London theatre reviews

You probably want to know about Sadie Sink. But first we must talk about the sure-to-be-divisive device in auteur director Robert Icke’s take on Romeo & Juliet…

This Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical – adapted by Harvey Fierstein with songs by Cyndi Lauper from the 2005 Britflick – was first seen in the West End a decade ago. And now it struts back into town with energy to spare.

The ingredients to this 2012 play by Moonlight screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney feel familiar. Elite American high school, scholarship choir boys, one gay and bullied. A floppy-haired ‘think-outside-the-box’ teacher in the vein of The History Boys’ Hector or Dead Poets’ Society’s Keating.

Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh has already impressed at the Lyric Hammersmith with her cracking comedy School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Now she returns, with director Monique Touko once again at the helm, bringing the play that earned her five Tony Award nominations in 2024 – and it’s easy to see why it was such a hit on Broadway…

Even without its starry original cast, this hugely hyped Broadway smash is a pure – albeit deliciously complicated – delight.

Rebecca Lucy Taylor – aka Self Esteem – gives a forceful performance in this odd, dated David Hare play.

Picture Vincent van Gogh and you’ll probably imagine a tormented artist – one ear missing and a mind full of swirling thoughts. But Nicholas Wright’s 2002 play takes us somewhere far less familiar: back before painting consumed his life, when the Dutch painter spent time in Brixton…

For the first 15 minutes or so, I thought I had Welcome to Pemfort’s number. Sarah Power’s play presents as a cosily familiar comedy about a clutch of small-town eccentrics pulling together in an effort to stage a fundraising fun day for the titular medieval fort (not a castle!) that forms the chief point of interest in their sleepy town.

This hugely enjoyable tech satire-slash-thriller from US playwright Aaron Loeb is so good at bamboozling you as to what it’s going to be about that I almost hesitate to get into the plot. It’s good! Go see it! Isn’t that enough of a review for you?

Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk is the sort of esoteric classic that only gets staged very occasionally: I think this NT revival is the third UK production ever, and the first this century…