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The Truth... Or is it?

The Truth... Or is it?

✮✮✮✮ 1/2 Florian Zeller's The Truth Wyndham's Theatre | London directed by Lindsay Posner Florian Zeller is the golden boy of the British theatre scene at the moment, with the French playwright seeing three of his plays on London stages so far this year. The latest, The Truth, is a comedy with a simple premise: Michel is having an affair with Alice, the wife of his best friend, Paul. The dialogue is tight, but the plot seems slightly predictable. We think we know how this one

Beyond the Brain

Beyond the Brain

✮✮✮✮ Nick Payne's Elegy Donmar Warehouse | London directed by Josie Rourke What is a life? Is it enough just to be alive and well, or do we need something else to make our lives more than just existence? These are some of the questions raised in Nick Payne’s latest play, Elegy. Lorna (Zoë Wanamaker) has a neurodegenerative disease which will kill her, unless she has the affected part of her brain removed – and with it every memory of her wife, Carrie (Barbara Flynn). The pl

A Little Too Beautiful

A Little Too Beautiful

✮✮✮ Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Aldwych Theatre | London book Douglas McGrath music & lyrics Gerry Goffin | Carole King | Barry Mann | Cynthia Weil directed by Marc Bruni “I can't watch my life like this,” Carole King told her daughter and manager Sherry Kondor after reluctantly attending an early reading of Beautiful, long before it reached Broadway. But 73 year-old King herself turned up at the opening night of this West End transfer, afterwards taking to the stage t

Before the Führer

Before the Führer

✮✮✮✮ Mark Hayhurst's Taken At Midnight Theatre Royal Haymarket | London directed by Jonathan Church “There’s no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it,” remarks Irwin from Alan Bennett’s The History Boys. Transferring from Chichester to the Haymarket on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Taken At Midnight is a capable refutation of the idea. This is a quiet and dignified commemoration of an ineffable event made more and more startling by

A Stitched-Up Sashay Through Industrial Unrest

A Stitched-Up Sashay Through Industrial Unrest

✮✮✮✮ Made in Dagenham Adelphi Theatre | London music David Arnold lyrics Richard Thomas book Richard Bean directed by Rupert Goold Industrial unrest is unlikely grist to the mill, but it's made plenty of dough for the British film industry, whether it's Pride, Billy Elliott or The Full Monty. This easily digestible adaptation of the 2010 Britflick has a surreally silly streak that almost, but doesn't quite, undermine its attempts to depict the morally grey landscape of factor

You Really Got Me - You Really Did

You Really Got Me - You Really Did

✮✮✮✮✮ Ray Davies' Sunny Afternoon Harold Pinter Theatre | London book Joe Penhall directed by Edward Hall Even if musicals aren’t your cup of tea (and there are plenty of us out there), you should book seats for Sunny Afternoon while you still can: word is quickly spreading that this West End transfer of the Hampstead Theatre’s wonderful Kinks musical is the hottest ticket in town. People are already travelling from far and wide to see it, including the people next to me who’

Boys' Night In

Boys' Night In

✮✮✮✮ Kevin Elyot's My Night With Reg Donmar Warehouse | London directed by Robert Hastie In Bulgakov’s theatrical novel Black Snow he points out that the Russians have an untranslatable word for when something goes wrong on stage. These mishaps have the gracious effect of concentrating the audience’s attention, a sharpening of eyes and ears too used to the smooth rapport of rehearsed text. But more than this they are reminders that in theatre no show is ever quite the same. S

Are We All Thatcher's Children?

Are We All Thatcher's Children?

✮✮✮ 1/2 David Hare's Skylight Wyndham's Theatre | London directed by Stephen Daldry It’s been more than twenty years since David Hare’s Skylight premiered at the National Theatre. Now, in a post-Thatcher world, Stephen Daldry has brought this time capsule of a play back to the London stage. Tom Sergeant is a successful business man, a role originally created by Michael Gambon succeeded here by Bill Nighy in its first West End transfer – alongside him Carey Mulligan masterfull

A Sharp Retro Take On Orwell's Futurist Dystopia

A Sharp Retro Take On Orwell's Futurist Dystopia

✮✮✮✮ George Orwell's 1984 Playhouse Theatre | London directed by Duncan Macmillan & Robert Icke Theatre adaptations of classic novels would probably go in several critics’ personal Room 101s – especially those with narrators, or, heaven forfend, voiceovers. But this latest transfer from Islington powerhouse the Almeida Theatre manages to be intensely literary without any of the staid, storytelling bookishness that can plague the genre. Together, Duncan Macmillan and Robert Ic

A Chorus Line

A Chorus Line

✮✮ A Chorus Line London Palladium | London music Marvin Hamlisch lyrics Edward Kleban book James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante directed by Bob Avian Has there ever been a “great” musical without that strong pulsating beat at its heart, the gut and guts of the story, the essential element that is the chorus? Imagine The Wizard of Oz without the Munchkins, West Side Story without the Sharks or the Jets, The Sound of Music without the singing nuns? In A Chorus Line, now playing

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