Is it Merry Christmas or Humbug for this year’s star?

The Old Vic

The Old Vic’s uplifting production of A Christmas Carol, written by Jack Thorne and directed by Matthew Warchus, is an annual event beloved by audiences. Each year a different star name plays Scrooge  This year it’s John Simm’s turn. The majority of critics praised his performance although there were some dissenters. It’s hard not to be carried along by this joyous production, but one managed to resist its charms. At the time of writing, The Guardian, The Independent and Time Out have yet to weigh in. It’s possible they think a change of star is not enough reason to review what is essentially a repeat.

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

For Ben Dowell in The Times (5 ), ‘John Simm…shows brilliant range, encompassing moments of humour.’ He declared, ‘The designer Rob Howell’s stage remains a glory, bisecting and eventually uniting his audience when the ensemble teem in the stalls; when his door frames rise up to admit the fantastically earthy female ghosts we are reminded that they are the portals with which Scrooge has shut out not just the carollers but the world and the possibility of love and companionship.’

Aliya Al-Hassan for Broadway World (5★) declared: ‘This exceptional version of A Christmas Carol remains a magical festive experience.’ She praised the latest Scrooge: ‘Simm… brings a sardonic and acerbic level of humour not seen in the role before and this gives more levity to the show overall.’

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (4★) felt John Simm ‘brings a gruff, grizzled vigour to the miser and he doesn’t mind being dislikeable’. He pointed out that ‘Underlying all the razzmatazz is Thorne’s intensely humane communion with Dickens’s moral agenda.’

Olivia Rook for LondonTheatre (4 ) praised the writer for the show’s perennial success: ‘Thorne…creates a…sense of magic and spectacle’ and this year’s star: ‘Simm’s classic Scrooge is proud, impatient, and pompous, prone to bellowing at those around him.’

Not all the critics were taken with John Simm’s version of Scrooge. Fiona Mountford in the i (3★) said, ‘the trajectory that Simm traces is far more perfunctory’ (than 2023’s Christopher Ecclestone). She did however bring attention to the contribution made by the music: ‘The great delight of this production (apart from free mince pies pre-show) is the music; composer and arranger Christopher Nightingale truly offers the gift that keeps on giving even after eight years.’

While affirming that the show ‘has the allure of an essential ritual’, Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (3★) complained that he ‘inclines too much too soon towards straightforwardness of temperament’. He explained that he ‘more conjures a peevish loner in a midlife crisis than an icy curmudgeon in mortal fear.’

One of the strange things about being a reviewer is that you sometimes are obliged to go to a show you never would have chosen to see. Take Aleks Sierz, reviewing for The Arts Desk (3★). He admits, ‘a crowd-pleasing evening really does depend on you wanting to be part of the crowd — and at this time of year I really don’t.’ No surprise then that he went full Humbug and declared, ‘Populism rules’. For him,  ‘Everything is spelled out for the audience, every bit of charity talk is repeated so that even the slowest mind can grasp it — there is no subtext, no subtlety, no poetry.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★

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

A Christmas Carol is at the Old Vic Theatre, London, until 4 January 2025.  Buy tickets directly

If you’ve seen A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic Theatre, please add your review and rating below 

Duke of York’s Theatre

Lily Collins, star of the Netflix hit Emily In Paris, makes her stage debut in a twisty story of a drunken encounter between a naive young American woman and a older cultured European played by Alvaro Morte. The stars involved were given a pass by the critics but many failed Bess Wohl‘s play which was seen as contrived. Ms Collins’ debut was well received. Despite two high-scores, the four two star reviews brought the average rating down to one of the worst this year.

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

Fiona Mountford in i-news (5★) was in no doubt about its quality: ‘These are among the best 90 minutes of theatre I have seen all year’. She continued, ‘Barcelona works splendidly because every element is akin to peeling the layers of a very large onion. Frankie Bradshaw’s design, chic and bijou on the surface, begins to offer unsettling clues the longer we study it. Director Lynette Linton is at the top of her game’. She praised the star of Emily In Paris: ‘This is a remarkable stage debut from Collins, conveying a fascinating blend of interlayered weakness and strength.’

Sarah Crompton from WhatsOnStage (4★) also liked it: ‘It’s a strangely old-fashioned concoction, not at all earth-shattering or ground-breaking, not always as truthful as it wants to be, or as revelatory as it hopes, yet always engrossing and warm-hearted. A gentle pleasure.’ Referring to the stars, she said, ‘Both have real charisma’.

The Telegraph‘s Claire Allfree (3★) described it as ‘both flimsy and dated and predominately a vehicle for Lily Collins’. However the vehicle carried the star through the evening: ‘Collins really is good as Irene, radiating effervescent naivety and as giddy as a pony while finding the vulnerability in a sheltered 35-year-old who has never found the strength to challenge her own life choices.’ Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre (3★) commented, ‘Wohl’s play truly sings when she hits us with some big revelations and these two strangers are shown not to be so dissimilar after all’.

Although Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times (3★)said, ‘this feels like a curiously flimsy affair’, she did praise the leads: ‘The performances  are compelling… Collins, in her stage debut, is a mercurial figure, zigzagging about like a butterfly, both physically and emotionally.’ Despite describing The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (3★) described Lily Collins as ‘sensational’ and praised her ‘presence and timing’. But he was disappointed to find her and her co-star ‘stuck in a phony emotional rollercoaster’.

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (2★) gave the leads lukewarm praise: ‘While the performances are agreeable, it is hard to invest in either character’ and more generally ‘Given the considerable creative talent involved, this is a curiously flat affair’.  She came down hard on the director: ‘in Lynette Linton’s production neither the suspense nor the humour hit home, the mix often more awkward than unsettling.’ She concluded it was ‘a production that carries its own what-might-have-been disappointment’.

In The Stage (2★), an exasperated Tom Wicker declared, ‘this is an infuriating play. It’s packed with plot contrivances that see it spinning its wheels to audience patience-testing effect, in service of a final-act reveal.’

Annabel Nugent at The Independent (2★) was scathing, ‘The play’s themes of suicide and grief are tried-and-true shortcuts to the heartstrings. And yet here, it never quite locates them. Moments intended as gut punches land with a feather-light touch; monologues are heavy in exposition but lacking in the requisite emotional scaffolding to support them.’

Clive Davis from The Times (2★) kept up his record as the most frequent dispenser of 2 star reviews. Saying the play ‘seems suspended in a land of make-believe’, he went on to comment, ‘this late-night encounter between two strangers is so schematic that its musings on life, death and love seldom ring true.’ The Observer’s Susannah Clapp (2★) was dismissive: ‘the range of feeling remains small: from giggle to whimper.’

No star rating was attached to the review by Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowksi. Given his comments, this may not be an oversight: ‘Really it’s just not good enough – everyone here has the capacity to make work better than Barcelona, so exactly why they’ve settled on a formulaic two-hander that doesn’t even feel written for a British audience is beyond me.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.6★

Value Rating 27 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Barcelona is at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London, until 11 January 2025.  Buy tickets directly

If you’ve seen Barcelona at the Duke of York’s Theatre, please add your review and rating below

Noel Coward Theatre

Steve Coogan triumphed as four different characters but for many critics, the show didn’t quite take off. Although acknowledged as funny, the script by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley was criticised by some for being lightweight and timid. The large-scale show is  based on Stanley Kubrick’s 1984 satirical film about war-hungry Americans on the brink of nuclear war. Inevitably many of the critics referred to the beloved original in detail and were disappointed that the stage version was different to the original film.

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

Broadway World’s Gary Naylor (5★) praised the adaptors for their decision not to update the story but rather ‘to recreate the movie on stage. That may be a safer creative choice… but the raw material is so very strong that its power is barely diminished 60 years on.’ He underestimated his fellow critics’ capacity to find fault when he said this choice will offer ‘fewer opportunities for disappointed diehard fans to kvetch or identify the instances when the jokes were not as good’. He was in awe of the star: ‘Coogan’s energy is astonishing … he draws on every element of his comic heritage from voices, to pratfalls, to character work, to farce’. He pointed out, ‘There’s wonderful work wherever you look on stage. Giles Terera holds General Turgidson’s bloodlust in check just sufficiently to avoid toppling into caricature, his eyes worth the ticket price alone (some of it at least).’

Marianka Swain reviewing for London Theatre (4★) found the show ‘explosively funny’. She appreciated ‘the tone of Foley’s assured production, which easily flips between Airplane!-style genre-busting farce and alarmingly resonant commentary on humanity’s reckless self-destructiveness.’ Of Steve Coogan, she said, ‘the real treat is his white-haired, wildly camp, extravagantly accented former-Nazi scientist Dr Strangelove…It’s absolutely hysterical.’

Neil Norman in the Express (4★) declared, ‘Sean Foley maintains the tension and the comedy throughout with remarkable nimbleness’. He praised Hildegard Bechtler’s design: ‘Best of all, the arrival of a B-52 bomber that noses its way onto the stage against a video backdrop of clouds is genuinely impressive.’   ‘But,’ he concluded, ‘it’s Coogan’s triumph’.

The Stage’s Dave Fargnoli (4★)was impressed: ‘Iannucci and Foley retain the film’s subversive spirit, but downplay its nihilism, juxtaposing gloriously silly punchlines with a building sense of unease’. As for the star: ‘Coogan displays boundless energy and impeccable comic timing.’ He also praised ‘Hildegard Bechtler’s unfussy, impactful sets’ and ‘Giles Terera channels a fascinatingly chaotic energy’.

Alice Saville in The Independent (3★) thought it was ‘a lovable but overly reverential approach to a film classic’. Despite criticising the production’s timidity, she found the humour ‘evergreen, prickling with ingenious wordplay and sickly surrealism’.

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★) also found it timid: ‘It’s entertaining but never quite as savage as you expect.’ She found ‘there’s something strangely effortful about this adaptation’. However, ‘It’s hard to fault either the comic virtuosity of Steve Coogan’ and ‘Foley’s direction keeps up the hysterical pace’.

Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out (3★) found, ‘For the most part it’s funny because it’s very cognisant of why the film was funny – the dialogue is relentlessly amusing, and the characters are a dream.’ He continued, ‘it’s a slick stage tribute to a beloved 70-year-old movie that captures the reasons why it was a hit but less so the reasons why it’s a masterpiece.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3★) was moderately enthusiastic: ‘if this show is anything, it is fun. And Coogan fans most certainly get bang for their buck.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) called the production ‘stolid’  and ‘a decent star vehicle for Steve Coogan’. For Rachel Halliburton at The Arts Desk (3★) ‘the humour doesn’t always detonate in the way it should’.

Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times (3★) felt ‘the satire doesn’t bite as it might and the comedy sometimes feels rather effortful, as if the company felt the need to push it’. She wondered if ‘a slightly more maverick, shoestring approach — something along the lines of Operation Mincemeat — might have given the staging a little more sting.’

One of the most damning reviews came from the Telegraph’s Claire Allfree (2★). She found it ‘trapped between the film’s formidable legacy and an inability to recreate it anew theatrically.’ She said it ‘serves up a knockabout production marked by a contrasting refusal to take its subject seriously. With Coogan on full power, this is not necessarily always a problem.’ She specified, ‘Hildegard Bechtler’s set exemplifies the problem – there’s the odd nod to the original, notably the War Room’s circular overhead light, but it settles mainly for perfunctory designs in regulation 1960s grey‘. In conclusion, she said, ‘The laughter should come at sickening cost. Foley, by contrast, just wants you to have a good time.’

In the i (2★), Fiona Mountford also criticised the show’s lack of seriousness compared with the film: ‘Whereas Kubrick has pitch-black comedy intercutting a mood of gravitas, Foley unwisely has occasional serious moments raising their heads above cheap jokes’.

For Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (2★) it was ‘a fatal jollying up of material that needs to be played in earnest’ even if ‘Coogan is never less than good’. The Observer‘s Susannah Clapp (2★) was disappointed: ‘Covetable comic talents have set themselves not to invent but to replicate. What a waste of imagination…This doesn’t look like a visionary glimpse at a future madness but a tepid cartoon of what is actually happening.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.0★

Value Rating 33 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Dr Strangelove is at Noel Coward Theatre, until 25 January 2025 (then at Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin, 5-22 February 2025). Buy tickets directly here.

Read Paul Seven’s 4 star review of Dr Strangelove here

If you’ve seen Dr Strangelove at the Noel Coward Theatre, please add your review and rating below

Trafalgar Theatre

The Duchess (of Malfi) is, at the time of writing, the Worst Value West End Show in our listing. Only Shrek The Musical has received worst reviews so far this year. The return of Jodie Whittaker to the stage, after a sojourn in Doctor Who and other screen projects, was largely welcomed. Unfortunately Zinnie Harris‘s adaptation of Webster’s Jacobean horror story was condemned by all but the Telegraph, with The Times awarding just one star.

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

Let’s start with the good news. Kirsten Grant for the Telegraph (4★) liked it: ‘Whittaker proves more than up to the challenge with an enthrallingly layered take on the formidable Duchess.’ She went further, ‘Whittaker and this superb ensemble are surely reason enough to pay the Trafalgar a visit.’ If that weren’t  incentive enough, she also said, ‘Harris pulls off a pacy, intense production.’

While conceding ‘it’s undeniably thrilling to see Whittaker on stage again,’ Nick Curtis of the Standard (3★) was unenthusiastic about the production: ‘Harris’s adaptation only comes into its own in the second half. Throughout the first, I wondered what the point was.’

Theo Bosanquet at WhatsOnStage (3★) made similar points. Not a fan of the adaptation, he concentrated on the cast: ‘The performances, however, are impressive …Whittaker in particular reminds us why she’s been such a miss these past dozen years…She has tremendous poise as well as a sense of searing intelligence, repelling her brothers’ early attacks with sheer charisma. Although this may not be the best use of her talents, it’s great to have her back on stage.’

The Observer‘s Susannah Clapp (2★) was blunt in her criticism: ‘Zinnie Harris’s updated version of John Webster’s 1613 tragedy…is a muddle’ and ‘Against Tom Piper’s design of white metal walkways and staircase – a cross between prison and a chic art gallery brightly lit by Ben Ormerod – the generally feeble acting is cruelly exposed: when the men aren’t yelling they are faltering.’

Fiona Mountford in the i (2★) was just as savage: ‘Whittaker gives a powerful and passionate performance, but she faces an insurmountable challenge as Harris’s reworking makes less and less sense as it proceeds.’

Arifa Akbar of The Guardian (2★) called it ‘too much of a melange of tone and ideas’. She continued, ‘The performances are powerful but the setup feels so overbearingly orchestrated that you do not feel the characters’ passion or anger.’

‘This production is fatally lacking in tragic richness and weight,’ said Alice Saville in The Independent (2★). She noted, ‘Harris directs as well as adapts, using an overspilling ragbag of strategies borrowed from European directors’ theatre. Stark lighting. Ear-splitting judders of sound. A few times, characters step up to the microphone to sing out their inner lives…but the device feels both hackneyed and underused.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (2★) was slightly more forgiving: ‘Though the production feels muddled, Harris makes sharp points about the corrosive effects of toxic masculinity.’

The worst reaction of all came from The Times’ Clive Davis who awarded a rare 1★. He described watching Jodie Whittaker ‘stumble through a dismal reworking of John Webster’s Jacobean tragedy. The writer-director Zinnie Harris throws a boxful of half-shaped ideas at the audience and leaves the actors looking horribly exposed. Long stretches feel like a rehearsal from a student production.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.3★

Value Rating 23 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Duchess (of Malfi) is at the Trafalgar Theatre, London, until 20 December 2024. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

If you’ve seen The Duchess at the Trafalgar Theatre, please add your review and rating below