UK / West End Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 2

Review Roundup: NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 at the Donmar Warehouse
by Aliya Al-Hassan - December 17, 2024

Arriving in the glittering opulent world of Moscow High Society, the impulsive and romantic Natasha Rostova awaits the return of her fiancé from the front lines. But when she falls under the spell of an intoxicating aristocrat, it is up to the unlikely hero, Pierre, to pick up the pieces of her shat...

Review: TREVOR NELSON'S SOUL CHRISTMAS, The Royal Albert Hall
by Mica Blackwell - December 17, 2024

Trevor Nelson's fifth Soul Christmas is a funky festive offering that showcases the communal power of music. Featuring a group of iconic soul and R'n'B singers doing what they do best, it was a joyous evening that lifted the Scroogiest of spirits....

Review: NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812, Donmar Warehouse
by Debbie Gilpin - December 16, 2024

“Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it’s all the same.' Conflict rages around the world, and yet normal life (with its requisite anxieties) is expected to go on regardless. This is the situation in which Tolstoy’s War and Peace characters find themselves; the Napoleonic Wars continue, but...

Review: THE HOLLY KING AND THE OAK KING, Battersea Arts Centre
by Christiana Rose - December 17, 2024

The Holly King and The Oak King is an immersive and inclusive festive experience, collaboratively created by Battersea Arts Centre, with award-winning immersive arts creators Wild Rumpus....

Review: LETTERS LIVE, Royal Albert Hall
by Alice Cope - December 16, 2024

The seventh Letters Live performance at the Royal Albert Hall was, as always, an absolutely fantastic event. The selection of letters performed ranged from thought-provoking to heartfelt to completely ridiculous, offering something for everyone....

Review: CAROLS AT THE HALL, Royal Albert Hall
by Franco Milazzo - December 16, 2024

If you’re feeling more 'Bah humbug!' than 'Jingle bells!' this season, a visit to the Royal Albert Hall during its annual Christmas concert series might be just the thing to spark some holiday cheer....

Review: THE FIR TREE, artsdepot
by Christiana Rose - December 16, 2024

***** The Fir Tree @artsdepot is a triumph, a beautifully engaging festive family treat and deserves plentiful and full accolades. The Fir Tree is so wonderful, we want to go back for a second visit. #TheFirTree #ChildrensTheatre #FestiveTheatre @chloenelkin...

Review: DEAD HARD, COLAB Tower
by Franco Milazzo - December 14, 2024

If there was an award for the most art forms smooshed into one show, COLAB’s Dead Hard could be a winner. This blend of panto, comedy, immersive and drag is a satisfying mess that somehow (just) works. ...

Review: NUTCRACKER, London Coliseum
by Vikki Jane Vile - December 13, 2024

It has been some time coming. For nearly 15 years English National Ballet enthusiastically performed Wayne Eagling’s Nutcracker, a traditional but rather staid production with a fuzzy narrative and lacking opportunity for the company to shine....

Review: HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS, Arcola Theatre
by Kat Mokrynski - December 16, 2024

Created by Recent Cutbacks, Hold On To Your Butts is a “shot for shot” parody of the iconic Jurassic Park film, with three actors taking on the movie in only seventy minutes (the original film has a runtime of two hours and seven minutes). Jack Baldwin and Laurence Pears take on nearly all of the ch...

Review: SÉAYONCÉ’S PERKY NATIVITITTIES, Yard Theatre
by Franco Milazzo - December 13, 2024

In Séayoncé’s latest adventure, Dan Wye’s drag ghost whisperer joins forces with her ex-lover Satan to put on an anti-Christmas TV show. Well, that’s the plan at least: before long, she discovers that she has been duped by another former amour Santa to deliver the “real” message of the season....

Review: CHRISTMAS COMES TO MOOMINVALLEY, Jacksons Lane
by Christiana Rose - December 16, 2024

Adapted from Tove Jansson’s short story The Fir Tree, the creative team at Jackson’s Lane have collaborated with organisation Moomin Characters and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, to produce a festive spectacle, concerned with wonder, discovery, joy and the pure kindness of giving....

Review: CARLOS ACOSTA'S NUTCRACKER IN HAVANA, Southbank Centre
by Gary Naylor - December 12, 2024

Carlos Acosta's touring show is a delightful Christmassy treat...

Review: MATTHEW BOURNE'S SWAN LAKE: THE NEXT GENERATION, Sadler's Wells
by Franco Milazzo - December 12, 2024

Even 30 years after he created it, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is still his defining production. Just why hasn’t he yet surpassed this masterpiece?...

Review: THE LITTLE FOXES, Young Vic
by Alexander Cohen - December 12, 2024

We love watching a rich family crumble on stage. From Oedipus and his mother to Chekhov’s families fractured by existential angst, to Ibsen’s split by socio-politics paradigm shifts. The Hubbards, the family of former plantation owners in Lilian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, could be the spiritual suc...

Review: FLAMINGO, The Hope Theatre
by Kat Mokrynski - December 13, 2024

“Oh, that I were a man!” In the opening scene, one might worry that they have accidentally stumbled into a one-woman production of Much Ado About Nothing, as the woman on stage gives a passionate rendition of one of Beatrice’s iconic monologues. However, this quickly changes when another woman accid...

Review: CINDERELLA, King's Head Theatre
by Kat Mokrynski - December 13, 2024

Written and directed by British Panto Award winner Andrew Pollard, Cinderella is given a “North London upgrade” in the King’s Head theatre’s first-ever pantomime. Maddy Erzan-Essien stars as the titular heroine, a girl who longs to find her place in the world and is forced to serve her evil stepsist...

Review: THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY, Southwark Playhouse
by Gary Naylor - December 11, 2024

A valiant effort, but too long and too ambitious to achieve its aim of transforming Flaubert's tragic heroine into a comic lead...

Review Roundup: What Went Right for THE PRODUCERS at Menier Chocolate Factory?
by Aliya Al-Hassan - December 11, 2024

The first major London revival of Mel Brooks’ musical adaptation of The Producers is now open at the Menier Chocolate Factory, directed by Tony Award-winning Patrick Marber and Broadway choreographer Lorin Latarro....

Review: OLGA KOCH COMES FROM MONEY, Soho Theatre
by Kat Mokrynski - December 12, 2024

Do you relate to the problem of being bullied in state school for being rich and then being bullied in private school for not being rich enough? Then this might be the show for you. Olga Koch Comes From Money is an hour of stand-up in which Koch explores her own relationship with wealth in a show th...

Review: THE PRODUCERS, Menier Chocolate Factory
by Aliya Al-Hassan - December 11, 2024

Good things come to those who wait. Last seen in the West End way back in 2004, starring Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, Mel Brooks' satirical work of genius, The Producers, has finally goose-stepped its way to a glorious return to the London stage at the wonderful Menier Chocolate Factory....

Review: BETTE AND JOAN, Park Theatre
by Gary Naylor - December 09, 2024

Greta Scacchi and Felicity Dean are gruesomely grotesque but also wonderfully warm as the fading titans of the Golden Age of Hollywood...

Review: WHITE CHRISTMAS, The Mill At Sonning
by Mica Blackwell - December 09, 2024

A gem of a show wrapped in a big red bow, White Christmas at the Mill at Sonning brings a dollop of Golden Age glitz and festive joy to the holiday season. With immaculate production value and a talented cast, I dare you to not leave the theatre counting your blessings instead of sheep....

Review: MADDIE MOATE'S A VERY CURIOUS CHRISTMAS, Apollo Theatre
by Christiana Rose - December 09, 2024

Maddie Moate’s festive live science show incorporates the perfect blend of live science experiments, a mission to assist Mrs Claus and a taste of musical theatre with a pantomime flair....

Review: RUINATION, Royal Ballet and Opera
by Franco Milazzo - December 08, 2024

In a season where theatres are filled with the usual hoary horde - here a Christmas Carol, there a Nutcracker or Messiah - the Royal Opera House deserves praise and maybe even a standing ovation for bringing back its Yuletide hit from 2022. Ben Duke’s Ruination (a co-production between the Royal Bal...