Phelim McDermott has created a richly theatrical meditation on his relationship with Philip Glass and the composer's music. The show begins with anecdotes about McDermott's attempts to create a production with Glass and Maurice Sendak based on the latter's In the Night Kitchen , before widening into reflections on the artistic and spiritual journey that followed. First published in 1970, In the Night Kitchen tells the story of Mickey, a young boy who tumbles into a surreal dream world. In retrospect, the tale can be seen as a metaphor for McDermott's own immersion in Glass's music, a journey he explores through the lens of Arnold Mindell's Processwork, or deep democracy. Mindell's model can be visualised as a cone comprising levels of experience, from Consensus Reality, our everyday consciousness, through Dreamland, the realm of feelings, symbols, and dreams, to the Essence Level, the deepest state of awareness, where distinctions dissolve into a primal sen...

In 1897 Oscar Méténier founded the Grand Guignol in Paris. In 1898 under Max Maurey the theatre became famous for its plays featuring fear, madness, torture, and murder. The theatre specialised in elaborate special effects, including: realistic severed limbs, flowing fake blood, eye gouging, decapitations, acid attacks, surgical operations and torture scenes. It became the precursor of today's splatter films or slasher flicks. The Almeida's current production of Cleansed seems to be an extension of this tradition. The plot is slight and the characters are barely developed. In an institutional setting, a madman who calls himself a doctor tortures people including a gay couple and a young woman whose brother has died in his "care". When the doctor is not busy with maiming and dismembering, he masturbates while watching some sort of Only Fans outlet which features a sultry young woman. Cleansed is gory, gruesome and grotesque. It wallows in graphic depictions of ince...

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that anything can be turned into a musical, but the first question on hearing about Trainspotting - The Musical is whether this might be a step too far. First published in 1993, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is a collection of interconnected stories centred on a group of young people in Leith, Edinburgh, during the 1980s. Three years later, Danny Boyle's film adaptation, with a screenplay by John Hodge, brought those stories to the screen in a graphic and uncompromising portrayal of drug addiction. The words that best describe both the novel and the film are dark, bleak and gritty. They are not qualities one instinctively associates with musical theatre. By its very nature, the musical genre tends to elevate its subject matter. The Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story bear little resemblance to real street gangs, while the tragedy of Blood Brothers and the macabre tale of Sweeney Todd acquire an almost operatic grandeur. It is difficult t...

Midnight at the Never Get is set in 1960s New York and tells the story of a singer and composer who fall in love and create a cabaret act together. It is a time when homosexuality is criminalised and gay bars are routinely raided by the police. When Trevor (Ben Platt) and Arthur (Gregor Milne) decide not to alter the pronouns in their love songs, they effectively consign themselves to performing in back-room venues such as Greenwich Village's The Never Get rather than pursuing mainstream success. Mark Sonnenblick has written a show that captures this dark chapter in LGBTQ+ history with sensitivity and warmth, accompanied by a score that is steeped in the traditions of the Great American Songbook. The ballads are deeply affecting; the comic numbers are clever and catchy. The melodies are memorable, and the lyrics are literate. The book is full of heart, and at its centre is a love story that feels entirely convincing. Equally compelling is the show's exploration of the politica...

In 1994, writer Harry Shearer, best known for The Simpsons and This Is Spinal Tap , joined forces with Tom Leopold of Cheers and Seinfeld to create a radio satire about J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial director of the FBI for almost fifty years. Hoover became notorious for allegedly blackmailing successive presidents to secure his position, refusing to investigate organised crime in the United States, and relentlessly cultivating his own public image. Behind the façade of the fearless crime-fighting anti-communist crusader, however, lay a secret life, including a long-term relationship with fellow FBI agent Clyde Tolson and the enduring stories surrounding the famous photograph of Hoover in drag. Hoover was also a gambler associated with various mobsters. This is material ripe for satire, and Shearer and Leopold have the impeccable comic credentials to tackle it. For Here Comes J. Edgar! A Comedy Musical  they are joined by the award-winning composer Peter Matz, whose score pl...

The delightfully absurd premise of HOLE! centres on a bizarre sect of American Christians who believe that, to be saved at the apocalypse, they must wear a butt plug at all times. Against all expectations, they turn out to be right. The "Great Sucking" removes almost everyone else from Earth, leaving only the cult members and, from their perspective, a handful of questionable additional survivors. After an act of decidedly inappropriate behaviour, the prophet's son Luke and his best friend Connor are dispatched on a quest to rid the world of the butt plug wearers whose reasons for sporting the devices appear to be anything but religious. It is all gleefully outrageous fun, but the premise begins to wear thin and the jokes become increasingly predictable. However, Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper are excellent as the two friends and the show's gallery of eccentric characters. They slip effortlessly between multiple roles while giving each character a distinct per...

Writer-director Simon Stone's new version of The Oresteia is based on the first two plays of Aeschylus' trilogy. Agamemnon/Christopher is recast as part of the military-industrial complex, while the House of Atreus becomes the House of Middleton. In this contemporary reimagining, Christopher's daughter Iphigenia/Isabel is no longer sacrificed to the gods but driven to her death in protest against her father's role in what she sees as the war machine. However, the major challenge in recreating a Greek tragedy in the way Stone attempts is to capture the sense of the curse, the epic inevitability of what happens. The classical concept of fate is largely foreign to a contemporary audience, which tends to interpret human behaviour through the lens of psychology and individual responsibility rather than as the working out of an external, inexorable force. Yet it is precisely that force which elevates these stories into tragedy rather than simply domestic drama. The question,...

Jonathan Caren's Hit Machine lives up to its title. Funny, moving and unexpectedly profound, it delivers both laughs and emotional punch while asking searching questions about family, memory and the price of turning pain into art. The play centres on two brothers bound together by childhood trauma and an enduring love of music, yet divided by the radically different ways they have learned to survive. Wes (Josh Radnor) is a high-powered music executive who has repressed the trauma of his upbringing beneath the polished armour of professional success in an industry famed for its ruthless politics. His younger brother Alex (Noah Galvin), by contrast, wears every wound on the surface. Unable to make peace with the past, he has drifted through life, his talent overshadowed by unresolved grief. When the brothers reunite, old resentments, shared memories and long-buried truths erupt with wit, tenderness and devastating honesty. Caren writes sibling relationships with remarkable precision...

Jonathan Larson died at the age of thirty-five on the eve of the opening of his best-known musical, Rent , a reimagining of La Bohème set in 1980s New York. His earlier autobiographical musical, Tick, Tick... Boom! , was later adapted into a critically acclaimed 2021 film. These two works are the surviving legacy of a career tragically cut short. First presented as a concert series in 2018, The Jonathan Larson Project was conceived and directed by Jennifer Ashley Tepper. The production brings together previously unheard songs, cut material from Larson’s two major musicals, and selections from his unproduced works. After becoming a fully staged off-Broadway musical in March 2025, the show has now arrived in London. It serves as both an homage to Larson’s life and a reflection of the themes that shaped his writing: the struggles of modern urban life, the challenges of artistic ambition, the search for family and friendship, and anxieties about the social and political environment. Beca...

Created by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jesus Christ Superstar first appeared as a concept album in 1970 before opening on Broadway in 1971. Since then, it has become one of the world's most enduring rock musicals, with countless stage revivals and a celebrated 1973 film adaptation. Telling the story of the final days of Jesus' life, it explores the complex relationships between Jesus, Judas, and Mary Magdalene. In this latest production, Sam Ryder, who represented the United Kingdom at Eurovision in 2022, takes on the title role. His soaring vocals are undeniably impressive and will delight his many fans, but his acting lacks the same confidence. Ryder appears far more at ease when holding a guitar or singing into a hand microphone than when simply inhabiting the character of Jesus. That reliance on hand-held and standing microphones is one of the production's more baffling choices. Although the cast wears headset microphones throughout, the additional ones repeatedl...

Shear Madness is both a play and a theatrical phenomenon. Based on a 1963 German experimental drama, Bruce Jordan and Marilyn Abrams transformed it into a comedy set in a hair salon. Their adaptation premiered in a small village in upstate New York in 1976 before moving to Boston in 1980, where the show enjoyed an extraordinary forty-year run, finally closing in 2023. Since then, it has been translated into numerous languages and produced around the world, confirming its status as a cut above the average whodunit. The action takes place in a bustling hair salon where two stylists and four customers learn that the upstairs neighbour, a former concert pianist, has suffered the unkindest cut of all. When the police arrive, the audience is enlisted to comb through the evidence, cut through the misdirection, and tie up the loose ends. The first act is packed with sharp one-liners and an infectious energy that keeps events clipping along at a brisk pace. The cast is excellent, with standout...

The Mint Theater Company has built its reputation on reviving neglected theatrical works, and Wife to James Whelan seems a worthy candidate for rediscovery. Written by Teresa Deevy, whose six plays were produced at Ireland's Abbey Theatre between 1930 and 1936, this effort marked the end of that fruitful relationship when the Abbey declined to stage it. Deevy's drama follows James Whelan, a good-natured and ambitious young man whose rise in fortune transforms both his social aspirations and his choice of partner. Like Paris weighing the claims of three goddesses, James finds himself choosing between three women who each represent a different future. Nan is his first love and the village beauty. Kate is the loyal confidante, caregiver, and moral compass. Nora arrives later, bringing wealth and social standing that reflect James's newly acquired status. The play's central weakness is that James himself is never compelling enough to sustain the drama. His material ascent ...

For anyone captivated by Hideki Noda's A Night at the Kabuki at Sadler's Wells in 2022, this is a joyous return. For everyone else, it will probably be unlike anything they have seen before. Noda gleefully takes Western myths and cultural touchstones, then hurls them into a wildly inventive Japanese theatrical landscape that leaves audiences laughing, pondering and frequently bewildered. The result is a banquet of spectacle, comedy and big ideas. Like any all-you-can-eat buffet, it is both irresistible and overwhelming. There is so much happening that following the plot becomes almost impossible. It stretches across the modern, medieval and ancient worlds, with a detour through the heavens for good measure. The action begins with God complaining to the angels that humanity has built the Tower of Babel in an attempt to reach him. From there, the play hurtles through the Faust legend and the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, while weaving in a corporate power struggle that appe...

Based on the 2018 Danish film Den Skyldige , directed by Gustav Möller, Chloë Moss's The Guilty is a taut, expertly constructed thriller that derives its tension from what cannot be seen. Joe is a police officer confined to a 999 call desk while awaiting a disciplinary hearing. Restless and dismissive of the endless stream of minor emergencies that are reported, he is jolted into action when he receives a desperate appeal from a woman who appears to have been abducted by her estranged husband. This is a one-man show in every sense, and Russell Tovey commands the stage with remarkable assurance. He inhabits Joe so completely that the audience experiences every surge of frustration, every flicker of hope and every crushing setback alongside him. Confined to his desk, Joe can do nothing but listen, question and direct others. The audience shares his predicament, becoming equally powerless observers who, like Joe, can only piece together events through fragments of conversation while ...

Many readers first encountered To Kill a Mockingbird in the classroom, where Harper Lee's novel has long been a staple of English literature courses. Its exploration of racism, morality and the loss of childhood innocence has become familiar territory for generations of students. The story also lives on through Robert Mulligan's celebrated 1962 film adaptation, in which Gregory Peck delivered his Academy Award-winning performance as Atticus Finch. His portrayal of the principled lawyer and widowed father who defends a Black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama remains one of cinema's defining performances. That legacy presents a formidable challenge for Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation, as well as for Richard Coyle in the iconic role of Atticus. Happily, both rise to the occasion. Sorkin's adaptation remains faithful to the moral force of Lee's novel while giving the drama a powerful sense of urgency and theatrical momentum. Rather than f...

In 1939, the forty-four-year-old King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, visited the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and his wife Eleanor at the Roosevelt family estate, Springwood. George had been on the throne for only three years following his brother's abdication, while Roosevelt had already served seven years as President. The visit was an exercise in soft diplomacy, designed to gauge where the President might stand in the event of a second war with Germany. American public opinion remained deeply divided, and it was the King's task to determine whether the United States government, and Roosevelt in particular, could be persuaded to support Britain. The premise of Richard Nelson's play is an intriguing one. The way personal relationships can influence political realities has always been a compelling subject for drama. These two complicated men shared more than first appearances might suggest. The King struggled with a severe stammer,...

In 1897 Edmond Rostand wrote his masterpiece Cyrano de Bergerac in elegant alexandrine verse, creating a work that celebrates language, eloquence and the sheer force of words. It is also a play deeply concerned with appearances, both social and physical, and with the uneasy distance between inner worth and outward perception. At its centre is Cyrano, a brilliant swordsman of extraordinary verbal gifts, who is self-conscious about his large nose. For both Cyrano and Roxane, the woman he loves, language is not merely expression but identity itself. Their tragedy lies in Cyrano’s belief that Roxane will never see past his appearance. When she expresses her love for the handsome but inarticulate Christian, Cyrano becomes the voice of his rival’s courtship, shaping words that allow another man to inhabit the very identity he himself cannot claim. In this production written by Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson, there is a clear attempt to engage with the work's central concerns of langua...

In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated in an act that precipitated the First World War. Playwright Rajiv Joseph reimagines that historical event as a commentary on the manipulation of ordinary people in service of the political ambitions of the wealthy and powerful. The play opens with two consumptive simpletons, Nedeljko and Gavrilo, who have been sent by their doctor to meet a mysterious stranger. Think Samuel Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon, except that when their Godot finally arrives, he proves to be just as much a pawn in a larger game as they are. The exchanges between the three are wonderfully absurd, full of wit and buoyed by the kind of physical comedy that Beckett himself would have appreciated. Jake Berne, Jason Sanchez and Adrien Rolet nicely capture the vulnerability and bewildered charm of the trio, adroitly combining deadpan humour, physical comedy, and genuine pathos. However, the play begins to lose m...

Two defining political crises coincided in Britain during the mid-1980s. Welsh coal miners went on strike in the face of Margaret Thatcher's determination to break the power of the trade unions, while the AIDS epidemic devastated the gay community. This new musical, based on the remarkable true story that inspired the acclaimed 2014 film, recounts the unlikely alliance forged between striking miners and gay and lesbian activists during that turbulent period. The miners' strike may have ended in defeat and AIDS claimed countless lives, but the story affirms the power of ordinary people to overcome prejudice and find common ground despite profound differences. It is ultimately a celebration of human decency, compassion and solidarity. Although Mark Ashton founded Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners , the musical wisely resists making him its sole focus. Instead, it explores how an extraordinary act of collective solidarity transformed the lives of everyone involved, both in the ...

Sinatra The Musical offers a sleek, visually striking journey through the life and legend of Frank Sinatra, though it often seems more like a carefully curated scrapbook than a fully rounded portrait of its subject. This is very much a polished, expurgated version of Sinatra's life, one that prefers glamour and momentum over the more troubling or complex edges of Sinatra’s life. There are references to his mafia connections while his philandering, although a major part of the story, somehow feels sanitised. The show precedes the infamous Rat Pack years and centres on the teenage heartthrob who lost his fame and then made a comeback with the film From Here to Eternity . This is a production, like Sinatra himself, with an abundance of style. The visuals are consistently impressive, moving with cinematic fluidity between recording studios, Hollywood sets and various homes. The sheen of mid-century show business is captured with real flair, creating a world that is as seductive as it ...