Reviews

Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele, and Nicholas Christopher lead the Broadway revival Aaron Tveit as Freddie Trumper in the new Broadway revival of Chess, © Matthew Murphy As more and more flops are rescued from the ash heap of history, it was only a matter of time before Chess got its turn. A musical with a, shall we say, checkered past, it was conceived by Tim Rice, who teamed up with Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA to craft a tale of love and geopolitical brinksmanship ce

Jean-Pierre van der Spuy’s production is currently playing in Manchester until 15 November and then touring through to 8 August 2026 Seann Miley Moore (as The Engineer) in Miss Saigon, There are musicals that gently woo you, and then there’s Miss Saigon, which seizes you by the throat as it hurtles through an uncomfortable period of modern history and refuses to let you look away until the final blackout. The revival currently playing at Manchester’s Palace Theatre is a might

The show has opened at the purpose-built Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre Mia Carragher in The Hunger Games, photo by Johan Persson Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games hardly needs an introduction. To bring any unaware theatregoers up to speed, the original novel is set in a dystopian world divided into 12 districts ruled by the decadent Capitol, where each year two young people are selected to fight to the death in a televised contest. When her younger sister is chosen, Katniss

The Menier Chocolate Factory transfer is now playing at the Garrick Theatre There was a certain irony in the fact that I had to weave my way through far-right protesters bedecked in Union Jacks to see this riotous West End transplantation of The Producers. After all, the genius of Mel Brooks’ comedy musical lies as much in its skewering of the ludicrousness of fascist ideology as its satire of showbiz. Patrick Marber’s production, a hit for the Menier Chocolate Factory last C

Conor McPherson’s production, marking Gleeson’s West End debut, runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 6 December Brendan Gleeson in The Weir What a great play Conor McPherson’s The Weir is. It seems so simple, five people gathered in a pub on a winter’s night, telling each other stories. Yet within that frame, McPherson weaves words with such care and precision that it never loses its tautness. It is both naturalistic and numinous, an astonishing achievement when the playwr

Tom Morris’ contemporary revival runs at Theatre Royal Haymarket until 17 January Toby Jones (Iago), Caitlin FitzGerald (Desdemona) and David Harewood (Othello) in Othello In 1997, David Harewood was – shamingly, given the lateness of the date – the first Black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre. It’s his misfortune that in returning to the part some three decades on, when he felt he had more to give, he has landed in this disjointed production by director Tom Morr

The world premiere stage adaptation of The Killings at Badger’s Drift stars Daniel Casey as Inspector Tom Barnaby The Killings at Badger’s Drift was the first episode of the much-loved television series, Midsomer Murders, back in 1997. Since then, the county has clocked up over 388 murders, making it the fifth most dangerous place to live in England and Wales. Now neatly adapted for the stage and directed by Guy Unsworth, it makes its world premiere at Richmond Theatre before

Three scene-stealers make this a comedy cracker Max Webster’s production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest felt like a sugary overload of a festive banquet when it ran for a sell-out season at the National Theatre last year – jubilant and cackle-worthy but sprawling in places. Now blithely skipping across the Thames to the Noël Coward Theatre, the take on Wilde’s play about confused identities, deceptions, romances and, of course, handbags, feels tighter, slick

A grown-up fairytale that grabs you - Hook, line, and sinker First staged by the RSC in 2013 and now flying high at the Barbican, Wendy and Peter Pan by Ella Hickson reclaims one of the most beloved children’s stories of all time - giving the (traditionally billed) second star to the right, Wendy, centre stage. Since its debut at Stratford-Upon-Avon, a wave of female-forward reimaginings have swept across the West End. Six the Musical shines like Tink’s fairy dust, while Broa