I loved (and would’ve loved more of) the rousing speeches from Trevor Fox’s rueful narrator in Our Friends in the North. But the drama itself is too fragmented: Tyneside rendered in bite size

The Observer@theobserveruk.bsky.social · 2d ago

Our Friends in the North – dash through early Thatcher years needs room to brood Peter Flannery’s famous foursome return in a visually slick but jerky adaptation of the lauded BBC series, which has the feel of a political conference ✍️ @matt-barton.bsky.social https://bit.ly/4zLyOcv

Jamie Glover inherits a mixed rep cast - now with Mathew Horne, who could bring a bit more to the party - and doesn’t seem to have many real ideas for the play after a brilliant opening sequence

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 6d ago

★★★ Review: Twelfth Night – Jamie Glover’s production has moments of magical promise Read our full review 👇

I didn’t really know what to make of this at the interval, then the second half layered striking image after striking image, and brought the story home

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · last wk.

★★★★ Review: The Penelopiad – Amelia Bullmore leads a slowly transfixing adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novella Read our full review 👇

Threlfall falls short of serving up a storm in a slightly underwhelming production with few memorable performances and one foolish mistake

The Observer@theobserveruk.bsky.social · 2w ago

King Lear’s never looked more the fool David Threlfall gives an underpowered performance as Shakespeare’s mad king in a production light on psychological depth ✍️ @matt-barton.bsky.social https://bit.ly/4dBJcev

At today’s new season launch, the word “ambition” was used ad nauseam to describe the company’s work over the years. Does this 20th-anniversary season honour that? Compared to the patchy last few, it’s heading in the right direction

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 2w ago

Performances from Ian McKellen, Golda Rosheuvel, Arinzé Kene and Rosie Sheehy will be visible to audience members wearing mixed reality glasses at Manchester’s Factory International as part of the venue’s 20th anniversary season. Read more 👇

Little Shop works brilliantly at the little Hope Mill, its cosy proportions really benefiting the sense of the plant’s takeover. But we can probably say enough now to this deeply strange musical

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 2w ago

★★★★ Review: Little Shop of Horrors – Six choreographer Carrie-Anne Ingrouille brings fresh bite to this cult classic Read our full review 👇

This new production from the physical comedy director of One Man, Two Guvnors lacks that show’s slapstick slickness and finesse. But there are some nice (if unremarkable) moments, particularly from the two very busy clowns

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3w ago

★★★ Review: The 39 Steps – Revival of hit Hitchcockian parody swaps suspense for uneven farce. (@derbytheatre.bsky.social) Read our full review 👇

Multiple good musicals have first passed through the Lowry in promising embryonic form. This clumsy love letter to Madchester is not one of them

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3w ago

★★ Review: How Soon is Now? – Siân Owen’s new musical, set in the peak of the Madchester music era, is a cacophonous mess 👇

Theatre by the Lake has one of the most stunning settings of any theatre in the country, especially in yesterday’s early autumn sunlight. And this lovely adaptation of the Helen Rebanks memoir suits it perfectly

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3w ago

★★★★ Review: The Farmer’s Wife – Hannah Khalil adapts Helen Rebanks’ memoir into a quietly powerful portrait of rural resilience. (@tbtlake.bsky.social) 👇

Reviewed Iron. Sadly, leaden

Exeunt Magazine@exeuntmagazine.bsky.social · 4w ago

Today we have reviews of a Jamaican/Nigerian re-telling of Molière, a revival of a prison drama by Rona Munro, Josh O’Connor’s star turn in Golden Boy, and Tiago Rodrigues’s headline-grabbing Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists (which many British critics had a notably muted response to…)

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...

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 · last mo.

★★ Review: Romeo and Juliet – Russell Kane fronts a bafflingly incoherent and irreverent adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy from Not Too Tame 👇

Reviewed two touring productions for the Observer… observer.co.uk/culture/thea...

Two touring productions, only one with something to say

Workplace bullying becomes a physical battle in a signed production of Mike Bartlett’s play; plus, a directionless revival of East Is East

observer.co.uk

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 mo.

★★★ 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 mo.

★★★★ 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 · last mo.

★★★ 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 · last mo.

★★★★ 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 · 3mo ago

Matt 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 · 3mo 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 · 3mo ago

Reviews! 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

Back at @storyhouselive.bsky.social in the park for some al fresco theatre

The Coli calamity continues

The Stage@thestage.co.uk · 3mo ago

Oldham Coliseum’s reopening has been delayed again, with the venue now set to begin performances in 2027. Read more in The Stage 👇