Gielgud Theatre

This is a March 2023 review of the fifth cast of ‘2:22’. In May 2024, ‘2:22’ will return to the West End yet again for what we think is its seventh cast, for a limited run starring Stacey Dooley, James Buckley, Donna Air and Joe McFadden. Danny Robins’s ‘2:22’ is a bona fide West End phenomenon. It started life in the summer of 2021 as a novelty: a four-hander ghost story from the writer of the hit podcast series ‘The Battersea Poltergeist’, deployed to plug the programming gap at the Noël Coward Theatre while the musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ was waiting to come back post-pandemic. And Matthew Dunster’s production originally starred singer Lily Allen – an unexpected bit of casting, but not an outlandish one, given she sincerely seems to be making a move into acting. That was just the beginning, though. Since then it’s played another four West End seasons, and while I’m sure good word of mouth and the scarcity of supernatural Theatreland thrillers have played a part, it’s pretty clear that its audience has been expanded via the medium of increasingly wild casting. Last year we had stage debuts from Tom Felton – aka Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy – and Laura ‘Love Island’ Whitmore. And this year we’re being treated to the inaugural acting performance from Cheryl, the erstwhile Girls Aloud star who seems to have left the concept of a surname somewhere in the rubble of her endlessly documented recent past.  It’s a fascinating concept: presumably if the producers can keep luring in big

This review is from the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe. ‘30 Years of Dirt’ transfers to the West End in 2024. A more pedantic soul than Frank Skinner would probably have updated the name of this show to ‘31 Years of Dirt’ after it got postponed last year, or even ‘36 Years of Dirt’, given the title’s a reference to his stand-up career, which began in 1987. Still, 30 years is approximately correct and (of course) a play on the lyrics to ‘Three Lions’, plus Skinner is not a pedant. Instead, he’s a formidably accomplished raconteur, whose late-blooming success, national treasure status and promise of a filthier live persona all conspire to make him still seem like a relatively fresh prospect for a man now technically past retirement age.  It’s perhaps not a surprise, though, that ‘30 Years of Dirt’ isn’t a rigorously sculpted high-concept exploration of a new area of comedy. It feels like a man with nothing to prove flexing his stand-up muscles for fun. We get a smattering of extremely loosely connected anecdotes from throughout his life, a LOT of audience interaction – he is understandably transfixed by the fact somebody has brought their eight-year-old along and plonked them on the front row – plus a smattering of meticulously worked killer puns that he drops in to show he can.  Still, if it’s laidback, it’s hardly tossed off. The section on his unease at an un-PC sermon delivered by a stand-in priest at his church feels perfectly illustrative of his longevity. He’s entirely honest abo

Last seen in London a little over a decade ago at the National Theatre, this is an altogether bigger revival for Seán O’Casey’s classic tragicomedy about an unusual family struggling through the chaos of the Irish civil war. J Cameron Smith – aka Gerri from ‘Succession’ – will star as quick-witted matriarch Juno (a role she’s already played top acclaim in the US) with the might Mark Rylance as her absurd, posturing, drunken husband Jack (aka ‘The Paycock’ ie ‘the peacock’ in an Irish accent). Old Vic boss Matthew Warchus takes a rare break from his home turf to direct.