Elton John’s The Devil Wears Prada musical can’t improve on the film
The songs don’t stick, and the fashion is more The Only Way Is Essex than made in Milan.
ByTheatre review
Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy makes for an inventive, genre-expanding ballet
This futuristic cocktail from the Royal Opera House is true to the spirit of Atwood’s novels.
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Why the Tortoise sale may be good for the Observer
Also this week: reminiscing about print’s heyday and leaving technology at the theatre door.
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Robert Icke’s Oedipus is a devastating, seamless update of Sophocles
This production imagines Oedipus (Mark Strong) as a contemporary politician – and achieves a level of catharsis rare for any…
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The National’s modern Coriolanus
David Oyelowo is best as Rome’s greatest soldier when he loses his temper.
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Michael Sheen is remarkable in the National Theatre’s Nye
There could not be a better time for this story of Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, the Welsh Labour MP and arch-creator…
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Thomas Ostermeier’s An Enemy of the People: Ibsen for the Amazon age
The director’s world-famous adaptation, now premiering in English in the West End, is a scorching, punk-inflected take on the 1882…
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Sarah Snook’s one-woman The Picture of Dorian Gray is gimmicky and shallow
Technical bravura, camera trickery and a high-wire, high-energy performance are not enough to make this show enjoyable or meaningful.
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Live Aid musical Just For One Day: sanctimony and second-rate songs
Here are pop stars as cherubim and seraphim. Here is Ultravox belted out as if it was the Hallelulah chorus.
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50 years of Manon
In this Royal Opera House revival, Kenneth MacMillan’s masterful ballet still has the power to bring audiences to their feet.
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David Tennant is refreshingly vile in the Donmar’s Macbeth
The actor has a manic, eye-rolling energy and a real bitchiness in this production. But do we need the headphones?
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A nonconforming take on The Nutcracker
The Southbank Centre puts a refreshing new twist on the most established of theatrical traditions.
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Kenneth Branagh’s King Lear is camp, callow and utterly unmoving
Rarely have I been less touched by a production than this one – when Gloucester was blinded, the audience laughed.
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Don Quixote brought to life
Carlos Acosta’s playful and fiery take on the 1869 ballet is a joyful marriage of movement and music.
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Can Danny Boyle pull off a hip-hop dance version of The Matrix?
Free Your Mind is a spectacle – but for a show about man and machine, it lacks the human touch.
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Andrew Scott is superhuman in Vanya
Playing eight roles in this one-man Chekhov adaptation, the actor is utterly convincing.
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Dear England and the English Question
In his new play about Gareth Southgate, James Graham uses football to explore a contested national identity.
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Ruth Wilson’s The Second Woman is a mesmerising feat of endurance
Over 24 hours, as Wilson played the same scene with 100 different actors, the repetition became addictive – and profound.
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A Little Life is absurdly, tediously, pointlessly bleak
This four-hour self-harm horror-show is schadenfreude dressed up as empathy.
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The magical realism of My Neighbour Totoro
The RSC production of the Hayao Miyazaki film – which has deservedly won six Olivier Awards – combines enchanting stagecraft with…
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