Hampstead Theatre
Scooby-Doo has better plots: Almeida’s A Moon for the Misbegotten reviewed
A Moon for the Misbegotten is a dream-like tragedy by Eugene O’Neill set on a barren farm in Connecticut. Phil…
Magnificent: The Deep Blue Sea, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, reviewed
Richard Bean appears to be Hampstead Theatre’s in-house dramatist, and his new effort, House of Games, is based on a…
A horribly intriguing dramatic portrait of Raoul Moat
Robert Icke’s new play examines one of the least appetising characters in British criminal history. Raoul Moat went on a…
Exquisite: Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
The Invention of Love opens with death. Tom Stoppard’s play about A.E. Housman starts on the banks of the Styx,…
A riveting show crammed with the kind of risky gags rarely heard on stage these days
How To Survive Your Mother is a play based on a memoir by political dramatist Jonathan Maitland. He portrays himself…
Vapid and pretentious: Visit From An Unknown Woman, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
Visit From An Unknown Woman, adapted by Christopher Hampton from a short story by Stefan Zweig, opens like an episode…
The tumultuous story behind Caravaggio’s last painting
For centuries no one knew who it was by or even what it was of. The picture that had hung…
Gone girl
Anthropology is a drama about artificial intelligence that starts as an ultra-gloomy soap opera. A suicidal lesbian, Merril, speaks on…
Weird and wonderful
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
How do I hate thee?
A new play, The Misandrist, looks at modern dating habits. Rachel is a smart, self-confident woman whose partner is a…
Location, location, location
Roy Williams’s new play is a wonky beast. It has two dense and cumbersome storylines that aren’t properly developed. Dawn…
Quiet thunder
Hampstead’s latest play is a knotty rape drama by Naomi Wallace set in Kentucky. Four teenagers with weird names meet…
Bad education
The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams is a sociology essay written in 1938 about a prickly tyrant, Miss Moffat,…
Soused in bilge
The Fever Syndrome is a dramatised lecture set in a New York brownstone occupied by the super-brainy Myers family. The…
Threadbare brain-teaser
The Forest is the latest thriller from the French dramatist Florian Zeller, translated by Oscar winner Christopher Hampton. It’s a…
Love letter to a titan
Hampstead Theatre has revived a play about Peggy Ramsay, the legendary West End agent who shaped the careers of Joe…
A call to arms
’night, Mother is a two-hander that opens like a comedy sketch. ‘I’m going to kill myself, Mama,’ says Jessie. She’s…
Cold spell
Frozen the musical declares war on woke politics. The 2013 Disney movie has been turned into a song-and-dance show that…
High-minded vs heartbreaking
It can be difficult to remember that Tennessee Williams, the great songster of the Deep South during the 1950s, was…
Who goes there?
Death of a Black Man is a little-known script from the 1970s written by Alfred Fagon who suffered a fatal…
Theatre’s final taboo – fun
The stage has become a pleasure-free zone in which snarling dramatists fight over their pet political causes, says Lloyd Evans
Minimalist’s dream
Love Letters by A.R. Gurney began life as an epistolary novella about two childhood friends, Andy and Melissa, whose on-off…
Separation anxiety
Theatres have taken to the internet like never before. Recorded performances are being made available over the web, many for…
Redneck twaddle: Young Vic’s Fairview reviewed
Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury won last year’s Pulitzer Prize. It deserves additional awards for promoting racial disharmony and entrenching…
A surefire international hit: Lungs reviewed
No power on earth can stop Lungs from becoming an international hit. Duncan Macmillan’s slick two-handed comedy reunites Matt Smith…
