Alice Saville

“It’s fun, but it won’t leave your eyes streaming.”

“If you want to be deeply, profoundly disturbed by a night at the theatre, there's no finer way to do it than this.”

“This is a play of ideas, but unlike Tom Stoppard’s brilliant, recently revived Arcadia, it can’t turn the abstract territory of maths and logic into something richly emotive.”

“Though all the choices here feel calculated to drag this play into 2026, it still doesn't quite make sense now.”

“Still, its neatly crafted ambiguity ultimately feels frustrating.”

“Watching this hybrid play is often a laborious exercise, like trying to connect pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles that don't quite fit.”

“Fall’s production, though, favours a consistent tone of brash silliness over psychological intensity.”

“The world of Ayckbourn's play is an odd one to visit.”

“But when it takes itself seriously, it's one hell of a bad trip.”

“Just follow Mary Magdalene’s advice – ‘Close your eyes, and relax’ – and you’ll sink into the glorious sounds of a voice that’s achieved divine status.”

“This minimalism might be efficient, but it doesn't always serve the play, and makes it harder to create the claustrophobic, cigarette smoke-saturated feel of a tiny office that's full of caged corporate beasts.”

“But this undead scene-stealer stops us from taking the actual narrative here seriously; we don’t have space to feel the aching poignancy just beneath its surface.”

“Hare doesn't let his audience love it too, because he's too obsessed with overlaying it with his own agenda of old (good) versus new (diabolical).”

“This is a richly emotional, brilliantly intelligent take on a classic – one that'll plunge a knife into your heart so skilfully that you hardly notice the pain.”

“Kimberly Belflower's hit Broadway play John Proctor is the Villain is a fantastically cathartic riff on Arthur Miller's witch-trial play The Crucible.”

“Daniel Raggett's staging makes the most of Hare's witty one-liners without sacrificing the essential bleakness of this story.”

“Still, the best moments of Summerfolk shine out, strikingly modern.”

“Alas, this time it feels effortful rather than fluent – and Erivo seems too stressed to offer more than the odd glimpse of Dracula’s coolly gothic allure.”

“It takes you on a journey that sends you home feeling a bit lighter, a bit more hopeful, than you did before.”

“Neither this sanitised production nor his unstintingly mild-mannered performance can capture the darker realities of grief, sex and mortality.”

“But ultimately, its directionless satire of woke politics doesn’t just lose the plot – it forgets it was meant to be looking for one.”

“Carrie Cracknell's stellar Old Vic revival ditches the rolling lawns and airy Classical architecture of Stoppard's setting in favour of a fluid, dimly lit, in-the-round staging that emphasises that these characters are reaching out of the known world and into the stars.”

“Still, taken as an exploration of mental illness, this play’s blunt, larky approach feels both dated and faintly tasteless.”

“Escola’s play basically sits in a genre of its own, one that mixes the farcical humour of am-dram classics like Charley’s Aunt with the disturbing queer energy of early John Waters films.”

“There’s an authentic, rare flavour to this story, too – but it’ll take an experienced palate to fully appreciate it.”

“Like a big game hunter, it aims at huge moving targets – and hits them, again and again.”

“There’s an almost unbearable heaviness to Ivo van Hove’s powerful revival of All My Sons, staged with a crushing gravity underneath a giant glowing sun.”

“This is the first major adaptation of Le Carré’s work, and it’s setting off on a long national tour to enthral his spy-obsessed fans.”

“It's a quietly moving play that makes sense on its own – without quite having the narrative heft to clean up as a piece of drama in its own right.”

“Instead, it feels like an entertaining but ultimately unpersuasive take on Shakespeare’s story of an arch manipulator.”

“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.”

“It’s a compelling reading of Shakespeare’s play, even if it loses its way when its deathtoll climbs.”

“This play won’t necessarily disappoint Locke’s fans, who’ll pay a top ticket price of £135 for this cheaply staged, 100-minute drama – but it lacks the passion, authenticity and political bite that might make them theatre lovers for life.”

“This is full-bodied theatre, rich with invention, intriguing themes and visual sumptuousness.”

“And its carefully interwoven strands of the mundane and the supernatural give this play an enduring strength – one that tugs audiences into this little tavern, long after they’ve called time on other plays of its vintage.”

“Irish avant-garde theatre company Dead Centre and British Sign Language (BSL) poet Zoë McWhinney have collaborated to create an experimental epic of war and resistance that'll make you rub your eyes and reach desperately for something real to hold on to.”

“Their satirical musical The Book of Mormon, written in league with Avenue Q's Robert Lopez, wowed Broadway in 2011.”

“Inter Alia’s impact builds and builds until it’s almost unbearable.”

“The Estate is a play that’s full of such powerful emotional beats, without ever becoming a cohesive whole.”

“This gorgeous sensory overload of a show is its own comment on the rising tide of fascism.”

“Unfortunately, there’s none of the same imaginative energy in this stodgy new stage version, which hits the expected beats without capturing the lovable zaniness that makes Hercules a fan fave.”

“Daniel Aukin’s production feels rich and sumptuous enough to be forgiven.”

“Cooke’s pared-back production lets that modernity shine out, scrapping all that tedious late-Victorian stage business of tablecloths and rattling teacups in favour of a simple circle of greenery.”

“Still, it feels both softer and less purposeful than the plays that made Ireland’s name.”

“It's flip, funny, and undeniably stylish. But essentially unsatisfying, too.”

“Still, this relatable humour sits increasingly uncomfortably inside the oddly shaped outlines of Ibsen’s play.”

“Still, somehow the plot of Air never takes a definitive shape.”

“But somehow, it lacks Icke’s usual ability to winnow complex source material into one coherent message.”

“This isn’t a morally complicated story, really. But it’s a hugely satisfying one – a well-crafted period piece with lots to say about the present-day pressures on minority artists at the mercy of corporate agendas.”

“This musical feels squarely aimed at the mass market, and it’s neither aspirational nor memorable enough to escape the sale rack.”

“It’s a lovable but overly reverential approach to a film classic that’s sturdy enough to withstand a braver spin.”

“This production is fatally lacking in tragic richness and weight.”

“Rylance’s charisma knits together a production that’s full of roustabout hilarity and poignancy mingled together, bright and bleak at once.”

“Giant ultimately lacks tension, because it’s clear from the start that Dahl is deeply but lazily prejudiced, with no intention of changing.”

“But somehow this production still doesn’t have the aesthetic or thematic boldness to link together its two halves.”

“Anyone craving a taste of good old-fashioned razzmatazz won’t be disappointed in Hello, Dolly!, a 1964 musical served up with all the trimmings in the Palladium’s vast gilded barn.”

“Harris’s play is full of a sharp satirical intelligence that makes the right words fall from the wrong mouths, and resists pat conclusions.”

“Dark and dazzling production exposes singer'”

“All in all, it feels hard to justify a top ticket price of £195 for this minimally staged, 80-minute one-man Broadway import.”

“Writer Tim Price and outgoing National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris have turned this welfare state origin story into a weird, sometimes baggy reverie, enlivened with poignant biographical insights.”

“But somehow this show states these criticisms without giving them any actual weight, like a bad boyfriend glibly listing his failings in a voicenote plea for reconciliation.”

“The jokes feel effortful and small ‘c’ conservative: landing them would be a stretch for far more accomplished stage actors than Parker and Broderick, who are just about good enough here.”

“It’s a late-announced but thoroughly welcome transplant from the RSC, filling the Royal Court with a sweltering blast of joy in a chilly, uncertain January.”

“This isn’t a quiet, quaint, self-consciously theatrical little play. It’s a massive all-out event calculated to thrill fans of the award-winning Netflix series with explosions, thrills, and jumpscares galore”

“There are powerful moments, but so much of this story’s passion seeps away, lost on stony ground.”

“It’s a rare musical that can warm your heart and chill you to the bone all at once – and that makes The Witches essential viewing for all but the most sensitive kids.”

“It’s the kind of uncompromisingly brilliant performance that makes you want to use cliches like ‘tour de force’.”

“Scott’s performance has a raw intensity that ignites this ingenious staging.”

“For now, it feels like a curious thing: a glass showcase for Carvel and Ferran to fill with towering, uneasy displays of acting elan.”

“For all its flaws, it’s never anything less than exciting to watch, thanks to the wit and dynamism of Prince’s choreography, the formidable talents of this note-perfect cast, and powerful songs enlivened with nice little references to everyone from Aretha Franklin to Eminem.”

“This story's mixture of fun romantic intrigue and horrible darkness isn't easy to navigate, and some of its earlier scenes land stiffly.”