Daily Mail

“Her growing friendship with Gabriel Akuwudike's looming, alpha-male Rochester, and the magnificent defiance which takes her into his arms, are breathtaking as ever.”

“Sadly, that does not make the American a good fit for Noel Coward's 1925 comedy Hay Fever, and the part of aging English stage diva Judith Bliss.”

“This interminable verbal slugfest is a love-hate affair for the audience, as well as Martha and George.”

“What is most remarkable is that what might sound like a very dry subject is delivered by Kinnear as a fascinating, fun-filled and even frolicsome evening.”

“Despite two-and-a-half hours of digressions, the story remains steadfastly buoyant.”

“Despite two-and-a-half hours of digressions, the story still remains buoyant.”

“Irish writer Brian Friel details all this with a forensic eye for the incurable disease called love.”

“And if the moralising falls flat, I was content to enjoy the company of three fine actors.”

“It is an extraordinary song from the gutter, hailing the human spirit and its ability to survive.”

“I found this chamber musical a refreshing bitter-sweet antidote to those deafening Disney ones.”

“Theatre is in dire need of a hit and this isn't it.”

“A raft of wholly forgettable songs combine flat-footed Americanese and tone deaf profanity in a story in which nothing changes.”

“Sadly, Turner’s production wobbles uncertainly between both scenarios, ungoverned by a leading lady’s controlling hand.”

“A Small And Quiet Light, Stephanie Street's warm, theatrical tribute to Khan, is so anxious to be respectful, it makes our heroine seem a little dull.”

“At first intrigued by the shenanigans from ancient myth, I simply lost patience with the muddle of existential angst.”

“Glorious, ghastly, and very funny, Abigail's Party is still a great invite.”

“But the script has wings of lead. Not once does it take off as an involving drama.”

“Sean Holmes and Charlie Josephine’s cheerful new revival of As It is exactly one of those occasions; delighting audiences with terrific comic characters, rendered by playful actors not taking themselves too seriously.”

“A quirky story, then, refreshingly different, with a set that has a Blade Runner vibe.”

“It's funny but not quite irresistible - in the second half, the comic jeopardy of Bertie's scrapes starts to feel samey and on the wane.”

“But for all the plot's febrile fiction, Lott makes a good fist of her role in Philip Wm. McKinley's zestless production, despite overusing her famously breathy, rising intonation famous from films such as It Hot.”

“Nadia Fall’s production taps into a ferocious, proto-feminist defiance led by Outhwaite.”

“Sadly, the spectacle of Harrison’s rubber-man calisthenics don’t win extra sympathy for Bertie.”

“Allam gives what is surely the comic performance of the year, partially delivered - as in all good farces - in his Y-fronts and a vest.”

“As these creatures of the city come out at night to crouch, slink, stalk, prowl, lope and leap by the light of a huge moon of rusted steel, there's much to delight.”

“Roger Allam’s blissful study in blind befuddlement alone is in a comedy class of its own.”

“For me the first half of Drew McOnie's sleek production doesn't excite or register enough of an emotional connection.”

“You will never see anything so purely theatrical.”

“The vigorous and absurd fight scenes are splendidly risky and – on a darker note – there’s real torment for Vincent Moisy’s Malvolio as darkness falls in the second half.”

“David Cromer’s production pays homage to the Great American Songbook with jazz standards and show tunes of its own.”

“The ketchup and the swearing is relentless, but ultimately the predicament only makes sense on a purely domestic level, not an epic one.”

“But most frustratingly, Stone undermines the tragedy with his weakness for cheap gags, while burying the logic of the ancient myth in a narrative muddle that shuttles back and forth through the past ten years.”

“This is a feverish, thrilling night out - and a welcome return of the Bible belter to the West End after a long absence.”

“For one pulse-racing hour, the show has you totally in its grip and Tovey is terrific.”

“This show is too bland to make an argument one way or the other.”

“Directed with real warmth by Nelson, and deploying just a few items of domestic furniture, this is a wonderful portrait of all involved, riffing agreeably on reticent British mores, and unvarnished American manners.”

“Tovey delivers a cracking turn of heart-pounding intensity as Joe, in a hyper-realist production by Felix Barrett of immersive theatre company Punchdrunk.”

“Brilliant, devastating, don't miss.”

“It starts well, with Oh’s Alice fizzing with fury, but she becomes increasingly lost in the media crowd of stereotypes, among them the bland movie star, Stefan (Tom Mison), as her unlikely boyfriend.”

“This will be too 'authorised' and synthetic for people – like me – who want to get behind those sly blue eyes.”

“This play is as excruciatingly wrought as an episode of Fawlty Towers.”

“The experience is impressive, but it hasn’t got that snarling bite-your-leg quality that makes it such a repulsive and compelling work.”

“When it delivers the shivers, though, it comes joltingly alive.”

“Instead they’re offering something slick but decaffeinated, evasive and artificial.”

“Even if you've seen it, this revival is still unmissable.”

“War Horse continues to be a stunning, invincibly spellbinding spectacle.”

“It's another in a line of giddy, fizzy, sassy hits for the London theatre. The bar has been set very high, with the 2021 revival of Anything Goes starring Sutton Foster, the most spectacular musical staging I've ever seen.”

“It’s a classic example of what’s wrong with the West End: a haven for musical cash-ins of hit films.”

“The crowd whooped along throughout this mercilessly entertaining celebration of Burton’s madcap ghost caper.”

“That’s the magic here - and it’s thrilling.”

“But Zeldin’s painfully realistic production - offering a panoramic view of the care home - is also, at times, quite dull.”

“Tense and original, with a creeping dread, it comes across as a first-rate thriller and a top comedy too.”

“Sherlock’s sheer joie de vivre conquers objections - and even the cold.”

“But what a tawdry tale this is.”

“If you want a proper, old-fashioned, meaty play, then this superbly acted evening is it.”

“It not only absolves the Victorian era of its sins of excess, it carries its charms lightly, to ensure that grace does indeed pervade.”

“Jonathan Munby's richly atmospheric production excavates a long family history of self-torture to find an ending that, unusually for Miller, is full of quiet hope and good humour.”

“Liberation may not be for everyone in this Cuckoo's Nest, but it's never less than manically impressive.”

“Two decades on, it is a tad dated... But it's still driven by the agonies of heartbreak and social anxiety.”

“I am dazzled by Frayn's understanding of theoretical physics and the passion he brings to this tale of flawed geniuses.”

“It's a great cast for this fascinating, if chilling, play”

“You’ll need to pay attention at the back, but thanks to studious acting and an increasingly darkening international situation today, it feels like the play’s time has come again.”

“But this feeble show, with its fatuous pranks, is not it.”

“The Royal Court now has a smash hit on its hands.”

“Icke’s production is intermittently revelatory, yet also oddly obstructive: a sunless vision of fair Verona with an almost constant backing track you’d normally associate with an aromatherapy massage at a posh spa.”

“This is sharp, funny, smile-inducing pleasure for rock-loving graduates of a certain vintage.”

“All very dated, but a spicy trip down memory lane.”

“Don't miss this caustic classic.”

“Guilty of the excesses it seeks to satirise, the production certainly won’t discomfort today’s middle classes.”

“As directed by Lindsay Posner, it struck me as a sharp and loveable play, expertly acted and with enough laughs and relatable family rows to keep afloat its serious moral baggage.”

“Memon proceeds to do just that, setting the theatre alight (metaphorically!) as she relives Ria's tale with scorching, heartfelt passion.”

“What begins ordinary and conventional becomes extraordinary and original as Ria shares the experience of loving a man diagnosed as bipolar, ‘sedated by synthetic serotonin’, physically present but emotionally absent.”

“The play is unable to hide its clumsy blending of medical paralysis, European persecution and American malaise.”

“They are uneven but, together, they are so worthwhile.”

“But late works, including his 1994 play Broken Glass, now on at the Young Vic, can be a bit windy.”

“And great charm is woven between scenes by Mariia Petrovksa crooning and plucking a bandura - a zither-lute hybrid which is the national instrument of Ukraine.”

“It's rather sweet but also feels aimless and thin.”

“Ziegler fulfils her brief with tenderness and grace.”

“But I found it almost totally without a sense of any actual horror.”

“Unashamedly pondering such big questions, the play does so with thoughtful wit and, astonishingly in Rachel Kavanaugh’s nostalgic production, a modest amount of spectacle.”

“The compassion of those involved in the search for justice brings hope amid the horror.”

“It feels like ridiculous whimsy. Harold, above, is wearing boat shoes, and has said nothing to his sad wife Maureen (Jenna Russell, deeply moving as the one left behind). A terrible tragedy has driven them apart.”

“Yet what's missing is old–fashioned suspense.”

“Even if it feels contrived, it is a nostalgic and enjoyable antidote to the grim farce being staged by our current government.”

“The result is a weepie musical with an uncheapened humanity you can almost touch. Lovely.”

“Watching him as he attempts to pull off a fiscal Houdini act is a treat.”

“To know what he means by that, you have to catch Oliver Kaderbhai’s seamless production.”

“Everyone who values a good night out should approach with caution.”

“It feels like a case of an earnest 18-year-old writer (Coward) wishing he was more like the mighty Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen: not just witty, but deep, too. The persistently shelved 1918 drama, from which Coward later distanced himself, has been bravely abridged by Bill Rosenfield.”

“It’s as impressive as the dissection of human heartbreak is flawless.”

“It may be odd, but this Tempest is absolutely in the spirit of Shakespeare’s ‘insubstantial pageant’, as the man himself put it.”

“The evening has its moments, but as drama it’s slow on the draw.”

“Thea Sharrock’s production misses the sense of the small town’s vulnerability, all alone in the wide-open spaces of the dusty Midwest.”

“Sheridan Smith, as the flawed, sarcastic and crushingly lonely mum, brings her own vivid humanity to a convoluted but bitterly funny farce.”

“Never miss an opportunity to catch Sheridan Smith live.”

“I couldn't twist my mouth into a smile at any point, let alone laugh.”

“Now it seems a quainter museum piece, though the essential story remains a brilliant idea.”

“Christmas Carol Goes Wrong shows that the company has certainly mastered its own particular brand of mis-step mayhem with this pacy, slick and hilarious take on the Dickens classic.”

“Jordan Fein's revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical mash–up of the Brothers' fairy tales is an absolute hoot – gorgeously dressed and designed by Tom Scutt and bottling all their stories' subversive enchantment.”

“It could be sharper, but their fans will love seeing them lay waste to another institution.”