A few too many ideas attempted at once here, and the pacing could be tighter, so it lacks the pay-off you’d hope from a 3h15 production of Miller’s tragedy www.whatsonstage.com/news/death-o...
whatsonstage.com
Matt Barton
@matt-barton.bsky.social
Grumpy. Heartthrob. Reviews and features in the Financial Times / The Observer / The i / The Stage / WhatsOnStage / Mill Media / Exeunt
The north’s wannabe Jamie Lloyd roughs up another Shakespeare play beyond all sense and coherence. But Russell Kane fares OK
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 2d ago★★ Review: Romeo and Juliet – Russell Kane fronts a bafflingly incoherent and irreverent adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy from Not Too Tame 👇
Liverpool’s Royal Court once again can’t help itself but turn a local story into an onstage soap. Thankfully, it has a couple of likeable central performances to save it this time
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · last wk.★★★ Review: Letter to Brezhnev – Strong performances elevate syrupy adaptation of the 1985 film👇
They don’t write plays like August Wilson any more, which is probably not a bad thing considering his speechy style. But it’d be hard to beat Daniel Bailey’s production. Another great show from Headlong
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · last wk.★★★★ Review: Fences – August Wilson’s verbose Pulitzer-winner hits hard in Daniel Bailey’s heavyweight revival Read more 👇
Wishing the Royal Exchange Theatre a very happy 50th birthday 🙏🏻❤️🎈🎂5️⃣0️⃣👌🎂😘 It’s been a privilege and honour to play this extraordinary theatre in the great city of Manchester three times over the years. A cauldron, a genuinely shared experience and a room where magic happens.
How, aged 82, Alan Ayckbourn has the energy to not just write a 92nd play, but to also direct it, design the sound for it and make the whole thing three hours long is beyond me. But he could do with someone to rein him in here with this interesting enough but wildly bloated play
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 2w ago★★★ Review: The Trial of Romeo Oscar – Alan Ayckbourn’s 92nd play stretches resonant sci-fi ideas over a patience-testing three hours Read our full review 👇
It’s not quite as good as the original production, if we’re comparing, but there are some nice new touches and above all the play just remains brilliant – until the ending
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 2w ago★★★★ Review: Till the Stars Come Down – Beth Steel’s hit play still dazzles in its regional premiere, despite its flaws. ( @nottmplayhouse.bsky.social) Read more 👇
So Lear yet so far for Ian McDiarmid. He throws everything he has at this – often all at once – while the production around him has nothing really to offer in return www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/king-lear-re...
King Lear — and yet so far
Reviewer Matt Barton argues the Crucible's casting coup proved a poisoned chalice
sheffieldtribune.co.uk
My Edinburgh reviews have started making their way up on Exeunt, beginning with Stockard Channing and David Westhead’s swift and pathos-light Krapp’s Last Tape exeuntmagazine.substack.com/i/210336403/...
Edinburgh Festival Fringe reviews 2026
All of our reviews, as we get 'em
exeuntmagazine.substack.com
Arrived in Edinburgh to mop up as many of my Exeunt colleagues’ leftovers as I can. The drizzly weather has almost made the sauna theatre an inviting prospect
Enjoyed hearing Phelim McDermott philosophise on the creative process, bringing wonder to the theatre and reviving MIF (and now West End) hit Tao of Glass
Exeunt Magazine@exeuntmagazine.bsky.social · 2mo agoMatt Barton watches Tao of Glass - and then goes in deep with creator and performer Phelim McDermott, talking Jungian archetype dreams, jamming with Philip Glass, and why he wants to make ‘invitational shows’
Magnificent and maddening, epic and exhausting – this Game of Thrones adaptation sometimes lumbers, but when it finds its rhythm and fires on all cylinders, it’s knock-out
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 2mo ago★★★★ Review: Game of Thrones: The Mad King – Dense, spectacular stage prequel to the hit TV series and novels. Read the full review in The Stage 👇
Baffling how many Cleansed reviews claim no point or purpose comes through the play. Rebecca Frecknall’s production might not perfectly balance the real and the abstract, but Kane’s exploration of love’s endurance and our tolerance of atrocity comes through with searing force
A Cate Blanchett VR ASMR session evolved into an increasingly tedious 45 minutes of woo-woo guff you wouldn’t even say while tripping out observer.co.uk/culture/thea...
Evolver – a VR journey around the body that is more mind ...
The immersive show at Wales Millennium Centre featuring narration by Cate Blanchett is visually hypnotic but fails to tell a story
observer.co.uk
I pretty much swooned over Sweeney
Exeunt Magazine@exeuntmagazine.bsky.social · 2mo agoReviews! New reviews for your Friday!
Some nice ideas in the first show of Chester Storyhouse’s theatre in the park, jumbled up in a script and story that are all over the place www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/let-...
Let the Sun Shine review at Grosvenor Park: loosely structured and chaotic
Read our review of Let the Sun Shine at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre. Chester Storyhouse’s open-air season opens with a colourful but busy new play by Helen Redcliffe
thestage.co.uk
Reviewed The Cherry Orchard, where Helen Hunt gives a tepid, blandly nondescript performance in a production that’s more starchy than starry. Still, she might not summon much feeling, but at least Ken Bran can observer.co.uk/culture/thea...
The Cherry Orchard – RSC’s Chekhov yields a barren harvest
Tamara Harvey’s conventional Chekhov production boasts a starry cast, but a fusty new adaptation lacks heart and vigour
observer.co.uk
Bechdel’s graphic novel is probably a masterpiece, so I felt slightly disappointed by this musical bellowing the subtext at us (maybe a flaw of musicalising this material?) and the inescapable sense of emotional manipulation in the production. Fun, but it didn’t floor me
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3mo ago★★★ Review: Fun Home – Sentimentality takes centre stage in Sarah Frankcom’s emotionally over-engineered production, in the first regional production in the UK. Read the full review 👇
The Oldham Coliseum CEO has been making lots of noises on social media, so it’s great to see The Mill dig rigorously into what she’s actually delivering (which seems to be just an eye-watering expenses bill)
The Mill@manchestermill.bsky.social · 3mo agoSo what’s gone wrong this time? Read our full investigation here.
I do wonder when AD Elizabeth Newman is going to challenge herself directorially, as this is about as safe and harmless as you could get. But if you fancy swaying along idly to some Cliff Rich classics, Sheffield’s the spot for it
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3mo ago★★★ Review: Summer Holiday the Musical – Musical adaptation of the Cliff Richard film beams simple sunshine. Read more 👇
A dance tribute so underwhelming, even a couple of the Factory International staff were on their phones throughout the second half
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3mo ago★★ Review: The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor – Joyce Theater’s dull dance tribute to Sinéad O’Connor misses the singer’s transcendence. Read more 👇
Liverpool’s Royal Court seems to have two modes: solid, sincere local stories (Boys from the Blackstuff, Girls Don’t Play Guitars, Conteh) and… this
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3mo ago★★ Review: Taking the Piste – Kirkby ski-slope comedy slaloms into smut instead of satire. Read more 👇
I reviewed Atlantis, heading to Chichester, which makes a lot of noise about the climate emergency and political inertia, without having much really to say (which I don’t think is the same as avoiding easy answers). It has a nice, more intimate idea that’s sadly drowned out
Exeunt Magazine@exeuntmagazine.bsky.social · 3mo agoOur latest review round up... with thoughts from Melody Adebisi, Alexander Cohen, Matt Barton, and Julia Rank
Factory International unveils its “autumn/winter programme”: joining prev announced It’s a Sin are a new play running for all of two nights, an art exhibition and yet another Lightroom experience imported from London
The Everyman’s commitment to new writing is admirable, but this piece needs a lot of work. Play, production and performer all trundle along in a low, humdrum gear, with only one real theatrical flourish that lasts maybe six seconds
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 4mo ago★★ Review: Attachment – Monologue about motherhood gets a flat and insipid production 👇
The audience interaction is plainly unnecessary and Green’s apparent personal identification with Woolf never lands as anything other than ludicrous. But she’s so hard to not like as a performer that she just about gets you past those flaws
The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 4mo ago★★★ Review: Mrs Dalloway – Kit Green upstages Virginia Woolf in an overindulgent, fleetingly arresting multimedia adaptation. Read The Stage's review 👇
I missed the original run of 1536, so was glad to catch the West End transfer of a rightly celebrated and scorching play that would be terrific for anyone to have written, let alone a debut writer
Exeunt Magazine@exeuntmagazine.bsky.social · 4mo agoAva Pickett in the West End, Alexander Zeldin in a care home, offensive puppets, and a Beckett-Feldman collab... it's our latest reviews round-up! Featuring words by @matt-barton.bsky.social, Alexander Cohen, @izlew.bsky.social, and @hollywilliams.bsky.social