the nominal villain steals with rapacity from Transylvania to Yorkshire. Magic.’

Clive Davis of The Times felt a rush of blood: ‘Now that’s what I call event theatre. Watching Cynthia Erivo in this solo rendition of Bram Stoker’s novel is akin to seeing an ice skater going for gold in the Winter Olympics. Can she pull off one triple Lutz after another without taking a tumble? (…) Erivo fumbled a few lines but otherwise gave a commanding display in a Kip Williams production that is part theatre, part cinema.’ He reacted more positively to the cinema content than many of the reviewers below: ‘recorded videos … are ingeniously interlaced with the live action.’

Brooke Ivey Johnson for The Metro stated: ‘The constant doubling — a live body here, a filmed apparition there — reinforces that sense of fragmentation, as though we are witnessing a mind at war with itself. And with Erivo – openly queer and fluid in her masculinity and femininity – inhabiting every role, the novel’s homoerotic undertones surface with a clarity that feels both modern and radical.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

‘is her West End return a show to die for? Not quite’ intoned Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre. Part of her reaction  related to the cine elements: ‘The camerawork is as slick as we have come to expect from Williams’ but ‘Close-up shots of fangs and Erivo’s trademark talons scraping a cut neck aren’t enough to get the blood pumping, however well they’ve been framed. The balance seems to be off between the live work on stage, and the screens that dwarf Erivo.’ She also worried that ‘in a production that demands so much of its performer, you can’t shake the feeling it’s about to run away from her.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski felt that ‘Erivo is tiny and the screen is massive, and the pre-recorded stuff is so dominant – as many as four gigantic versions of her on screen versions of her – that it overshadows the technically impressive work happening on stage.’ As the evening progressed: ‘Not only does it become quite a lot like watching a weird pre-recorded film of Dracula, but there’s just too much plot compressed into too little space.’ But he did like the star: ‘Erivo is a burningly intense performer who nonetheless has some fun casting sarcastic looks or exaggerated doe eyes at the camera. Some of her characters verge on stereotypes, but her stylish, implicitly African Count is fascinating. And it’s worth saying that while Erivo has a diminutive stature, her otherworldly looks look great blown up on a giant screen – she’s a movie star!’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton’s blood boiled rather curdled: ‘How wonderful it would have been to see her play Dracula. Or his nemesis, Van Helsing. Or even his prey, Mina. How brilliant it might have been to watch her return to the stage after her world-conquering performance as Elphaba in Wicked in a real play. Instead, she is forced to attempt to lend some bite to Kip Williams’ meandering – and excessively long – adaptation of Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel, which sacrifices her undoubted talent on the altar of superficially exciting theatrical gimmickry.’

Aliya Al-Hassan of BroadwayWorld said it had ‘a lot of style, but not enough substance’. She expanded: ”The production is a technical feat, but is so caught up in its own cleverness that it forgets one of the most intrinsic appeals of theatre; to connect an actor to an audience through their live presence on stage. Not on a screen.’ She did admire the star: ‘Erivo shows remarkable focus and commitment to the material, switching between characters with ease. Even with some curious creative choices, such as Van Helsing’s Gandalf-like wig and Dracula speaking with a Nigerian accent, she seems to carry it off.’

For The Mail‘s Patrick Marmion, Cynthia Erivo was ‘quite simply wicked all the way through this one–woman tour de force. Wicked meaning good. Wicked meaning exciting. And wicked meaning eerily creepy.’ He said: ‘this is a mind–bogglingly complex show, which goes beyond the kitchen sink in its attempts to create an audio–visual hallucination. Yet what’s missing is old–fashioned suspense. We all know, roughly speaking, what’s coming.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar found it toothless: ‘the story is narrated by Erivo, with only snippets in dialogue, which gives the sense of an audiobook accompanied by screen illustrations. It comprises mostly diary entries from journals and preserves the epistolary form of the book. Why, when it serves no dramatic purpose other than to remind us of the story’s original form?’ Of Erivo, she commented: ‘despite the speed, the atmosphere stays sedate, with none of the fever required, and no peril whatsoever. And characters seem so simplistic that they verge on the comical. Most ludicrous of all is vampire-slayer, Van Helsing, who looks like a gothic version of Gandalf with long white locks and weird goatee. Erivo’s feat of narration also seems to distract her from the actual acting, too neutral in her physical and facial expressions.’ Like Dracula’s victims, she was left cold: ‘The production seeks to focus on the battle between fear and desire in the story but there is neither chill nor heat here.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford found it increasingly ‘bewildering’. She reported: ‘Williams’ adaptation is not an easy one; there are multiple changes of narrator and place to navigate and Erivo speaks at an unwaveringly fast pace for the 110-minute duration of the interval-free production. Goodness knows what this does to her, but for us spectators it is exhausting. I craved a change of tempo, quieter sections to counterbalance the flurry.’ She suggested: ‘If someone were to write a song about (Erivo’s) experience here, “Defying Technology” might be an apposite title.’

The Independent‘s Alice Saville put a stake through its heart, calling it ‘an overly elaborate production that’s not satisfying either as a play or as a film’.

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe asked a rhetorical question: ‘What could possibly go wrong? Sadly, the answer is: almost everything. There are flickers of what makes all the elements here great: flashes of wit and insight, of an enthralling interaction between the art forms and aesthetics of theatre and cinema. But there’s little here of the layered interplay between real and illusory, between established classic and impishly irreverent, technophile modernity, or of that most 21st-century of preoccupations – the fracturing, remodelling and performing of identity – which were the hallmarks of those other Williams productions. Even Marg Horwell’s designs – previously so overwhelmingly, ravishingly rich – are more muted here. And Erivo seems ill at ease with the material.’ She summed up: ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say it sucks, but it certainly doesn’t bite’.

Critics’ Average Rating 3.2⭑

Value Rating 14 (Value Rating is the Average Critics’ Rating divided by the most common ticket price, in this case £225)

You can see Dracula at the Noel Coward theatre until 30 May 2026. Buy tickets directly from draculawestend.com

If you’ve seen Dracula with Cynthia Erivo, please leave your review and/or rating below

 

Hacker & Sir Humphrey have lost the plot

Apollo Theatre

Bringing back the much loved Prime Minister Jim Hacker and his nemesis Sir Humphrey as doddery 80 year olds was always a gamble, and for most of the critics it didn’t quite pay off. Some were kinder than others but only the Telegraph loved it and awarded 4 stars. Otherwise, the blanket of 3 star reviews plus 2 stars from WhatsOnStage and The Independent, praised Clive Francis as Sir Humphrey (‘sharp timing’ Standard) and to a lesser extent Griff Rhys Jones as Hacker. Nostalgia seemed to soften some of the critics’ attacks but there was almost universal criticism of the lack of plot and the cliché jokes about wokery from writer Jonathan Lynn. Having said that, the market for the show is likely to be an older demographic that few of the reviewers fall into.

[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 a fan: ‘While not in the same league as the original, it is an enjoyable, nostalgic coda – oddly topical and surprisingly poignant, too.’ It is, he said: “a light-hearted, clunky yet meaty play of ideas about how the country once “worked” and to whose benefit.’ He described the two stars: ‘there is something winning about Rhys Jones’s portrayal, which sees him hobbling madly about, boggling for Britain in exasperation, and constantly chortling in a cajoling attempt to laugh off serious situations and dismiss criticism. For his part, Francis is impeccably beady as the wily, erudite Sir Humphrey, as prone as ever to tactical prolixity.’

3 stars ★★★

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage was complimentary-ish: ‘The script is typically witty and wordy, built around a series of extended conversations that touch on a range of hot-button topics, from inheritance tax to diversity-hiring policies, from cancel culture to the complex legacies of imperialism. Lynn and co-director Michael Gyngell ensure that these debates never become too heated. The play’s pacing is languid and the energy dips during long, static conversations, but Lynn and Gyngell balance out the cerebral dialogue with plenty of sight gags and lightly farcical moments.’ He concluded: ‘this is an affectionate portrait and a fond farewell to the familiar characters in their last years.’

Brian Logan for The Guardian noted: ‘At its worst, it’s less a play than a vehicle for Lynn and his characters to discourse, not very insightfully, on trigger warnings and safe spaces. Stephanie Levi-John does spiritedly in the thankless role of Sophie, forever correcting her elders’ improprieties. Rhys Jones and Clive Francis as Sir Humphrey are a treat, too, the former blithering and pompous, the latter a delicious mixture of vulnerability and shrewdness.’

The Mail‘s Patrick Marmion was unimpressed: ‘We are left in a low-stakes fug, buried under an electric blanket of humorous nostalgia. Rhys Jones deploys the intellectual acuity of the grunting farmer in Shaun The Sheep. ‘I’m not dead, I’m in the House of Lords!’ remains his best joke. But the funniest moments belong to Francis’.

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis was also critical of Jones: ‘Here we have a baggy, old-fashioned stage finale to a 46-year-old political sitcom that amuses despite the misplaced star casting of Griff Rhys Jones in the role of ex-Prime Minister Jim Hacker. Always untroubled by subtlety, the comedian’s constant mugging and whinnying, guffawing, meandering delivery of every single line here stand in stark contrast to the sharp timing and comic physical precision of Clive Francis as Hacker’s sparring partner, former cabinet secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby.’

On the other hand, Gary Naylor at BroadwayWorld claimed: ‘the biggest factor in filling the warm bath of nostalgia for which most of the house are paying, lies in the casting. Griff Rhys Jones has the name recognition for the playbill and can do exasperated bumbling with a winning charm, but he veers too close to Boris Johnson at times.’

Tom Wicker for Time Out liked the new Sir Humphrey: ‘Francis delivers his lines with the same acidly snobby, guillotine-sharp dryness as Nigel Hawthorne did as Humphrey in the TV series but strikingly mixed with flashes of anger and frailty.’ However: ‘What works less well is Lynn’s attempts to confront Hacker and Humphrey with today’s landscape of de-colonisation, no-platforming and campus protests…the play feels less assured in these moments, touching on contemporary issues in a stiffly regimented way.’

For The Times’ Clive Davis,  it was: ‘a gentle comedy that only occasionally rekindles the ultra-sharp satire of his classic sitcom collaboration with Anthony Jay’. Although he found ‘the plotting…haphazard’, he conceded: ‘ If the storyline doesn’t really go anywhere, the audience still gave a cheer whenever Sir Humphrey launched into one of his wheezy, multi-syllable bouts of obfuscation. Memories of a perfect TV show came flooding back.’

Matt Wolf at LondonTheatre declared: ‘The give-and-take between the two gents is really it for plot in an evening concerned more with striking attitudes and delivering position papers.’

Helen Hawkins at The Arts Desk said  kindly: ‘Fans of the TV series will not be disappointed. The repartee has all the snappiness of old, even if the responses are rather predictable…Overall, it’s an affable evening that many boomers who are no longer working full-time will warm to.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford gave a backhanded compliment: ‘more elegiac and emotive than we might have been expecting.’

2 stars ★★

The Independent’s Alice Saville said: ‘It’s undeniably poignant. But ultimately, its directionless satire of woke politics doesn’t just lose the plot – it forgets it was meant to be looking for one.’ She found: ‘Its ending is both cosy and utterly implausible: like an electric coal fire, it emits a hollow kind of warmth.’

Theo Bosanquet at WhatsOnStage found it: ‘more of a disappointing coda than a fond farewell.’ He explained: ‘It’s a shame (Lynn) seems so preoccupied with airing grievances about the wokerati, when he should be letting his much-loved characters do what they do best: making us laugh.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.9⭑

Value Rating 31 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

I’m Sorry, Prime Minister can be seen at the Apollo Theatre until 9 May 2026 and will tour from 19 May. Buy tickets directly from imsorryprimeminister.com

If you’ve seen I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, please share your review/rating below

 

Sentimental Musical touches hearts

Theatre Royal Haymarket

Rachel Joyce‘s play started as a radio play, became a successful novel, was made into a film, was adapted into a musical in Chichester directed by Katy Rudd, and is now looking like a West End hit. It’s the story of a retired man who embarks on a 600 mile walk to visit an old colleague, now dying. In the course of the journey he meets many people and comes to terms with his own demons. Some critics found it ‘sentimental’ (The Stage) but others thought it was ‘heart warming’ (Telegraph). ‘Completely captivating’ (LondonTheatre) Mark Addy was felt to be a good choice for the curmudgeonly Harold despite not being much of a singer. Any vocal deficit on his part seems to have been more than made up for by the ‘sensational’ (The Stage) Jenna Russell as his wife. The music by Passenger was ‘genuinely catchy’ (Independent) or simply ‘amiable’ (The Times).

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Alex Wood of WhatsOnStage rejected the notion that it used emotional manipulation:: ‘It is a show bubbling with grief, hope, love, and music. Joyce’s writing has always possessed a particular groundedness; even at its most moving, it never feels overly saccharine.’  He gave much of the credit to the leading man: ‘Addy captures all of Harold’s journeys – physical, geographical, emotional, psychological, and philosophical – with an immense sense of skill and tempered restraint. He is a man of few words for much of the play, but it is in the cheery silence that Addy does his best work…It is a performance of quiet devastation.’ He summed up: ‘By the time the final number starts, you aren’t just crying because the show told you to; you’re crying because you’ve seen so many facets of a couple, burdened by decades of mourning, finally able to let it go.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish had a similar thought: ‘You can easily argue that it is hardly subtle and wants us to weep and smile on cue; but, to my mind, its sadness rings true, while its crowd-pleasing positivity is hedged with knowing make-believe.’ He appreciated: ‘its gentle reckoning with grief, loss and loneliness’. It is, he said, ‘a heart-warming musical…that deserves to become an unlikely West End hit’.

The Independent’s Alice Saville said it was ‘a rare thing: a new British musical with an engrossing, new(ish) story that’s powered by genuinely catchy songs, written by Passenger’. She noted: ‘when pathos and calm is needed, we get it by the spadeload. Jenna Russell lends so much repressed depth to the part of Harold’s wife Maureen’. She pointed out: ‘There’s something sharply, painfully sad about the second act’s excavation of grief and loss, which lends a much-needed acidity to the musical comfort food that’s gone before.’

Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre reported that her heart melted: ‘thanks to Katy Rudd’s immaculate direction, and superb, balletic choreography by Tom Jackson Greaves, Harold Fry’s journey from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed to see his old, dying friend Queenie is a heartfelt, gripping voyage.’ She loved Mark Addy: ‘His performance is the acting equivalent of putting on a favourite, comfortable old jumper —his Harold is a little rough round the edges, but he is good, real, stoic, and completely captivating’.

BroadwayWorld’s Aliya Al-Hassan credited the star: ‘Mark Addy (who had never performed in a musical prior to this) gives a great performance, first as the epitome of an unremarkable man, decent and polite who wears a shirt and tie to have breakfast, then slowly comes back to life as his journey progresses. His vocals are not the strongest in the cast, but there is heart and deep emotion in his performance.’ She declared: ‘With a message of kindness, compassion and hope, it’s theatre that we all need right now.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Paul Vale for The Stage noted: ‘it’s is a distinctly British tale of relationships, loss and healing. Directed with lyrical flair by Katy Rudd, Joyce’s rather sentimental story blossoms as a musical, with Passenger’s diverse score enhancing those underlying themes.’ She pointed out: ‘It’s a curious and occasionally frustrating choice for the lead character to sing barely a note, but this is countered by the sensational Russell, who interprets Passenger’s songs with emotional integrity and a sublime narrative skill.’

The Times’ Clive Davis damned with faint praise: ‘The truth, though, is that while the folk-inflected songs by Mike Rosenberg (known as Passenger) are amiable enough…Joyce’s script is oddly underpowered…Katy Rudd’s production at the Haymarket in the West End trudges on and on, tugging at our heartstrings along the way.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski seemed to reject the musical, but then: ‘It is kind of MOR, and the various revelations along the way do skew towards the predictable. Still, I think male inarticulacy – both inward and out – is a fascinating odd thing to put at the heart of a work of musical theatre. And though a secondary theme, it does a very nice job in dissecting the nature of faith via Harold’s peculiar gaggle of followers, each of whom essentially see themselves reflected in their hero, a man that they don’t understand one bit. It’s a bit cosy, but not entirely so – there’s a wildness and darkness bubbling beneath the surface that means The Unlikely Pilgrimage packs a surprising punch.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis was unmoved: ‘for all its obvious charms and consummate professionalism it remains curiously uninvolving and slight. Call it a meh-sical.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.6⭑

Value Rating 37 (Value rating is the Critics’ average rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry can be seen at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 18 April 2026. Buy tickets directly from https://haroldfrymusical.com/

If you’ve seen The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, please leave your review and/or rating below

Hugh charms the critics

Aldwych Theatre

They may or may not have liked the play but the critics were charmed by Hugh Bonneville’s ‘shrewdly understated’ (Times) performance in the role of the emotionally repressed C S Lewis. In William Nicholson’s biographical play, Lewis’s Christian beliefs are challenged when he falls in love with a divorced American woman, then has to cope with her terminal illness. Some critics felt the play was superficial and ‘rose-tinted’ (Stage), but others were profoundly moved by the ‘potent’ (Telegraph) portrayal of grief. Maggie Siff was praised for her robust performance as Joy. The critics were generally impressed by Peter McKintosh’s set design in which a wall of bookshelves symbolises the stifling world of academia but also opens into a Narnia-like paradise. This production, directed by Rachel Kavanagh, was first seen at Chichester in 2019.

4 stars ★★★★

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish wrote a moving review: ‘it could all veer into a superficial, episodic résumé. Yet Rachel Kavanaugh’s stylish production lends the story the vital, unifying aura of a restless, soulful quest.’ He found ‘All (the) genteel restraint means that when Bonneville’s placid, unassuming demeanour breaks into a howl of distress, or his gauche stiffness yields to a kneeling marriage proposal at Joy’s hospital bed, the effect is one of emotional detonation.’ He was touched by Bonneville, who, he said, ‘gives a commendably un-egotistical performance that provides a potent conduit for our own experiences of deep personal loss.’

The Times’ Clive Davis also praised the star: ‘Bonneville certainly deserved the acclaim he received at the end of the evening: this was a shrewdly understated performance that hinted at the turmoil stirring inside a public figure struggling to reconcile his own beliefs with the catastrophe that has set his private life.’ The set design made its contribution: ‘Every now and then, the walls of books slide away to reveal a wintry, Narnia-ish domain. Howard Harrison’s shifting lighting always seems to remind us that the line separating the here and now from eternity is a thin one.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford decided it was a test of true love: ‘On this Valentine’s weekend, I have concocted a failsafe test for a potential love interest: does this person snuffle quiet tears at the end of Shadowlands? Are they profoundly moved by the line ‘The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal’? If the answers are ‘no’, run a mile, as this person lacks any evidence of a beating heart.’

3 stars ★★★

Holly O’Mahony for The Stage criticised it for being ‘rose-tinted’: ‘while it’s witty, there’s something insincere about Nicholson’s script – polite and polished for palatability, it’s the version of events that you might tell ageing relatives (…) it all lacks punch; but it’s a heart-warming watch.’

Anya Ryan at LondonTheatre complained: ‘(Lewis’s) moral and spiritual dilemma is largely glossed over.’ But she did like the star: ‘Bonneville begins with a stiff-upper-lip Englishness…But, with Joy’s encouragement, he opens up piece by piece; his final wail is utterly devastating.’ She also praised the set design: ‘Nodding to Narnia, Peter McKintosh’s staging reveals a hidden, magical world from behind a bookcase. It suggests that beyond the shadows of life, there is something beautiful waiting.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton liked the show as far as it went, which was not far enough: ‘Nicolson’s play…is expertly directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, who firmly emphasises the humour and incongruity of this passion between a celibate English don and a straight-talking American poet…But she cannot disguise the way it skates along the surface of multiple moral dilemmas.’ Fortunately, ‘Bonneville is an actor who can tease feeling and nuance out of the most straightforward script. He’s wonderful as Lewis, awkward and endearing, but also catching the man’s self-righteousness stuffiness… The moments towards the close, when he is suddenly overwhelmed by feeling are deeply affecting.’

In a literally holier-than-thou comment, The Independent’s Alice Saville said: ‘There are audiences who’ll lap it all up as an emotive alternative to a church sermon, but they deserve better. Real life is much more complicated than the fridge magnet quote-worthy moralising that fills this play’s later scenes, and an author with the imaginative power to turn God into a friendly lion would have understood that.’

Aliya Al-Hussan of BroadwayWorld described the play as ‘Plodding in parts, but ultimately devastating’ but joined the Hugh Bonneville hugfest: ‘Bonneville is amiable, believable and gently formal as Lewis. His presence feels like a comfortable pair of shoes; familiar and unchallenging, but as the character submits to the waves of grief after Joy dies, Bonneville is touchingly bereft.’ She also praised Maggie Siff, saying she ‘never slips into the caricature of a loud and overly positive American and her sharp-tongued ripostes to the mysogynist views of Lewis’s academic circle are perfectly delivered.’

TimeOut’s Andrzej Lukowski thought it was one for Hugh’s stans (super fans): ‘None of it serves to quicken the pulse, really: it’s high class MOR, a chaste romantic fantasy that plays great with the Bonneville stans but is lacking a layer of depth. Still, even if I couldn’t exactly believe in the couple, I could still root for them.’

2 stars ★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar put the boot in: ‘It has charm and pulls you into its sadness but seems as creaky as the half-filled, wood-panelled library in its backdrop…plods from one scene to the next, sleepy in pace and action but breezy in its emotions’. As for the star: ‘Bonneville is a lovely presence, as always’ but ‘he lacks the hard, anguished depths that show Lewis’s stunting shyness and repression.’ She felt ‘Siff is excellent as Joy, bringing sharp edges and ardour but the chemistry between them is just too fond and gentle.’

Critics’ average rating 3.2★

Value Rating 34 (Value Rating is a combination of the show rating and the typical ticket price)

Shadowlands can be seen at the Aldwych Theatre until 9 May 2026. Buy tickets directly from shadowlandsplay.com

If you’ve seen this production of Shadowlands, please leave your review and/or rating below 

Ben Daniels towers in expressionist take on Rattigan 

Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre

Man And Boy was a late play from Terence Rattigan, long after his golden reputation had been washed away by the new wave of ‘kitchen sink’ dramatists. It is largely neglected, and some critics thought it deserved to be (‘Rattigan’s plot isn’t far removed from dime fiction’ said The Times). Others loved the way director Anthony Lau ‘throws off the shackles of realism’ (Time Out) to make it seem contemporary. All agreed that Ben Daniels‘ performance as the 1930s amoral millionaire Antonescu, who tries to pimp out his adult son (Laurie Kynaston) to save his business, was award worthy.

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

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski enthused: ‘Anthony Lau’s production is the first Rattigan I’ve seen that throws off the shackles of naturalism.’ The design, he said, ‘sets Rattigan free from chintzy tradition, and when combined with Angus MacRae’s wild, jazzy score gives the whole thing a sense of danger, unpredictability and transcendence of a specific time and place. It also liberates star Ben Daniels from period constraints, freeing him up to deliver what is easily the best stage performance of the year to date.’ His portrayal was ‘seethingly dangerous, his shark-like charm punctuated by flashes of bottomless rage and an unsettling, insectoid physicality as he prowls and scuttles over the tables.’ He summed it up as: ‘a wild production that tears up everything we thought we knew about how to stage good old Terence Rattigan.’

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton observed: ‘Watching it in the light of the Epstein scandal, it feels pressingly pertinent in its depiction of a valueless world where everything has a price – even love. With the peerless Ben Daniels outstanding as Antonescu, it has a savagery and sharpness that make it utterly compelling.’ Shew continued in her praise of Daniels, calling him ‘magnificent’: ‘We first see him waiting to enter, black raincoat buttoned up to his neck, his face impassive, his profile eagle-like…he’s like a force-field of energy, with a serpentine, seductive charm that can’t quite disguise either his anxiety about his ruin or his essential toughness. He’s a master of the universe, bestriding the stage like a colossus.’

Anya Ryan of LondonTheatre found: ‘Ben Daniels is triumphant as Antonescu – a performance that should surely earn him an award nomination or two. Commanding the stage, lizard-like and menacing, he orders those around him to follow his instructions with the easy authority of a man long accustomed to obedience.’ She concluded: ‘Man and Boy may still not show Rattigan at his most humanly rich. But this production – in all its ruthless, game-playing glory – surely shows the play in its finest light.’

Clementine Scott at BroadwayWorld agreed: ‘this is an astutely written drama the National were right to revisit.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Independent‘s Alice Saville pointed out: ‘No one in this play has the intellectual heft or bravery to remotely challenge Antonescu, and that makes it ultimately unsatisfying to watch.’. Her response to the show was subdued: ‘Rattigan’s play unfurls soberly and without remorse for either characters or audience (…) Lau’s production tries to inject a bit of energy by getting the actors to clamber incongruously over tables, or by crushing them under a lighting grid that descends worryingly close to the stage, or by having them sway in dim light like they’re in a slo-mo fight scene. These witty touches are refreshing – but they feel like a bit of a mismatch with Rattigan’s serious portrait of moral corruption, which offers more to respect than to enjoy.’

The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish was reserved in his praise: ‘While the two lead performances in Anthony Lau’s revival at the National compel, its glaring deficit is that it strains too hard to jazz things up experimentally.’

Sam Marlowe of The Stage wrote a review of two halves. It started well:  ‘Reconfigured in this production by Anthony Lau, which gives it a dash of expressionism, the play leaps along in exuberantly grotesque fashion, far removed from conventional Rattigan stagings. It’s still an uneven piece, but it feels both pertinent and darkly entertaining here – thanks in no small degree to an enthralling central performance from Ben Daniels’. It didn’t end so positively: ‘Things go awry, unfortunately, in the second half, when the action calls for more humanity and emotional sincerity, which seems at odds with Lau’s heightened, almost grimly farcical staging.’

Over at The ArtsDesk, Demetrios Matheou agreed: ‘If the first half sees Antonescu at his diabolical best, while setting up a bleak confrontation between father and son, the second fails to deliver on that tension, settling for a rather conventional comeuppance with few surprises and little satisfaction in how the central relationship plays itself out. There could have been real tragedy here. Nonetheless, Daniels continues to hold the attention, adeptly shifting his physicality from strength to frailty.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar wasn’t impressed: ‘Director Anthony Lau has put a thoroughly new spin on this old yarn but one which sadly drains the emotion and tragedy.’ Her demolition was thorough: ‘The first half is pulled down by the weight of its laboured reinvention. The drama is so arch that it seems operatic – the bigger the performances, the more you feel removed from Rattigan’s subtexts.’ It clearly left her cold: ‘It engages more when some of the theatrics are dropped, a little too late…so much distance has been created that his downfall becomes emotionally remote, his self-loathing rejection of filial love understood rather than felt.’

The Times‘ Clive Davis was scathing: ‘Sadly, Anthony Lau’s febrile expressionist production is so overheated that it’s impossible to ignore the implausibilities in the storyline. Financiers are a strange breed, as we’re reminded every time a batch of Epstein files drops, but Rattigan’s plot isn’t far removed from dime fiction’. He continued: ‘that fine actor Ben Daniels is required to play the villain as a shrill, camp figure — think Rudolf Nureyev channelling Professor Moriarty. And if Georgia Lowe’s Dorfman set looks stunning at first glance … you find yourself wondering why the principal characters are jumping on to tables whenever they want to deliver a speech.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.3⭑

Mand And Boy can be seen at the National’s Dorfman Theatre until 14 March 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre.

If you’ve seen this production, please leave your review and/or rating below

A fitting tribute to the late Tom Stoppard

Duke of York’s Theatre (premiered at The Old Vic)

Arcadia is widely considered to be Tom Stoppard‘s greatest play. Set in the 1800s and the 1990s, the play covers science, landscape design, writing and human attraction. It fizzes with ideas but is imbued with a strong sense of humanity.

The well received Old Vic production has transferred to the soon-to-be renamed Tom Stoppard Theatre in the West End. Alex Eales‘ has recreated his revolving in-the-round set that shows the two periods panning out in parallel. The critics were largely overwhelmed by the play and Carrie Cracknell‘s production, but some found Stoppard too clever by half. The cast were highly praised, with Isis Hainsworth in particular attracting attention.

Reviews of the West End transfer are immediately below. Those for the original Old Vic production follow. The ratings combine all reviews.

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

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Aliya Al-Hassan, reviewing for LondonTheatre, called it: ‘uncompromising in both scope and ambition. Combining vast subjects such as maths, landscape gardening, scientific theory, sex, and evolving knowledge, Stoppard is unafraid to challenge his audiences with his cerebral agility, yet there is also a huge amount of humour and heart thrown in. Brimming with big ideas, fierce intelligence, and some wonderful performances, Carrie Cracknell’s hit Old Vic production of the play now arrives in the West End.’

Christian Rose for BroadwayWorld opined: ‘Having studied the play extensively and seen numerous productions over the years, I can confidently say this is the finest interpretation I have experienced. Cracknell’s direction is insightful, intelligent and wonderfully inventive, illuminating the layers of Stoppard’s writing while allowing the emotional core of the play to shine.’ She picked out: ‘At the centre of the production is an astonishing performance from Isis Hainsworth as Thomasina Coverly. She captures every facet of the teenage prodigy with breathtaking sensitivity, balancing dazzling intellectual brilliance with youthful innocence, curiosity and vulnerability. Hainsworth’s Thomasina is endlessly captivating, inquisitive, energetic with warmth and humanity.’

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Caroline McGinn for Time Out stated: ‘Even if its academic arguments sometimes outstay their welcome, it is satisfying and thought-provoking and rare to be able to spend three hours in the company of a drama whose fiery propulsive engine is an unquenchable search for knowledge.’

Alex Wood for WhatsOnStage declared: ‘I have to confess I’ve warmed to the show since its initial outing earlier this year. Where at the Old Vic it felt more distant, abstract and, perhaps, coolly remote, in the snug confines of the Stoppard Theatre, Cracknell’s staging roars with newfound heat and passion. Part of this is thanks to deeper, richer performances from returning cast members: Isis Hainsworth as the young genius Thomasina … Her transformation from wide-eyed 13-year-old 19th-century student to young woman is a masterclass in control and tender love for character. Dillane’s Hodge seems more riveting too – betraying some unspoken sadness while in awe of this young student he knows he has an unquenchable connection to.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage commented: ‘Stoppard’s funny, melancholy, thought-provoking play of ideas certainly still grips, with its delicate human stories unfolding elegantly across two time periods, interconnected plot strands exploring everything from sexual attraction to the scientific search for truth, to landscape gardening and the heat death of the universe. Cracknell’s sedate pacing leaves the audience plenty of time to sit with each new concept.’

Reviews of Old Vic presentation

5 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis described the play and the production: ‘This prodigious, teemingly intelligent, breezily witty 1993 play by Tom Stoppard packs in more challenging matter than most writers would attempt in a lifetime but has the seeming effortlessness of pure entertainment. It embraces thermodynamics, poetry, landscape design, sex and much more besides, in parallel timelines set in the 1990s and the early 1800s in one room of a Derbyshire country house. Carrie Cracknell’s superbly cast and elegantly realised in-the-round revival is a fitting tribute to the genius of Stoppard’.

Matt Wolf at The Arts Desk gave the detailed analysis of a devotee: ‘Having been in attendance at Arcadia‘s world premiere at the National some 33 years ago come April, I had always thought I’d never see a staging to match Trevor Nunn’s original…Yet here the play is again, with at least three performers who eclipse all memory of their forbears. And even those who don’t are superb in their own rights, the ensemble working in harmony to foreground feeling amidst the playfulness, fun and scientific and mathematical fodder that inform the text throughout’.

BroadwayWorld‘s Aliya Al-Hassan asked rhetorically: ‘Does it matter if you don’t understand the complex scientific and mathematical theories? Not at all. Carrie Cracknell’s magnificent revival has huge amounts of humour and heart, which is not always a given with Stoppard’s work.’

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish called it a ‘triumphant return’ for an ‘intellectually thrilling and romantically stirring masterpiece’ that is ‘a spellbinding portrait oif transient, mysterious existence itself.’ He seemed to cope with the blitz of ideas more than some critcs: ‘It all grips like a thriller. The intimacy of Cracknell’s production – presented in-the-round, beneath two elliptical lighting rigs that suggest planets in orbit – creates a sense of magnified scrutiny; you can easily follow the trains of thought and marvel at the clockwork finesse of it all.’

Theo Bosanquet for LondonTheatre noted: ‘In Carrie Cracknell’s stripped-back, in-the-round production, Stoppard’s densely intellectual dialogue is given centre stage, while his dual-era narrative is enriched through subtle and sensitive overlapping.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton pointed out: ‘It is also incredibly funny, and its richness lies in the way that its thoughts never compromise its humanity. Instead, they underline them as Stoppard shows chaos and unpredictability at work in human relations too. Sex and people “fancying people they shouldn’t” is another disruptor of the maths of the universe.’ She summed it up as: ‘a multi-faceted gem that glimmers in every light, thought-provoking and profoundly moving. It’s a glory.’

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage praised the cast: ‘Among the large ensemble, Isis Hainsworth stands out as teenage maths prodigy Thomasina with a believable balance of flashing insight, naivety and adolescent emotional spikes, swinging from frothy enthusiasm to tearful desolation in a heartbeat. Seamus Dillane is a fine foil as her tutor Septimus, deploying roguish charm and acerbic wordplay to create an appealingly rakish persona.’ He ended: ‘although the production may lose momentum at times, the script’s interplay of erudition, insouciant wit and relatable human drama is never less than intriguing and engaging.’

The Independent‘s Alice Saville reported on the look: ‘what Cracknell’s staging excels at is weaving together past and present. Designer Alex Eales has turned the Old Vic into an intricate miniature galaxy, with a revolving set whose rings let the cast orbit each other like planetary bodies. There’s a beautiful naturalness to the way that their paths seem set for collision but never quite meet – leaving historical mysteries forever unsolved.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar had ‘the sense of a playwright tossing about complex ideas with such excitement, dexterity and depth that it doesn’t matter whether you understand them. Or up to a point, at least. Everyone here is so clever, from the winningly precocious Thomasina to Stoppard himself that it can make your head hurt’.

The Times’ Clive Davis was less convinced than some about the play’s greatness: ‘There were more than a few moments during this evening when the lengthy disquisitions on the nature of the universe left me feeling as slow and ponderous as the tortoise that serves as one of the mischievous props (…) As in so many of Stoppard’s plays … the characters seem less like rounded individuals than repositories for his ideas.’ He acknowledged: ‘Arcadia does sparkle, especially in the opening scenes…Tutor Septimus Hodge (played with élan by Seamus Dillane) spars with his pupil, Thomasina Coverly, Isis Hainsworth’s portrayal of the young girl is a delight, conveying both innocence and knowingness as she tries to win Septimus’s approval.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The i’s Fiona Mountford was the harshest critic: ‘Stripped of all décor, the play appears ever more daunting and ever less dramatic and in the underpowered first half of Carrie Cracknell’s production the atmosphere falls dangerously flat. Too often it becomes a seemingly never-ending lecture and we the poor students trapped inside the lecture hall.’

Critics’ average rating 4.0⭑

Value Rating 44 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Arcadia can be seen at The Duke of York’s Theatre until 12 September 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre.

If you’ve seen Arcadia at The Old Vic Theatre or the Duke of York’s, please share your review/comment and rating below

A Fond Farewell to a Killer Show

almeida Theatre

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s musical adaptation of American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis’s satire of 1980s Wall Street consumerism, was a huge success in Rupert Goold‘s first season as Artistic Director of the Almeida (then it starred Matt Smith). Now, 13 years later, it forms part of his final season there. Here’s Alex Wood’s summary of the plot at WhatsOnStage: ‘That story…is of a disillusioned banker, Patrick Bateman, filling the emotional void in his life with consumerist jargon, macho-posturing and, eventually, a homicidal rampage through New York.’ The critics loved the production- the music, the set, the lighting, the choreography- and praised the cast especially Arty Froushan in the lead role. Some felt it wasn’t as effective as it could have been.

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar listed the reasons why she liked it so much: ‘First there is satire, deliciously dark, and then horror…unsettlingly effective when the violence comes (…) Duncan Sheik’s score contains one great electro-synth number after another, with a razor sharp book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (…) Es Devlin’s fleet set design turns nightclubs into bedrooms into hideous mounds of twitching bodies. Jon Clark’s Stringfellows style lighting and Finn Ross’s projections give off a luminous, hallucinatory quality, insinuating Bateman’s unreliable reality.’

‘it’s big, bold, and deliciously sinister’ declared BroadwayWorld‘s Cindy Marcolina. She noted: ‘Arty Froushan is exquisite as Bateman. A psychotic glint in his eye and steely arrogance make him the quintessential finance bro. He makes his inability to get a table at the exclusive Dorsia restaurant the driving force of his homicidal streak, filling his nights with violent sex and murderous escapades. The musical spells out Bateman’s contradictions, and Froushan revels in them.’

Alex Wood for WhatsOnStage stated: ‘It’s not a perfect show, and its true impact is perhaps left that bit too late in the final scenes. That said, it’s still a hypnotic, bloody good time – one that perhaps says more about the macabre dimensions of modern masculinity than anything else on a UK stage right now.’

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis noted the look of the show: ‘If I say that Rupert Goold’s revival of his hit electropop murder musical is full of surface gloss and chilly razzmatazz, I mean it as a compliment. Bret Easton Ellis’s original 1991 novel was a slashing satire on late-80s consumerist capitalism, as lived by psychotic Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman. This shiny, energetic, body-conscious production lands when greed is once again good and looksmaxxing misogynists are literally all the rage in the manosphere.’ He explained more about the men’s bodies: ‘the hench torsos and sculpted six packs the younger male actors reveal …This fits the vanity (and the semi-suppressed homo-eroticism) of Bateman’s milieu. But it seems that stage actors, like movie stars, now have to have the body of a Calvin Klein model as well as talent.’

The Independent‘s Alice Saville had some doubts but ‘if this show’s message is uncertain, its impact is undeniable. It doesn’t look or sound like any other musical you’ll see in London, and there’s something entrancing about this icy injection of nihilism into a remorselessly peppy genre.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski liked it but had reservations: ‘for all the demonic razzle dazzle that Goold and his top-notch creative team bring to bear – disturbingly twitchy choreography, infernal monochrome elegance, a lot of indoor sunglass wearing – American Psycho is a deadpan show with a downbeat story that sometimes feels in conflict with the maximalist nature of musical theatre. And in humanising Bateman and stressing his anxieties, his collapse into full-blown paranoia at the end feels less momentous than in book and film.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Claire Allfree in the Telegraph was dissatisfied with the adaptation: ‘Perhaps the greatest stumbling block is the fact that the original novel is a masterpiece in narrative ambiguity. Since this adaptation signals from the beginning that Bateman is a fantasist, any sense of ghastly jeopardy is lost. Froushan…expertly conveys the sense of both moral void and existential despair but he is never remotely terrifying.’

Holly O’Mahony at LondonTheatre cautioned: ‘It’s not that the story itself hasn’t aged well, or faded in relevance, but under Goold’s watch, Patrick Bateman (an appropriately beguiling Arty Froushan) never seems as void of feelings as he says he is. We witness him spiralling his way through an existential crisis, wearing his fragility on his sleeve. And making him a shade or two more ‘relatable’ diminishes the satire of Ellis’s story’.

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe was underwhelmed, saying it was ‘a highly enjoyable satirical romp – but one that, despite some vivid gory splatters, is essentially bloodless. It’s smart and horribly pertinent. But it probably won’t give you nightmares.’

The Times’ Clive Davis didn’t get it: ‘It’s slick, it’s shiny, it’s empty (…) There are solid performances all round, but is the show itself really worth reviving?’ Like Bateman, he put the axe in: ‘As for the music, Sheik…has assembled an efficient if colourless selection of technopop anthems.’ 

Critics’ average rating 3.6

American Psycho can be seen at the Almeida Theatre until 21 March 2026.

If you’ve seen this production, please leave your review and/or rating below

A Musical with heart

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Ten years in the making, Ballad Lines has arrived in London. Finn Anderson and Tania Azevedo’s musical follows connections between women and songs over the centuries. Some critics felt there was more work needed on it, but they loved the music and found the story heartwarming.

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

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Cindy Marcolina for BroadwayWorld said: ‘Ballad Lines must be one of the most exciting new musicals to hit the stage in some time. We follow Sarah, an American queer woman, as she dives headfirst into her family’s roots. Through the centuries, the same melodies come back to link the women who came before her (…) it might be a bit corny here and there, but it’s a solid celebration of women’s endurance as well as the role of music and its influence on our lives. The score and the plot are equally engrossing; the direction and performances are inspired.’

‘Brimming with ambition and warmth, it has the makings of the next brilliant thing’ reported Aliya Al-Hussan for WhatsOnStage. She admitted: ‘Touching on family, identity and motherhood, there’s a lot to pack in and some characters inevitably feel less rounded than others, but Azevedo directs with great fluidity.’ She concluded: ‘Heartwarming, poignant and deeply human, it has the potential to go far.’

Emma John in The Guardian explained; ‘It was the Ulster immigrants, passing down their boisterous tunes and melancholy ballads, who gifted the US some of its first iterations of country music.’ Anderson’s score powerfully evokes the source material it is exploring, and the ensemble’s singing positively electrifies the traditional song (…) Composer Finn Anderson and director Tania Azevedo have used that journey to tell a musical story across generations.’

Gary Naylor at The Arts Desk praised the show but ‘You shouldn’t be standing back, but few aspects of life are as inaccessible to a man as pregnancy and childbirth (…) For all the heart and soul and technical achievement on stage, that yawning empathy gap was never bridged – at least not for me. I appreciated the show because it’s a really fine musical, but I didn’t really feel it. Many will. ‘

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe noted: ‘There are some soaringly impassioned performances in this new musical, but it’s the songs that are the star. Woven around traditional Appalachian folk tunes and accompanied by a live band dominated by lyrical fiddle, they are lilting, haunting and oozing with gorgeous harmonies.’ However, ‘McNamee sometimes seems a little stranded, a bystander floating at the verge of more interesting tales, and the piece sometimes bobs too long among the eddies and whorls of the multi-stream storytelling.’

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre called it ‘a show suffused with passion and heart that comes tethered to a surging score from the fast-rising Scottish singer-songwriter Finn Anderson’. He declared: ‘There’s no faulting an eight-person cast…and McNamee should go far with her stirring occupancy of the show’s star part.’ Unfortunately, ‘Too often, the writing lapses into clunky portentousness’ and it’s also in ‘desperate need of trimming and shaping’, he said.

Anna Maloney in CityAM described the story: ‘Ballad Lines dives into the lives of Cait, Jean and Sarah, three women from the same blood line but very different times…connected by heritage, womanhood but, more importantly, the power of song, with the score blending Scottish, Irish and Appalachian folk ballads.’ She suggested it was not quite complete: ‘this could be the kind of show that really benefits from scale. With a few set pieces and the potential for big, gorgeous ensemble numbers, Ballad Lines could be a hit in waiting.’

Critics’ average rating 3.6⭑

Ballad Lines can be seen at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 21 March 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

If you’ve seen Ballad Lines at Southwark Playhouse, please leave your review and/or rating below

The worst show of the year so far

Southwark Playhouse Borough

The worst reviews of the year so far greeted Beautiful Little Fools. The musical tells the story of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald though the eyes of their daughter, but none of the critics thought it did justice to the legendary literary couple. The score by Hannah Corneau, who also plays Zelda, was agreed to be unmemorable. The actors could sing apparently but found nothing in the songs or the book by Mona Mansour to get their acting teeth into.

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

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Alun Hood for WhatsOnStage tried his best to be positive: ‘It’s a frustratingly inconsistent evening but, for all that, it’s heartening to see a new musical genuinely trying to break into unusual and challenging territory. In its present form, it’s equal parts beautiful and foolish, but with a little work, it could become something special.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Standard’s Nick Curtis didn’t hold back: ‘This banal meander through the lives of Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald is… unsubtle and trivialising. Michael Greif’s awkward production features a cast of five and a band of four, and just about every cocktail-clinking, writer’s-blocking cliché you could wave a volume of short stories at.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe came up with a striking simile: ‘the show feels a bit like a gaudy chocolate box – alluring, but full of empty wrappers.’

There have been no reviews so far from the Times, Telegraph, Independent nor the i. The Guardian was one of the few heavyweight news media to send a reviewer, although the producers may wish they hadn’t when they read Emma John’s damning critique: ‘no melodies linger from the many ballads, and there is no sense of the spark or wit of these two wordsmiths colliding beyond a single waspish argument on the Riviera. The show steadfastly ignores Zelda’s mental health issues for the sake of its sudden, damn-the-patriarchy climax.’

BroadwayWorld’s Aliya Al-Hussain had some choice words for the show: ‘fails to get beyond something shallow and unsatisfying’, the songs: ‘clunky lyrics sound like they could have been written by ChatGPT’ and the performers: ‘As F Scott, David Hunter is not quite tortured enough as the alcoholic and tormented writer. His vocals are strong, but he struggles to make much of the one-dimensional character he is given.’

Gary Naylor forThe Arts Desk joined the chorus of disapproval, describing it as ‘a misfire, not taking us into the Fitzgerald’s marriage nor into their work, the detail required to locate poor Zelda’s health issues within their time and place left unexplored. Great musical theatre songs can rescue an ill-focused book, but there just aren’t enough to raise a show that has a marvellous story to tell, but not the tools to tell it.’

Time Out didn’t supply a star rating for Tim Bano’s review but it didn’t seem likely to warrant more than two with a comment like this: ‘like a Wikipedia page with songs’. He ended: ‘These are legendary lives diminished by being squashed into a musical, pulled out of time by the score. Beautiful Little Fool takes all the glamour, the outrageousness, the cleverness, the vitality, the fights, the drinking, the intensity of the lives that F Scott and Zelda lived and reduces them to schmaltz.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.2⭑

Beautiful Little Fool can be seen at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 28 February 2026.

If you’ve seen Beautiful Little Fool, please leave your review and/or rating below

Harrowing play about a couple facing a dilemma

Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court

The Royal Court’s 70th anniversary season got off to a tremendous start with a new play by Luke Norris, directed by Jeremy Herrin. The story of how a couple nearly fall apart when faced with a terrible decision during her pregnancy was harrowing, the critics all agreed and gave 4 and 5 stars. Only one dissenter gave 2 stars, calling it ‘grief porn’. Rosie Sheehy was highly praised for her no holds barred performance as the woman.

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

5 stars ★★★★★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar said it was ‘a harrowing portrait of pregnancy and grief, plumbing the depths of sorrow within a marriage. But it is not only that. It is funny and profound, intense without ever becoming overwrought.’ She continued: ‘Plot twists bring shock and dread, but alongside this there is both whimsy and deep rumination on mortality’. She concluded: ‘This is a tear-jerker with 100% heart, 0% sentimentality. What a start to the Royal Court’s 70th anniversary season. What an emotional tour de force.’

4 stars ★★★★

The Independent’s Alice Saville explained: ‘It starts with a couple at their 20-week antenatal scan, their hope visibly curdling as they realise the road ahead isn’t the sweetly straightforward one they’d imagined. Then, it follows them to the proverbial hell and back, in an emotionally exhausting journey through suffering and redemption.’ She reassured us: ‘For all its overpowering bleakness, there’s something ultimately hopeful about Norris’s play, and the way that he details every hideous contour of this pair’s suffering – then shows us that this, too, is survivable.’

In a typically perceptive review, Sam Marlowe’s reported in The Stage: ‘Norris’ chamber drama, wrapped around a couple in their 30s, Him (Robert Aramayo) and Her (Rosie Sheehy), is a sort of gloriously profane hymn to hope and human resilience, and to love; mingled with the obliterating pain is passion and poetry, tenderness and laughter, faith and deep despair. It’s mercilessly concentrated and intimate, almost as if the characters are being gradually stripped of their skin. And yet the writing also exudes a profound compassion.’

‘This harrowingly powerful play by Luke Norris about grief, loss and love features exceptional performances from Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo’  began The Standard’s Nick Curtis, and continued: ‘What follows is hard to watch but impossible to tear your eyes from. It’s as bleak as Beckett but also brutally funny and agonizingly empathetic.’ He declared: ‘Norris, an accomplished actor as well as a writer with a growing reputation, knows how to compose dialogue that addresses the unsayable but also embraces the unsaid.’

Anya Ryan at LondonTheatre described how the couple cope: ‘Together, they circle their options, fracture, and test the limits of their love. From the one central, damning dilemma, Norris’ script opens out into an examination of human feeling at its most raw: passion, guilt, impossible inner battles, and grief without reprieve.’ She was particularly impressed by Rosie Sheehy: ‘Continuing her reign as one of the country’s finest stage actors, Sheehy is nothing short of extraordinary. Flitting from sharp sarcasm to raw, animalistic despair, she behaves like a body reacting before her mind has time to catch up.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton commented: ‘For all the agony, Guess How Much I Love You? is a play illuminated by love. It takes an extreme version of the fears facing every couple who have ever tried for a baby and examines it with compassion and sensitivity. It doesn’t have any huge relevance beyond itself, but it does shine a light on ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances and lets them live on stage.’

The Times’ Dominic Maxwell praised the two leads: ‘   Aramayo is terrific as the more passive partner trying to be supportive, straining to stay included.’ He concluded: ‘Yes, I chafed slightly at some overwriting, but the last half hour moved and gripped me entirely. It is not easy. It is not exactly enjoyable. And yet this smartly observed, cannily constructed, beautifully performed play will stay with me.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski agreed it ‘does ring painfully emotionally true.’ He pointed out: ‘The sense of paring things back is matched by Jeremy Herrin’s production, which is naturalistic and uncluttered. But there’s a little more to it than that. The relative lack of other cast members (Lena Kaur plays a midwife in one scene) and the fact Grace Smart’s sets don’t tend to fill the stage, but rather sit in inky pools of darkness, gives it an unsettling, claustrophobic feel.’

Debbie Gilpin for BroadwayWorld found it ‘a thought-provoking play that is full of humanity, with a great many moments of lightness which balance out the dark topics at its core; it’s a reminder that although grief can and will persist, so does hope.’

Aleks Sierz at The Arts Desk declared: ‘Sheehy and Aramayo take us on a journey that is both agonising yet also affirmative of the power of love’s survival in a climate of adversity. It’s a very hard watch, but also, by the end, oddly uplifting. A good balance, right? At the same time it’s a demonstration not only of the power of theatre to dig into common, if also taboo-charged, experiences, but likewise a testament to the relevance of the Royal Court’s project of staging the best, and most beautiful, intense new writing it can find. Happy 70th!’

2 stars ★★

Claire Allfree at the Telegraph was the one dissenting voice: ‘while Norris is clearly motivated by the need to tell a ghastly story that could affect any prospective parent, his subject feels like a creative cop-out. Landing smack alongside the debate over grief porn generated by Hamnet and H is for Hawk, his play insists we respond from the gut to his couple’s predicament, or not at all. And if we don’t, he has nothing to offer us. There is an occasional nod to religious sensibilities but it’s low stakes stuff. Another writer might have given us a chewy back and forth debate on the ethics of the couple’s dilemma. Norris essentially dramatises only how it makes them feel.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9⭑

Guess How Much I Love You? can be seen at Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, until 21 February 2026

If you’ve seen Guess How Much I Love You? please leave a review and/or rating below