The Lady from the Sea drowns out the Ibsen
Simon Stone’s contemporary take on the Victorian-era family drama is witty but struggles against its rain-soaked staging
ByTheatre review
Doomers records our AI angst
We have reached a strange moment in human imagination
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Black Power Desk reminds us that protest suppression is nothing new
Urielle Klein-Mekongo’s 1970s-set musical explores the consequences of state overreach
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The Estate is a Westminster fever-dream
Shaan Sahota’s debut play dances confusingly between the roles played by race, class and gender in our politics.
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Run Sister Run is a winding descent into tragedy
Chloë Moss’s play explores addiction, codependence and time’s cruel loops in a stark, intimate staging.
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Evita for the West End masses
While Rachel Zegler sings “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” to a crowd outside the Palladium, the audience inside may ponder…
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Quadrophenia the ballet is a storm of movement
The dance version of the Who’s rock opera is full of stunning choreography, but the classic mod story is lost…
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4.48 Psychosis is a disturbing dissection of the mind
At the Royal Court, Sarah Kane’s high-intensity play reveals the desperation of severe mental illness.
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Stereophonic: all the sex, drugs, tears and boredom of true rock ’n’ roll
Can a musical about flights of creativity survive a setting of earthbound realism?
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Thom Yorke’s Hamlet is brilliantly rendered sacrilege
In an inventive theatrical mash-up, Radiohead’s album Hail to the Thief perfectly articulates the prince’s torment.
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It’s the Economy, Stupid is a polemic about the perils of capitalism
This show is both a whistlestop tour of modern economics and Joe Sellman-Leava’s attempt to understand why he’s always broke.
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London’s season of sexed-up Shakespeare
New productions of Richard II and Much Ado About Nothing both burnish their texts with hot celebrity appeal – but…
Kyoto gives voice to the urgency of the climate crisis
Soho Place’s perceptive and absorbing production shrewdly reminds its audience that there is nothing more exciting than saving the world.
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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.
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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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