The Pillowman ★★★ Duke of York's Theatre | Jun 10 - Sep 2, 2023


The writer, Katurian, has produced a series of stories which clearly mirror the murders of some local children. She or her mentally challenged brother, either individually or jointly, might be responsible for these terrible crimes. They are hauled into a local police station and are threatened with torture unless they reveal their involvement. Martin McDonagh has written a play that intends to keep the audience vacillating between horror and laughter as the grisly story comes out in the context of the absurdity of the interrogation. Unfortunately for us, the nature of the crimes was too numbing to allow for the intended dark humour to resonate. Katurian's stories, like The Pillowman itself, are mainly parables about the traumatic sources that may be a wellspring for much art. Similarly, the play reflects on the old chestnut of whether art influences or is responsible for its affect on people. The play begins with a half-remembered quotation about the responsibility of the storyteller being to tell a good story. In this case, the points are hammered home rather relentlessly and the mixture of horror, humour and aesthetic commentary wears thin. As Katurian, Lily Allen demonstrates some impressive acting chops, and both Steve Pemberton and Paul Kaye put in strong performances as her menacing interrogators who are full of comic repartee. The Pillowman will certainly have an audience, but for us the various components didn't mesh. Still, if you're up for an evening of Grand Guignol laced with some Theatre of the Absurd, this might be the perfect show for you.

Rated: ★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Johan Persson

Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

When, Where, Getting there:
  • Jun 10 - Sep 2, 2023
  • Mon - Sat: 7:30 pm, Wed & Sat: 2:30 pm
  • Duke of York's Theatre
  • Nearest tube: Leicester Square
  • https://pillowmanplay.com/
Map & Location: St Martin's Ln, London WC2N 4BG, UK

Most Popular

ABBA Voyage ★★★★★ ABBA Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park | Extended Run

Image
When great music from the past meets mind boggling technology from the future, the result is ABBA Voyage . This is a concert like no other. In a purpose built arena designed specifically for the show, massive high resolution LED screens, advanced lighting, and surround sound are used to create a fully immersive ABBA concert experience. Although the group’s last appearance in London was at Wembley Arena in 1979, they return technologically in this extraordinary production. These are not holograms or AI generated performances. This is a meticulously animated concert based on real performances by the band themselves. To achieve this effect, the group came together and re-performed their music using motion capture technology. They partnered with top visual effects experts to digitally recreate their younger selves. While the show includes a live band and backup singers, the Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid seen on stage appear every bit as real as their original counterparts. One quick...
Full Details »

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans ★★★★ The British Museum | Jan 15 - May 25, 2026

Image
This small yet thoughtful exhibition explores the long-standing connections between two island nations. The relationship between Britain and Hawaiʻi dates back to Captain James Cook’s third voyage in 1778. He became the first European to document contact with the Pacific archipelago and that connection still resonates today, most visibly in the Hawaiian state flag (Ka Hae Hawaiʻi), which continues to display the Union Jack in its top-left corner. This display at the British Museum draws primarily on the museum’s own extensive collections, complemented by judicious loans from other institutions, including the Bishop Museum in Hawaiʻi. It is organised into three main sections: Laying a foundation, Allying kingdoms , and Reshaping relationships . The first section introduces visitors to Hawaiʻi's distinctive art, history, and cultural traditions. The second focuses on the 1824 visit of King Kamehameha II (also known as Liholiho) and Queen Kamāmalu to London, and on their tragic deaths...
Full Details »

Gerry & Sewell ★★ Aldwych Theatre | January 13 - 24, 2026

Image
Gerry & Sewell presents itself as a theatrical pot o’ scouse. The traditional Tyneside dish, made from whatever meat, bones, or leftovers can be found in the cupboards, is a hearty working-class meal that reflects both Geordie ingenuity and endurance. The play clearly intends to offer a similar tribute to its roots. However, in the production, the disparate elements fail to cohere. The main storyline of the two eponymous protagonists and their shared dream of securing season tickets to their beloved football club is obscured rather than enriched by histories of Gerry’s two sisters, his abusive father, and his suicidal mother. While this material provides background about inheritance, damage, and class survival, it feels simultaneously excessive and underdeveloped. Tonally, the show is also jarring. It shifts rapidly between social realism and broad comedy, with these alternations feeling less like deliberate contrasts and more like unresolved collisions. Dance routines, rapping, a...
Full Details »

High Noon ★★★ Harold Pinter Theatre | Until March 6, 2026

Image
When it was first written, the 1952 film High Noon drew much of its force from the then political context and from Gary Cooper’s Oscar-winning performance. Created during the era of McCarthyism by Carl Foreman while he was under scrutiny from the House Un-American Activities Committee, the film’s moral urgency, combined with Cooper’s quiet integrity, helped secure its status as a classic. The tale of a small-town marshal who confronts an anarchic threat to the rule of law struck a deep chord with audiences. In this allegory, Will Kane stands isolated as he faces an approaching tyranny that leaves his fellow citizens paralysed by fear. Set against their timidity and willingness to submit to intimidation or to flee, his resolve appears all the more heroic. Kane’s ordeal is further complicated by the two opposing forces that inform his personal life and underscore his symbolic role as the law. His Quaker wife embodies noble but impractical ideals, grounded in a faith that rejects violenc...
Full Details »

Beautiful Little Fool ★★ Southwark Playhouse, Borough | January 15 - Feb 28, 2026

Image
The story of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is a love affair and a tragedy seemingly made for the stage. He was a brilliant writer who descended into alcoholism and was largely forgotten by the time of his death. She was his muse, and possibly his collaborator, who died in a fire at the asylum where she had finally found some measure of peace. Together, they came to symbolise the Jazz Age, that feverish period of reckless hedonism between the world wars, driven by aimlessness and quiet despair. In Beautiful Little Fool , their story is narrated by their only daughter, Scottie, as she wanders through an archive filled with the remnants of her parents’ lives. One of the challenges of dramatising real people is shaping a narrative that serves a clear purpose while leaving out biographical details that, though intriguing, do not fit thematically. The musical never fully overcomes this challenge. Unnecessary anecdotes, such as the story of Gertrude Stein coining the term “Lost Generation,” appe...
Full Details »

BIGRE / “Fish Bowl” ★★★★ Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre | Jan 28 - 31, 2026

Image
The art of mime has deep theatrical roots in France, evolving from commedia dell’arte and 19th-century pantomime into a modern form centred on gesture, silence, and physical storytelling. In the 20th century, Marcel Marceau elevated mime to international prominence through his character Bip and his poetic, wordless exploration of human emotion. At the same time, filmmaker Jacques Tati brought mimetic comedy to cinema, using precise physicality and keen observation to satirise modern life through his iconic Monsieur Hulot. This tradition is closely linked to silent film comedy, where meaning is carried through movement rather than speech. Like Marceau and Tati, silent-era figures such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton relied on gesture, timing, and physical invention to convey character and emotion, revealing a shared visual language of humour and poetry beyond words. The Compagnie Le Fils du Grand Réseau continues this lineage by translating French mime and visual comedy into a con...
Full Details »

Arcadia ★★★★★ The Old Vic | Jan 24 - Mar 21, 2026

Image
This splendid revival of Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece is definitely one of this year’s must-see productions. Intellectually demanding yet fizzing with wit, the play is brought vividly to life by a uniformly outstanding ensemble. Seamus Dillane is superb as the rakish tutor Septimus Hodge, delivering a performance of effortless charm and sly intelligence, while Matthew Steer is irresistibly funny as the mock poet/scientist and hapless cuckold Ezra Chater. Isis Hainsworth is luminous as the prodigy Thomasina, blending youthful grace with startling intellectual authority, and Fiona Button is deliciously bold as her mother, the gloriously predatory Lady Croom. Set in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arcadia explores how we confront death and search for meaning in our lives. Its title suggests Poussin's pastoral painting with the tombstone in its foreground, et in Arcadia ego . Faced with this existential problem, the play suggests two possible routes to understanding: scienc...
Full Details »

Cable Street ★★★ Marylebone Theatre | Jan 16 - Feb 28, 2026

Image
In 1936, Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists planned to march through a working-class, multicultural area of East London that was home to many Jewish and immigrant families. When they entered the area they were met with unexpected resistance. The musical Cable Street recounts this historic event from the perspectives of three families: the Scheinbergs, the Kennys and the Williams. Aspiring Jewish boxer Sammy Scheinberg and Irish communist Mairead Kenny lead the opposition to the BUF march, while the unemployed and disaffected Ron Williams becomes involved on the other side of the conflict. The story is framed by a present-day tourist tour of Cable Street, led by Sammy’s nephew and followed by Mairead’s daughter. The characters in Cable Street are fairly one-dimensional, reflecting the polemical nature of the piece, and the cast assumes multiple roles with minimal costume changes and some gender-blind casting, which can occasionally cause confusion. Despite these limitati...
Full Details »

Orphans ★★★★ Jermyn Street Theatre | January 5 - 24, 2026

Image
Phillip is an emotionally immature, developmentally challenged recluse, protected and controlled by his impulsive and potentially violent older brother Treat who supports them both by stealing. Together they inhabit a sealed world of rituals, games, and shared fantasy. However, when Treat kidnaps Harold, an apparently wealthy criminal on the run, this act proves far from the solution he expects. Instead, the power dynamic shifts as Harold, himself an orphan, assumes an almost parental role, exposing the brothers to an alternative way of living beyond their self-made confinement. In just two weeks, he becomes a conduit to the outside world and offers the boys a new vision of themselves. Harold’s repeated rendition of “The Prisoner’s Song” underscores the play’s central metaphor of entrapment. Phillip is paralysed by his fear of leaving the apartment, Treat by his reliance on violence and control, and Harold by his desperate attempt to outrun the past. While Lyle Kessler’s dark vision e...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings