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Review: ‘Old Money’
Thanks to Maureen Lipman's superbly tender performance as Joyce, delicate with comic flourishes, it remains quietly uplifting even though Wooley finally strays into mawkishness.
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London Theater Review: ‘Henry IV’ in a Women’s Prison
After her all-female “Julius Caesar” in 2012 set in a women’s prison — a production that launched an international tour that included a much-lauded stop in New York — director Phyllida Lloyd and...
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West End Review: Kinks Musical ‘Sunny Afternoon’
Charting the career of Ray Davies and the Kinks at their peak, “Sunny Afternoon” is a jukebox musical in the mold of Buddy Holly bio-tuner “Buddy.” Trouble is, no one dies at the end. And the odd...
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West End Review: ‘Made in Dagenham’ with Gemma Arterton
“Made in Dagenham” goes from zero to sixty in no time at all, motored mostly by laughs and tubthumping tunes. Sadly, the musical runs out of gas halfway through, thanks to a top-heavy plot and...
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London Theater Review: ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’
Annawadi, the vast slum concealed behind Mumbai Intl. Airport, was author Katherine Boo’s home for three years. It’s doubtful that she’d recognize the place in its onstage incarnation. The crowded,...
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London Theater Review: ‘Assassins’ at the Menier Chocolate Factory
Assassins assemble! Stephen Sondheim and John Wiedman’s ragtag band of marksmen gets a Marvel Comics makeover courtesy of Jamie Lloyd and his regular designer Soutra Gilmour. Gathered in an abandoned,...
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West End Review: ‘Cats,’ With a Pussycat Doll and Rapping
They say the past is a foreign country. “Cats” makes it seem like a different species as well. Back in the West End after a 12-year absence, and boosted at the box office by a star turn from Pussycat...
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London Theater Review: ‘Golem’ at the Young Vic
The U.K. theater company 1927 has a knack for prescience. The troupe’s last show, “The Animals and the Children Took to the Streets,” preempted the London riots. Now, days after Stephen Hawking warned...
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London Theater Review: ‘City of Angels’ at the Donmar Warehouse
As British theater frets over representation of diversity — rightly so — Larry Gelbart and Cy Coleman’s jazz musical makes for canny programming from Donmar Warehouse boss Josie Rourke. A spoof with a...
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Chiwetel Ejiofor to Launch Rufus Norris’ First Season at London’s National...
Chiwetel Ejiofor will play “Everyman” in a 2015 season that will also include new work from creatives including Patrick Marber (“Closer”), Wallace Shawn, Caryl Churchill and Blur frontman Damon Albarn,...
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U.K. Theater Review: Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Oppenheimer’
This is the Oppenheimer bio-play to end all Oppenheimer bio-plays. Even if exhaustive ultimately becomes exhausting, Tom Morton-Smith has put together a towering three hours in “Oppenheimer,” folding a...
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London’s Critics Circle Awards Go To ‘View From the Bridge,’‘Gypsy’
Ivo Van Hove’s revival of “A View From the Bridge” and Jonathan Kent’s staging of “Gypsy,” starring Imelda Staunton, have picked up Critics Circle Theater Awards in London just ahead of their...
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London Theater Review: Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Hard Problem’
The title is a joke. “The Hard Problem,” Tom Stoppard’s first new play in nine years, comes after a prolonged period of writer’s block: The difficult 35th album. It also refers to the mystery of...
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London Theater Review: James McAvoy in ‘The Ruling Class’
Director Jamie Lloyd’s takeover of London’s Trafalgar Studios has let loose star actors on great parts — a throwback to the golden era of scenery-chewing stage behemoths. As the 14th Earl of Gurney, a...
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West End Review: Ivo Van Hove’s Definitive ‘A View from the Bridge’
It will be a long time before London sees “A View From the Bridge” again. Ivo van Hove’s stripped-back staging, now in the West End after a sell-out Young Vic run last year, is definitive enough to...
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London Review: Mark Rylance in ‘Farinelli and the King’
Long before he became a major international stage actor with three Tony Awards under his belt, Mark Rylance used to run Shakespeare’s Globe. No surprise that he should be keen to try out its new indoor...
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London Theater Review: Ralph Fiennes in ‘Man and Superman’
What a piece of work is “Man and Superman”? Hard work, to be frank. George Bernard Shaw’s experimental juggernaut — deemed unstageable in 1903 — makes for three and a half hours of tangled philosophy:...
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London Theater Review: ‘Antigone’ Starring Juliette Binoche
“Antigone” becomes a plea for pluralism in Ivo Van Hove’s new staging. Teamed up with the French actress Juliette Binoche by London’s Barbican Center, the Belgian director turns Sophocles’s tragedy...
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Broadway’s ‘Memphis,’‘Beautiful’ Lead London’s Olivier Nominations
American musicals dominated the 2015 Olivier Award nominations, with “Memphis” and “Beautiful” leading the pack with a combined total of 17 nods. The National Theatre, meanwhile, had its worst showing...
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London Theater Review: Kevin Spacey in ‘Clarence Darrow’
After 12 years at the helm of London’s Old Vic theater, Kevin Spacey bows out with what is, essentially, an encore: reviving “Clarence Darrow,” his one-man show from last year about the conscientious...
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