Letters From Max ★★★★ Hampstead Theatre | May 23 - Jun 28, 2025


In 2012, Sarah Ruhl met Max Ritvo. He was a senior in her playwriting class, and she immediately recognised his talent for writing. Over the following years, they began a correspondence which covered many topics from poetry to Max's ongoing battle with cancer. Letters From Max was developed from that ongoing dialogue and movingly chronicles their shared love of life and literature. It is a deeply affecting experience that is beautifully captured in the performances of Sirine Saba as the putative mentor, Sarah, and Eric Sirakian, as the irrepressible pupil, Max. These roles are far from fixed, however, and as Sarah opines in the play, she learns as much from Max as he does from her as they both experience his coming to grips with his mortality. It is fascinating to watch these two intelligent and articulate individuals struggle with questions of art and death, and both Saba and Sirakian put in beautifully subtle and cerebral performances. If there is any fault to find in this lovely piece of writing, it is that it straddles the line between poetry and play in a way that can sometimes seem uneasy. The joy of the former is that it can be re-read and re-considered, pondered and pored over, at one's leisure, whereas the latter exists only in the moment. There is so much to unpack here and too frequently it is lost as the interchanges move on. However, it definitely makes for good reason to buy the play text so one can consider Max and Sarah's meditations at leisure. Blanche McIntyre's direction nicely makes use of the space available, ensuring the audience's engagement is not lost even in some of the denser discussions, while Dick Bird's simple set of a hanging glass partition does a brilliant job of conjuring so many relevant metaphors as it mirrors the discussion onto the audience. We couldn't help thinking of St Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, "For now we see through a glass, darkly...." That glass pane becomes a barrier and a window that is wonderfully evocative. Letters From Max is intense and intelligent theatre that is both touching and challenging.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Helen Murray

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: Eton Ave, London NW3 3EU, UK

Most Popular

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 »

This Is My Family ★★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Elephant | May 23 - Jul 12, 2025

Image
The title is simple and straightforward, and that says it all about this musical in which young Nicky recounts the story of her family. Her sixteen-year-old brother Matt is a Goth who is in love for the first time. Her grandmother May is starting to lose her memory. Father Steve is going through a middle-age crisis and is trying to recapture his youth while facing the prospects of a new job. Aunt Sian has yet another new man in her life, and Yvonne, Nicky's under-appreciated and overwhelmed mother, is desperately trying to hold both herself and the family together. There is nothing particularly new here, and the characters are all fairly well-known to us. But sometimes, it is the very predictability of the people and the familiarity of the plot that provides what we are looking for. The romcom's plot is trite, and we know the adventure film is going to end with the triumph of good over evil, but if done well, they can be very satisfying. This Is My Family has a story that echo...
Full Details »

Elephant ★★★★★ Menier Chocolate Factory | May 22 - Jun 28, 2025

Image
Many one-person shows are representative of an increasingly popular genre - the theatre of personal catharsis. Elephant written, composed and performed by Anoushka Lucas is no exception, but it is a truly first rate example of its type. Lucas' character, Lylah, is the child of Indian, Cameroonian, French and English heritage who strives to come to terms with the issues of race and class that form the context of her socialisation and ambivalent sense of self. As an individual she is brought up to assimilate into a white middle-class society, but as a professional musician she is faced with an industry that wants to accentuate her race and working-class roots, denying the complexity of who she is. Lylah's struggle with issues of self-acceptance becomes tangled into her desperate desire to be accepted by others as she attempts to become an individual who is not defined by the racial and class lenses that both she, and others, constantly see her through. Indeed, her brief ponderin...
Full Details »

Here We Are ★★★★ National Theatre | Until June 28, 2025

Image
Stephen Sondheim and Luis Buñuel is not a pairing that immediately comes to mind, but Sondheim's last work is an adaptation of two of Buñuel's films to the stage. The first act of Here We Are references The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the second act is a riff on Buñuel's earlier film, The Exterminating Angel . The first act deals with a spoilt set of upper class New Yorkers trying to find a place for brunch and is an allegorical parody of capitalism's despoilment of the planet. It is far from subtle, but the piece is enlivened and enriched by Sondheim's signature musical tropes and his clever lyrics. The second act is even darker than the first, with the group of friends trapped in the embassy of a fictitious Latin American country. Here the questions raised are existential rather than political, and we don't have Sondheim's music to lighten the didacticism. While it can be argued that this is a thematic choice, the absent score is definitely mis...
Full Details »

House of Games ★★★ Hampstead Theatre | May 2 - Jun 7, 2025

Image
Tales of the trickster, or conman, are almost as old as literature itself. The unflagging popularity of the genre is demonstrated by the frequent revivals of classics like Tartuffe and the endless remakes of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley . However, the popularity of such fare depends on at least two components: the question of whether the trick will succeed while the trickster adapts to unforeseen circumstances and the issue of who is really being tricked. The audience's pleasure comes from watching the conman adapt to what seem near disastrous impediments to his plans, and in more recent examples, from trying to solve the puzzle of who is really being conned. On this level, the problem with House of Games is that adaptor, Richard Bean, too often telegraphs what is going to happen, robbing the piece of its necessary suspense and undermining the audience's need to puzzle out who is actually manipulating whom. Lisa Dillon as Margaret, the psychiatrist whose p...
Full Details »

The Barber in London: Highlights from a Remarkable Collection ★★★★ The Courtauld Gallery | May 23, 2025 - Feb 22, 2026

Image
In 1932, the same year that The Courtauld Gallery was founded, Hattie Lady Barber created an endowment at the University of Birmingham to foster the arts. Although she herself did not have an important collection, the initial director, Thomas Bodkin, set about assembling an interesting mix of acquisitions that grew into the impressive collection that exists today. Because the permanent home for this 160 paintings is currently undergoing renovations eighteen major pieces are now on loan to The Courtauld. Fifteen works are on display in one gallery, and three others have been integrated into the Gallery's permanent collection. The works in the main room provide almost a history of western art stretching from Giovanni Bellini's "St Jerome in the Wilderness" (c. 1460) to Max Pechstein's "Still Life in Grey" (1913). Along the way are works by Frans Hals, Nicolas Poussin, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and James McNeill Whistler. Perhaps, the most interesting thread i...
Full Details »

Our Cosmic Dust ★★★ Park Theatre | Jun 2 - Jul 5, 2025

Image
This gentle fable about a child who is mourning the loss of his father won three prizes at Japan's Yomiuri Theatre Awards in 2024. For that original production, Michinari Ozawa not only wrote, directed and did the set design, but he also starred in the show. It is quite an extraordinary achievement. Our Cosmic Dust tells the story of a young boy, Shotaro, who is equally precocious. When he questions his mother as to what has happened to his late father, she says he has become a star. This causes Shotaro to withdraw and become silent, as he ponders the meaning of her explanation. He then sets out on a quest which not only interrogates the notion of an afterlife, but also questions the very place of humanity in the universe. These metaphysical and cosmological themes are beautifully expounded in the story, with Shotaro being represented by a puppet operated against a stunning set which makes use of some delightful LED display imagery. Indeed, this is a show that has an extraordinary...
Full Details »

The Frogs ★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Borough | May 23 - Jun 28, 2025

Image
This updating of Aristophanes' play maintains much the same plot as the original with the god Dionysos and his slave Xanthias going on a quest to Hades to bring back Athens' greatest playwright to provide guidance to the polity in troubled times. In the original, the pair intend to bring back Euripides from the dead, but in this rewrite the object of their quest is George Bernard Shaw. After an amusing crossing of the river Styx with a stoned Charon, the second act sees the pair in hell with Dionysos judging a poetry slam between GBS and Shakespeare to determine which author could best help the world in addressing its political and social issues. (In the original this contest was Euripides versus Aeschylus.) The current show is rife with lots of puns and pop-culture humour, and Burt Shevelove and Nathan Lane's adaptation produces suitably manic mayhem while Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics cleverly parody various familiar tunes. The cast brings tremendous enthusiasm ...
Full Details »

The Comedy About Spies ★★★★★ Noël Coward Theatre | Until September 5, 2025

Image
At the height of the Cold War, there was no business like the spy business, and this thoroughly delightful comedy is a brilliant send-up of our enduring fascination with James Bond and his counterparts. The plot, such as it is, revolves around trying to thwart a double agent who is intending to deliver plans for a secret doomsday weapon to the Soviets. But, there's really not much need to worry about that. This spoof about spooks is a wonderfully wacky farce with agents from the CIA, the KGB and MI6 all running around a hotel where an earnest young baker is planning a proposal to his girlfriend and a hapless actor is preparing to audition for the part that Sean Connery made his own. The silliness is non-stop, and the gags come thick and fast. The puns are totally outrageous, and the cast's physical comedy is superlative. While all of the performances were outstanding, our particular favourites were Chris Leask as the back-story obsessed Sergei Ivanov, and Henry Shields as the t...
Full Details »

Giffords Circus: Laguna Bay ★★★★ Chiswick House & Gardens | June 5 - 22, 2025

Image
One of our favourite signs of summer is the return of Giffords Circus to Chiswick House & Gardens. This year marks the troupe's 25th anniversary, and to celebrate they have created "Laguna Bay." This is a show inspired by America in the 1950s. It is a nostalgic flashback to what might now seem a simpler and more innocent time, full of sun, surf and rock 'n' roll. All the crowd favourites are back including the ubiquitous Tweedy, the clown who has been with the show for over twenty years. This year he is struggling with deck chairs and ladders as he also laughably inserts himself into almost all of the other acts. He pops up in Maximiliano's magic sequence in which he is made to neatly disappear. He bedevils Mikey Fletcher, the talented singing emcee of the show, and he creates ice cream havoc with The Rivelinos, Daniel Santos Silva and Jose Luis Santos Oliveira. At the circus, our personal favourites are always the acrobats and aerialists and the Ethio-Sal...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings