The London Theatre Review

This week is French translation week as Nick, Nancy and Tim took refuge in the blissful air conditioning of London's theatres to review The Misanthrope at the National — Martin Crimp's rhyming-couplet update of the Molière play with Sandra Oh on ferocious form — and The Truth at the Apollo, Florian Zeller's gleefully French sex comedy starring Stephen Mangan, Janie Dee, Ardal O'Hanlan and Sarah Hadland. Plus Nick spoke ...

We have a pretty special guest interview this week: somehow we got Willem Dafoe on the phone from Venice, where he's now in his second year as artistic director of the Biennale Theatre Festival. Long before Spider-Man villains and Wes Anderson ensembles, Dafoe was a downtown New York theatre kid, spending four decades with the experimental Wooster Group, and he is as brilliant on the subject of live performance as you'd hope. He al...

A mixed bag of horror, comedy and drama this week...First up, Martina Laird's debut play Driftwood arrives at the Kiln: set in a Port of Spain gentleman's club on the eve of Trinidad's independence, it's bursting with ideas, a stellar cast, and a second act that gets quite mad. Then the gang reviews Under the Shadow at the Almeida. Leila Farzad is magnetic as a woman trapped in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War, stalked by something ...

War Horse is back...After nearly two decades, the show that transformed theatre has returned to the National Theatre. Nick, Nick and Nancy discuss whether it still hits, and why it might matter even more right now. Plus young critic Dash returns to the pod to give his verdict from the stalls of the Olivier.

We also review Cole Porter musical High Society at the Barbican, starring Helen George as Tracy Lord, a role made famous b...

After becoming one of Broadway's biggest sleeper hits and an absolute social media phenomenon, Beetlejuice the Musical has landed at the Prince Edward Theatre in the West End. Nancy, Nick and producer Tim ventured to the Netherworld to see what all the fuss is about. The gang also headed Stratford East for The Harder They Come, the reggae-soaked, infectious, bass-rattlingly loud stage version of the 1972 Jamaican film classic. Spoi...

This week Nick, Nick and Nancy review Alexander Zeldin's Care at the Young Vic - a compassionate, unflinching look at life in an elderly care facility, starring the magnificent Linda Bassett - and the RSC's new musical The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind @sohoplace, the extraordinary true story of a 13-year-old who built a windmill to save his Malawian village from famine. Plus Nancy talks to the brilliant Leila Farzad about her role i...

It's only been a few weeks since we went away, but so much theatre has happened in the meantime...Nick Curtis, Nick Clark and Nancy Durrant are back to fill you in on all the goings on in London. And we kick off the season with a stellar episode: we review Gary Oldman's return to the stage for the first time in 40-odd years as he takes on Samuel Beckett's play Krapp's Last Tape at the Royal Court.

The play we couldn't stop talk...

Even though we are officially on a break, we couldn't resist gathering together some of our favourite people for a bonus episode to tide you over until the new season begins.

The incredible Giles Terera, who has starred in the UK premieres of Hamilton and Avenue Q among many other musicals, but is just as well known for his Shakespearean performances, talks about Clint Dyer's production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which ...

It's a big week. The fifth season comes to an end with no Nick Clark - he's on holiday - but instead a Nick, a Nancy, a producer Tim AND two big starry shows to round things off: two of the most exciting young actors around, Noah Jupe and Sadie Sink, play Shakespeare's star crossed lovers in Robert Icke's take on Romeo and Juliet at the Harold Pinter theatre, and Aidan Turner and the peerless Lesley Manville revive Les Liaisons Dan...

Self Esteem aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor returns to the stage for the second time: after playing a singer on the verge of a breakdown when she took on the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret in 2023, now she plays an alcoholic singer on the verge of a breakdown in David Hare's 1975 play Teeth 'n' Smiles - the gang give their verdict. They also review Kimberly Belflower's Tony-nominated hit US play John Proctor is the Villain currently at th...

This week Nancy and the Nicks head to Hampstead Theatre for Aaron Loeb’s ROI (Return on Investment), where cancer has potentially been cured, and there's lots of money to be made.

Plus the gang are at the National Theatre for Summerfolk, Maxim Gorky’s caustic portrait of the pre-revolution Russian middle classes, eating, drinking and complaining their way towards a fairly inevitable reckoning.

Theatre Royal Strat...

With Nancy in Mexico on the trail of Frida Kahlo, producer Tim steps in to join the Nicks as they discuss The Holy Rosenbergs at the Menier Chocolate Factory and Marie and Rosetta @sohoplace.

Matt Willis from Busted chats to Nancy about taking on the role of the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, and the Orange Tree Theatre's artistic director Tom Littler answers one listener's question about which plays are chosen for reviv...

Michael Sheen's first production for his new company Welsh National Theatre is Our Town, the classic American play by Thornton Wilder transposed to Wales. Nick, Nick and Nancy give their verdicts.

They also visit the Young Vic for Broken Glass, one of Arthur Miller's late plays in which a woman becomes paralysed after reading about the horrors of Kristallnacht.

Nick Curtis talks to director Monique Touko about having three ...

This week the gang review Bird Grove, the George Eliot origin story that nobody was quite sure they needed. How did Mary Ann Evans become one of the most famous novelists of all time? Did she fall in a vat of radioactive acid? Or get bitten by a radioactive spider? No, the answer is much more church-focused.

They also visit the Donmar Warehouse for Anna Ziegler's new play Evening All Afternoon about a mother/daughter relationsh...

The biggest show of the year so far has finally opened, with puns about sucking and biting in full flow. Yes it's Cynthia Erivo's one-woman Dracula, adapted and directed by Kip Williams, in which the Wicked star plays all 23(ish) parts. So as Nick, Nick and Nancy sink their teeth into their review, does it get their blood pumping? Or will they B negative?

Downton Abbey and Paddington treasure Hugh Bonneville plays CS Lewis in th...

This week the gang is talking about walking as they make a pilgrimage to Theatre Royal Haymarket for new musical The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, based on the beloved book by Rachel Joyce with music by Passenger.

They also had a dose of daddy issues with Terence Rattigan's little-revived play Man and Boy at the National.

Director, writer and theatremaker Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu talked to Nick Curtis about directing the l...

A few months on from his death, Tom Stoppard's dazzling play Arcadia comes to the Old Vic and puts the brains of Nancy, Nick and Nick to the test - that's if Mr Clark is able to get across Albert Bridge and make it to the recording on time...

Then it's back to the eighties for shell suits, ripped bodies and all kinds of excess - and that's just from the LTR gang - as they review American Psycho The Musical at the Almeida.

Pl...

Boo!! This week Nancy and the Nicks are cowering behind their large, slightly warm glasses of chardonnay as they experience the stage adaptation of supernatural horror Paranormal Activity. Two out of three critics were terrified - listen to find out who has nerves of steel.

The trio also take in Luke Norris's harrowing play Guess How Much I Love You at the Royal Court, and Nick Curtis talks to Fiona Button, currently starring i...