Theatre

Purists may disapprove of the vivid emotional shades in Simon McBurney's striking Complicite production. But they bring relief to Samuel Beckett's bleakest landscape: even Tim Hatley's design makes unhealthy pinks, greens and blues glow like...

In what must be the panto casting coup of the year, former 'Baywatch' babe Pamela Anderson plays the Genie of the Lamp for two weeks (Paul O'Grady takes over the role into the new year) in this new family production of 'Aladdin'. It has also just...

There’s a wonderful ’80s comedy sketch where one extremely effete doctor turns to another and declares,...

Royal Court regular Mike Bartlett offers up his new play about a guy who takes a break from his boyfriend and meets the girl of his dreams. Cast includes legendary young Hamlet Ben Whishaw and James Macdonald directs.

Michael Gambon may have pulled out due to poor health but the show goes on. Richard Griffiths has been drafted in to play WH Auden opposite Alex Jennings as Benjamin Britten in Alan Bennett's new play. Frances de la Tour also stars in this...

In this sassy four-hander, with John Simm, Ian Hart, Kerry Fox and Lucy Cohu, writer Andrew Bovell makes full use of both interpretations of his title: these characters are locked in mutual incomprehension but they harbour some hope that physical...

As theatrical premises go, there can be few as unappetising as this: Alfie, a middle-aged bus conductor, finally comes out, and still doesn't get any. But the appeal of this impossibly charming new musical, from the 1994 film with Albert Finney,...

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee's courtroom drama was based on the 1925 Scopes monkey trial in which a Bible Belt schoolteacher was indicted for teaching Darwin. Kevin Spacey is unrecognisable as wily, secular defence lawyer Henry Drummond:...

If you are looking for a poignant study of childhood lost, you won't find it here. Directed by Ben Harrison and adapted by Tanya Ronder, this 'Peter Pan' - which transfers to the O2 from Kensington Gardens where it was set in a 1,100-seater big...

In late 1930s Poland, anti-Semitism blooms again like a cancer out of remission; the Russians arrive and start enrolling spies, then the Germans file in and Jew-hating goes from pastime to policy. But playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek is not...

The popular burlesque variety show opens at the Roundhouse following a successful nine-month run at the London Hippodrome with mix of old favourites and new talent that includes the Freddie Mercury-loving Mario Queen of the Circus and opera diva...

When Lee Hall turned 'Billy Elliot' the film into a musical, he was careful to pay attention to the miners and their grievances. Now he puts them centre stage as he tells the true story of the Ashington miners, who briefly became the darlings of...

Katie Mitchell's scrupulous, engrossing production of Ferdinand Brückner's troubling play (written in 1926, presented in a new version by Martin Crimp) is like a scientific experiment. We are invited to examine the student doctors' behaviour...

Anna Friel sparkles in this stage adaptation of Truman Capote's slender novella - she even twinkles her way out of Audrey Hepburn's shadow. So it's a shame that director Sean Mathias and adaptor Samuel Adamson have lumbered their diamond leading...

'War Horse' is a lovely piece of family theatre, based on Michael Morpurgo's novel about a horse separated from his young master and spirited off to the Great War. But all the attention here is hogged by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler's puppet...

In a dark cinema or theatre at the end of a long day, nodding off is too often the swiftest short-cut to unconsciousness. No chance of that in Jonathan Munby's rich and startling production of this highly strung drama by Spain's last great...

Graham Norton replaces Terry Wogan on the Eurovision Song Contest; Roger Allam replaces Graham Norton in ‘La...

Given their beliefs, it's a wonder analysts ever have children. Melanie Klein wrote on the rage and ensuing guilt of the thwarted infant in relation to the mother; of reconciling 'good' and 'bad' breasts - mother-love and hatred - and the...

'Fame' star Debbie Allen directs an all-black cast led by James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad (who you may know as 'Mrs Huxtable'), Adrian Lester and Sanaa Lathan in an award-winning Broadway production of the Tennessee Williams classic.

Click on the venue names below to find out what's on at the National Theatre's three main auditoria and other spaces...

Anyone who has read 'L'Argent', Emile Zola's nineteenth-century attack on the murky world of financial speculation, will surely be able to read between this play's few lines. For the rest of us, it's more a question of soaking up the atmosphere...

A confession: sometimes I lazily assume that all long-running West End musicals are soulless corporate juggernauts...

After doing time on the fringe, emerging directing talent Thom Southerland hits Theatreland with the one about the stripping steelworks. Transfer from Catford's Broadway Studio.

These days, it seems like you can’t take a step in so-called 'Theatreland' without encountering a new...

New play from Michael Wynne about a group of thirtysomethings at a New Year's Eve party in the country. Directed by Jeremy Herrin.

‘Sister Act’ is definitely a Marmite musical. You’ll either love its effervescence, its...

In Mark Ravenhill's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's latest adventure story, two teenagers are thrown together by a tsunami on a South Pacific Island, and must learn to forge a new nation. Age 10+.

There is nothing subtle about Lebo M, Elton John and Tim Rice's show 'The Lion King', whose lurid colours and costumes would make a rainbow feel monochrome. But Simba's flight, and then his return to his rightful destiny as king of the pride, is...

There's a new irony to the show that's kept London’s bowler hat and black hosiery business afloat for...

There’s no secret to the success of London’s longest-running musical. First there are the songs (soaring...

Anyone who has yawned their way through the inanities of too many jukebox musicals is likely to wonder how...

Former 'X-Factor' contestant Diane Vickers gives a strong vocal performance as reluctant Lancashire heroine LV, the agonisingly shy tenement songbird who can conjure the voices of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Edith Piaf from her gramophone of...

War would have been on Brecht's mind as he sat writing in exile in 1939 and it's no surprise that Tony Kushner's robust, often windy 2006 translation is very aware of the wars today. Fiona Shaw, who plays the wily old trader, is always on the...

Cabaret-theatre show from 'Confessions of a Dancewhore' star Michael Twaits, exploring the cult of the celebrity.

Do you still have a schoolgirl lurking within? If so, ignore the unenthusiastic reviews and follow the well-worn path...

The critics hated Ben Elton's Queen musical: it rocks on.

Based on a novella by Stephen King, the film is one of the most popular ever made, which makes it a risky candidate for the stage. At least we can be grateful that writers Owen O'Neill and Dave Johns haven't turned it into a musical....

Irving Berlin's musical tale of romance and sharp-shootin' presents a few problems for the modern director, with its outdated racial and sexual politics. Still, it's difficult to imagine a more misguided approach than director Richard Jones's for...

‘We’re here to party, right?’ Are we? Who knew? ‘Thriller Live’ isn’t, it...

I was salivating as I approached the Aldwych Theatre – not with teenage memories of Patrick Swayze ...

The glitzy musical extravaganza gets a festive make-over - includes hits such as 'Mr Bojangles', 'That's Amore' and 'New York, New York'.