Tim Bano

“Despite a good cast and elegant set, it remains as shallow as its characters.”

“But it’s a remarkable end to an extraordinary play.”

“Four decades later, Swinton remains an electrifying presence.”

“Far from naff or dull, this is in fact a cheeky show, and a fun show, and a deeply profound show.”

“Hare’s play becomes a sweet panegyric, and a really traditional, really entertaining night both at the theatre and of the theatre.”

“Maybe that’s to do with the gloss of the production.”

“Gorky’s slow skewering of Russia’s first middle class … A terrific cast lifts a vast production at London’s National Theatre that emerges from Chekhov’s shadow to reach a magnificent climax … ... at first, this new adaptation by siblings Nina and Moses Raine doesn’t do much to justify its return.”

“It is mostly a strange mess, enjoyable but overloaded with baggage and suffering from sub-par ensemble work, the more noticeable stacked against the strength of Gough, Salazar, Crudup and Howle.”

“When the derangement climaxes, Smith cowering under a bench, drenched to the skin, its power comes despite the production rather than because of it.”

“For those wearied by the relentless stream of stage musicals based on popular films or books, Paddington is here to scrape the cynicism from their hearts, and to prove how it can be done properly.”

“Morris gives us a production that is always handsome, always watchable, but blocky and disparate, too.”

“The result is a production that is exactly the sum of its parts, and those parts are many, and some are good, and some are not.”

“It’s just a shame that the something they’re doing is this.”

“Cooke’s slimline text and his lavish production turn a remarkably punchy 130-year old play into exactly what you fear an evening of Bernard Shaw might be: worthy and dull.”

“The result is a perfectly decent production of a pretty much perfect play.”

“Mark Rosenblatt’s John Lithgow-powered Roald Dahl drama is back – and now it’s bigger and more troubling than ever … Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play goes against general advice. In fact he finds the biggest hornets’ nests he can and prods at all of them, and sees what comes flying out. What does come out is pretty spectacular.”

“It’s a hard thing to pin down, other than to say that it really is way too long, and succeeds in its restless breadth where it doesn’t in giving us depth.”

“They make it burst at its seams.”

“In fact, it’s about six big pictures fudged together into a bewildering chaos.”

“Stuffed full of amazing lines, and with six super performances, essentially: A Good House is a very good play.”

“It’s all a bit of a muddle: a play of many parts, struggling to find their sum.”

“It’s hard to think when the Royal Court last staged a play that felt so dangerous, or one so spectacularly good.”

“It isn’t a bad musical, really, but there isn’t a single moment that justifies its musical existence.”

“It's not a perfect piece, and at times it risks ossifying into a creaky relic from the past. But West stops that from happening.”

“Although there’s this technical mastershow going on, which is properly stunning, that doesn’t automatically make it a good show.”

“Ben Power’s deft adaptation of Dickens’ sprawling novel emphasises its brilliant characters and eternally relevant themes, but the bleak production and dour music wrestle with one another rather than cohering as a whole.”

“But as Falstaff toddles off into the wings, the overriding sensation is one of trying to convince yourself you’re not disappointed.”

“By no means is this a perfect production.”

“It’ll certainly make you like the three boys who spend their days kicking ball on their south London estate’s concrete pitch, dreaming of playing for a big team, and gassing about the big things in a 16-year-old’s life (football).”

“It is what it is: a slightly soppy, unfashionable play whose 90 years are showing.”

“There’s no denying the dazzling structural precision of Holcroft’s writing, as well as the lightness of touch she brings.”

“Too often they are redundant: a constant visual reminder of the misplaced excess of the production.”

“There are also strange dreamlike sequences – like a dance rendition of ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ which break up the narrative but don’t feel fully integrated into the play.”

“We’re left with an exercise in ‘Pygmalion’ which, for all its detail, forgets about the heart, the humour and, crucially, the humanity.”

“A decade on, Jamie Lloyd directs a revival which, although stylish, has lost some of its efficacy in the intervening years.”

“Nye spends so much time screaming ’this actually happened’, with facts and titbits, that fundamentals such as characterisation, motivation, clarity and structure get left behind.”

“Everything about the production seems designed to make you feel like you’ve had an exhilarating night at the theatre, while not wholly delivering it. It’s the trappings without the substance; many hands, making effortful work.”

“Rigby, who has the unparalleled quality of being annoying in the most endearing way, doesn't just perform Basden's exquisite script: he blows every single line up, making each one a balloon or a bomb depending how mad he's feeling.”

“More often, like those penises, the satire flops.”

“And yet it’s worth seeing, not just for the songs, but because there really is nothing else like it.”

“Mostly, though, the frantic skip through the story comes at the expense of depth.”

“A brilliant spy thriller, a brilliant comedy, and a brilliant musical all rolled into one, it is exhilarating to see it hit the West End.”

“In a cheery production by Rachel Kavanaugh, it is a perfectly decent musical.”

“Sophie Okonedo is stupendous in Dominic Cooke’s lean, deadly Euripides revival.”

“It's really extraordinary stuff, and in parts better than its previous incarnations.”

“But as Dunster’s production has churned through its various casts, it has started to feel sloppier, more faded, a ghost of its original.”

“The greatest strength here is that he finds the play’s missing heart.”

“But with this cast, those voices, that book, those arrangements and the lack of anything to connect with, Moulin Rouge! falls flatter than some of the notes we hear on stage.”

“It tricks us into feeling as if we’re at a party when really we’re at the most visceral display of political theatre in the West End.”

“This is the spiritual successor to War Horse. It draws on the same depths of stage creativity, but it uses everything else that theatre has become capable of since then.”

“As a musical it flails, but every time the quartet layers up those coil-tight harmonies, or Knight lets rip, it’s heaven.”

“On a scale of ashen rags to glass slippers, this Cinderella – amusing, unexpected, enjoyable – falls somewhere in the middle.”

“Whether one embraces it begrudgingly or submits willingly, Phantom is still an unparalleled spectacle.”

“But the show is too inconsistent in quality and vision to do itself justice.”

“While its length is a problem, its high points are riveting, Herrin’s production is cool and stylish, and it’s worth the surfeit to see Manville at her resplendent best.”

“And it is deeply, achingly moving.”

“With Cumming a captivating Hamm and Radcliffe a spry, tightly-coiled Clov, vibrancy and vitality are in abundance here, despite the fact that the play is about the death of everything.”

“But then you watch & Juliet, and it makes you want to hunt down the inventor of the jukebox musical and apologise to them for being a bit sniffy about the form in the past, because if they hadn’t invented the jukebox musical then we wouldn’t have had the privilege of seeing its apotheosis here.”

“If you’re the one waving through a window, it’s Dear Evan Hansen that’s waving back.”

“Lungs is a thrilling meeting of head and heart.”

“There are big laughs and plenty of them, but they sit uneasily with the straighter strain of the story.”

“Msamati’s performance as Sam is perfect.”

“Big belittles its source material and turns endearing quirk into generic mush.”

“The play touches genre after genre, constantly twisting itself, always entertaining, and finally becoming its own weird and extraordinary thing: stunningly political and superbly theatrical.”

“The show is still a winner that lives up to the daft excess of its title.”

“Entertaining dialogue, empty of revelation.”

“It’s full of calm and gentle wisdom about existence.”

“So, despite the starry casting of this really patchy production – it is odd watching Kelsey Grammer and Nicholas Lyndhurst side by side, two sitcom legends from opposite sides of the Atlantic – what sustains most interest is simply the curiosity factor.”

“It’s a stunningly crafted play, as this production, led by Hollywood superstars Bill Pullman and Sally Field, and directed by Headlong’s Jeremy Herrin, superbly demonstrates.”

“Downstate has important points to make, and the quality of the production is undeniable.”

“Each element – from Jones’ direction to Paul Steinberg’s set and Sarah Angliss and Christopher Shutt’s sound design – is incredibly well done and, even if the show doesn’t always hang together as a whole, it’s still enjoyable and entertaining.”

“It’s also really wonderful, with the sweetness, crispness and comfort of the best homemade pie, and boasts one of the best scores to be written in recent years.”

“This musical version swamps its story in inch-thick makeup and foot-high hair.”

“As an exercise in collaboration and in its great arcing ambition, it’s pretty glorious.”

“Hamilton is a touchstone. It's zeitgeist, youthquake, Momentum, it's woke, it's post-musical.”

“Mostly, it just has nothing to say.”

“But the result, while watchable, is less White Christmas and more like a traditional British Christmas: not quite as much drama as you’d anticipated, a bit wet, and just a little bit disappointing.”