Legendary choreographer Pina Bausch’s richly textured penultimate work makes its long-awaited London premiere Legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch once famously said she was less interested in how people move than she was in what moves them. It is this idea that lies at the heart of Sweet Mambo, Bausch’s beautiful, emotionally intense penultimate work, which […]
The Shitheads at Royal Court Theatre
A tumble through dark prehistory Quentin Tarantino is Hollywood’s prophet of violence. His knack for purifying stories into gory climaxes is notorious in modern cinema. Yet, upstairs at the Royal Court in the intimate Jerwood Theatre, Jack Nicholls’s debut play, The Shitheads, gives Quentin a run for his money. The Shitheads is part period piece, […]
I’m Sorry Prime Minister – Apollo Theatre
I’m Sorry, Prime Minister opens in the West End, and Sir Humphrey still runs circles around everyone Last night’s press night at the Apollo Theatre confirmed something London-theatre audiences have quietly suspected: you can retire Jim Hacker, but you can never slam the door on Sir Humphrey Appleby. I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, billed as the […]
Samurai Exhibition at the British Museum
Anyone for Tea? Visitors to the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum, expecting to see a fearsome collection of armour, swords, knives and other implements of warfare, bloody scenes of battle and death and destruction, won’t be disappointed. Yet this magnificent exhibition is so much more, delivering a myth-busting, eye-opening panoramic view of the life […]
Here There Are Blueberries – Stratford East
Gripping documentary-style theatre unpacks Nazi photo album revelations Not just a casual bucolic scene, the title Here There Are Blueberries is a translated caption from a genuine Nazi photo album: Hier gibt es Blaubeeren. The grainy black and white snap depicted a picnic of SS officers and female Helferinnen support staff relaxing at a chalet […]
Pierrot Lunaire – Linbury Theatre – RBO
An evocative dance-theatre meditation with stunning musical accompaniment. The haunting music of Pierrot Lunaire, written in 1912 for a singer and a small group of instrumentalists, sets 21 poems by the Belgian poet Albert Giraud (in German translation) to music. Three sets of seven poems revolve around Pierrot, the clown from commedia dell’arte. It’s a […]
Man and Boy at the Dorfman Theatre
Rattigan Redux We are in the throes of something approaching a Terence Rattigan revival. Last year, The Deep Blue Sea came to London from Bath with Tamsin Greig in the lead role and received flattering reviews, and In Praise of Love ran for a month at the Orange Tree in Richmond. There has even been […]
MILES – Southwark Playhouse Borough
Past and present collide in a bold theatrical work inspired by the life and legacy of Miles Davis and his musical influences 2026 marks 100 years since the birth of seminal jazz pioneer Miles Davis. For somebody considered to be one of the greatest legends of jazz music, it is surprising how little screen or […]
Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera at the Coliseum
A Timely Revival of Phelim McDermott’s Stylish Così fan Tutte. Two-act comic opera Così fan tutte (Women are like that) is the last of Mozart’s trio of collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Cosi was a commission from the court of the Habsburg monarch Joseph II, and, with Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, […]
That’ll Be The Day – The London Palladium
Musical nostalgia on steroids as this crowd-pleasing standby embarks on a 40th anniversary tour Cast your mind back forty years to 1986, and I’m sure you’ll agree that the world was a very different place. The Berlin Wall (and the USSR) had not yet fallen; smartphones did not exist; Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister; […]