Tempest Project. Review by Barbara Lewis. On March 21, Peter Brook would have been a hundred. To celebrate the birthday his beloved Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris is staging his and Shakespeare’s final project.
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Punch, Young Vic. Review by Will Staveley. Based on the memoir Right From Wrong by Jacob Dunne, the play tells the book’s story; of how its writer inadvertently kills a trainee paramedic, James Hodgkinson, with a single punch on a night out in Nottingham. It is as uncompromising a work as it sounds, and one which left good amounts of the audience in tears, shock, or a combination of the two.
Cry-Baby, The Musical. Review by Barbara Lewis. “Cry-Baby” may be set in 1950s Baltimore, but lyrics that at once celebrate and satirise the democratic checks and balances of the “nifty country” that is the United States of America make it tailor-made as a tonic for our times.
The Marriage of Figaro. Review by Julia Pascal. In The Marriage of Figaro, director Joe Hill-Gibbins sets the comic opera in a contemporary décor which pulls the 18th century critique of misogyny into our own time.
Stalled. Review by Barbara Lewis. The toilet options in the refurbished King’s Head Theatre are urinals for the real men and, for everyone else, unisex cubicles – or should I say stalls? to pick up the central pun in this musical set in a restroom that is exclusively for women.
855-FOR-TRUTH: An end of the world love story. Review by Barbara Lewis. “LUST IS A SIN. BURN IN HELL, OR CALL 855-FOR-TRUTH,” were the words writer Eva Hudson saw screaming from a billboard at the side of a highway as she journeyed through America.
The Double Act. Review by Barbara Lewis. This unsettling, multi-layered, hilarious dive into the great modern British divisions of north versus south, woke versus non-woke – and bullies versus clowns – has its deepest roots in a childhood lived close to the seaside towns of northwest England.
Kyoto. Review by Barbara Lewis. Oil – the fuel of Western capitalism – was the issue in 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol delivered the first set of targets to limit its use. Nearly three decades later, far too little has changed.
Wagner and the Bayreuth Festival. Review by Graham Buchan. Wagner divides opinion. Even amongst opera lovers there are those who cannot abide his works, whilst others elevate him to almost God-like status.
The Crumple Zone. Review by Barbara Lewis. For anyone nervous their personal relationship might not withstand the stress of the festive period, “The Crumple Zone” offers a manic reassurance that we can survive the impact of an emotional crash, but the pain is excruciating.
Rigoletto. Review by Julia Pascal. Concept is all. And director Jonathan Miller’s decision to set Verdi’s disturbing melodrama in 1950s New York Little Italy is genius.
Stiletto. Review by Barbara Lewis. On average 5,000 boys were castrated every year in 18th-century Italy in a desperate attempt by poor families to change their fortunes. They nearly always managed only to add tragedy to their misery.
By Barbara Lewis • musicals, theatre, year 2025 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, musicals, theatre