London Theatre Reviews - West End & Off West End

What began as impressive use of the theatre space became tedious as the show progressed, as Rainer (Sorcha Kennedy) repeatedly left the stage, leaving the audience to choose between swivelling round (sat on fixed benches that do not swivel) to wherever she was, or otherwise treat the show as a radio play until such time as she returned. I wonder if the show was designed for ‘in the round’ performances. Either way, all that moving around was, for me, a metaphor for a frenetic but scattered … [Read more...]

How does one know if one is mad if one is indeed mad? Or perhaps we shouldn’t even say ‘mad’ these days - people aren’t committed to the madhouse, or sent to the asylum: they are admitted to a secure psychiatric hospital. Whatever such facilities are called, they have, as Nell Hardy’s monologue describes, their own vocabulary set, with buzzwords, phrases and acronyms, which are ultimately largely meaningless, at least to anyone who isn’t a psychiatrist or training to be one. In a … [Read more...]

When the announcer welcomed the audience to the first post-pandemic ballet at Covent Garden last night the response from a packed house, was electric. It was the collective expression of relief and joy after 18 months of isolation. And what a show to welcome us back. Romeo and Juliet is one of the greatest in the repertoire. Combining the plot of Shakespeare, the music of Prokofiev, the choreography of MacMillan, the set designs of Georgiadis and the conducting of Kessels it would be … [Read more...]

The performance graduate in me loves an immersive theatre production, so when the opportunity arose to join 27 Degrees’ latest offering, Behind Closed Doors in East London I jumped at the chance. 24 hours before the production I received an email asking me to check the audio link on my phone was working. I was informed that the production was designed to be an individual outdoor experience using my mobile phone and headphones. I was also told that the piece would be entirely outdoors and … [Read more...]

Terence Rattigan, the gift that keeps on giving. It would be easy to begin a review of The Browning Version by rehashing common tropes associated with the play since its first production in 1948 at the Phoenix Theatre, London. However, such is the respect and compassion playwright Terence Rattigan has for the human heart - its sufferings and humiliations - that we find in The Browning Version a universal tragedy that awaits each human subject, rather than a play simply about the repressed … [Read more...]