Flirting and Flamenco in a Bailar of the Sexes Why isn’t Love’s Labour’s Lost a better loved Shakespeare play? It borrows familiar components audiences know from other pieces – the disguises of Twelfth Night, the “play within a play” antics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and plenty of romantic chicanery and silliness. Less frequently staged […]
Winter Season 2025/26 at Shakespeare’s Globe:
Dreams in the Dark It begins, as so many of Shakespeare’s stories do, in the dark. The Thames breathes mist across Bankside, while inside the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, hundreds of candles are kindled into life. The winter of 2025–26 at Shakespeare’s Globe glimmers with transformation, imagination, and love in all its strange forms. The Sam […]
Hamlet at National Theatre
A charming production of Hamlet surprisingly lacking in tragedy Hamlet can be fun. But can it be tragic at the same time? While this latest production at the National Theatre proves the former, it fails to prove the latter. There are laughs throughout and the audience is charmed by the actors’ frequent engagement with it, […]
Twelfth Night or What You Will – Shakespeare’s Globe
This Carnival Twelfth Night is Frothy Fun On the south bank of the Thames, Shakespeare’s Globe offers a living reminder of how theatre once thrived in London. The reconstructed playhouse, a short walk from the site of Shakespeare’s original theatre, channels the noisy, communal atmosphere of the 16th century. Groundlings stand under the open sky, […]
Romeo and Juliet – Flabbergast at Wiltons Music Hall
Flabbergast, with a heritage of puppetry and clowning, takes this Shakespearian favourite to a new dimension in a production that somehow remains true to the original while setting the play in an otherworldly Verona complete with scaffold staging, glitter, and some fabulous makeup. It’s a visceral interpretation where sitting in the first few rows at times felt a little too immersed in the action for comfort.
Romeo and Juliet – Shakespeare’s Globe
Romeo and Juliet at the Globe this summer is an enjoyable night out and a reminder, if ever it was needed, of Shakespeare’s unsurpassed storytelling skill and the privilege, in being a Londoner, of having such immediate access to his work
Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing
With a company that combines big names with a strong core of returning actors, Jamie Lloyd has a house style that isn’t going to work for every production. But after his triumphant Sunset Boulevard and now this high-octane and zeitgeisty Much Ado, hopes will be high for his upcoming reworking of Evita at The London Palladium.
Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at the Candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
If ‘Shakespeare’s Plays’ was a topic on ‘Pointless’, Cymbeline might just be a winning answer. This production, at the 340-seat Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, was enough to convince me that’s an ill-deserved state of affairs – it’s a play that deserves to be better known.
The Tempest Returns to Drury Lane in Alien Form
Set aside any preconvictions you have about The Tempest and you’ll enjoy this show, though the headline star is less convincing than the remainder of the cast.
RSC A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Barbican
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, often associated with high summer, fits comfortably into the Christmas pantomime’s shoes. Whimsical costumes, many jokes, lovable personalities, and buffoonery; much like panto, there’s a wedding at the end. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most familiar plays, transferring from a recent run at Stratford-Upon-Avon.