London theatre critics' choice

If you see a trans person on stage (or in a film, for that matter) then ten to one it’s as part of a coming out story. There will probably be tears. They might well die. Oh, and they’ll almost certainly be played by a cis person who’ll get applauded for their ‘brave’ performance. The diverse, all-trans cast and breezy, sunny storyline of ‘Summer in London’ makes it a welcome exception to the rule…

Located deep in the constituency of that nemesis of the white van man Emily Thornberry, Islington’s hip Almeida Theatre is not what you’d call classic Sun newspaper territory…

'I been arrested all over this damn country’, announces Audra McDonald. The Broadway legend, and six-time Tony winner (an all-time record), is making her long-anticipated West End debut in a play that’s a bleak tour of another kind of America…

Star director Robert Icke’s achingly compassionate take on ‘Hamlet’ presents Shakespeare’s masterpiece as a shimmeringly sad vision of love…

There is a live goose in 'The Ferryman'. And a live rabbit. And a live baby. None of these things are particularly important in and of themselves, but I guess I have to start somewhere…

Interview: 'there is blood on their hands' – James Graham on 'Ink', The Sun and Murdoch Located deep in the constituency of that nemesis of the white van man Emily Thornberry, Islington’s hip Almeida Theatre is not what you’d call classic Sun newspaper territory…

'I been arrested all over this damn country’, announces Audra McDonald. The Broadway legend, and six-time Tony winner (an all-time record), is making her long-anticipated West End debut in a play that’s a bleak tour of another kind of America: one where Billie Holiday was created…

There is a live goose in 'The Ferryman'. And a live rabbit. And a live baby. None of these things are particularly important in and of themselves, but I guess I have to start somewhere in describing this enormous, shattering eruption of a play from 'Jerusalem' playwright Jez Butterworth…

Star director Robert Icke’s achingly compassionate take on ‘Hamlet’ presents Shakespeare’s masterpiece as a shimmeringly sad vision of love…

'My mummy says I'm a miracle,' lisps a pampered mini-me at a purgatorial kiddies' birthday party at the outset of this delicious, treacly-dark family show…

After a hit run at the National Theatre – and a 2017 Olivier Award for best new comedy – 'Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour' is back to smash up the West End…

In the unlikely event you were worried a leap to the stage for JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series would result in it becoming aggressively highbrow, self-consciously arty or grindingly bereft of magical high jinks, just chill the hell out, muggle…

Tony Kushner's landmark 'Angels in America' is a mad, eight-hour quasi-religious 'gay fantasia on national themes' that was written in response to – amongst many other things – the AIDS epidemic that was still raging upon its UK premiere at the National Theatre a quarter of a century ago…

Here it is, then. Barely a year after she directed her first Shakespeare play for the Globe, this ‘Twelfth Night’ marks artistic director Emma Rice’s second and last for the outdoor theatre…