Selected reviews by Nick Curtis, chief theatre critic of The Standard (formerly The Evening Standard).
Nick Curtis was appointed chief theatre critic of The Standard in July 2019.
Born in London, Nick began his career as an editor and theatre critic with Plays & Players magazine and Time Out before joining the Evening Standard as a reviewer, later becoming a feature writer and columnist. He was nominated for Critic of the Year by the Critics’ Circle early in his career and named Interviewer of the Year in the 2012 British Press Awards.
Nick has also written for the Times and Sunday Times, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Radio Times, GQ, Esquire, BA High Life, Marie Claire, Red, the BBC and others.
Nick is married and lives in south London.
More about Nick Curtis:
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Cloud 9 at the National Theatre Lyttelton (2026)
"Unfortunately, though Dominic Cooke's strongly cast production is as fluent as one could wish, the play resonates more for its…
The Standard
The Lives of Others at the Adelphi Theatre (2026)
★★★★★
"Keira Knightley's return to the stage is revolutionary." "You could almost call it a gesamtkunstwerk - a “total artwork” -…
The Standard
Martin Guerre at the Old Vic (2026)
★★★
“This reworked musical about a French peasant returning to his wife but suspected of being an imposter, is committed but…
The Standard
Hay Fever at the Wyndham's Theatre (2026)
★★★
"A handsome, old-fashioned star vehicle for two great character actors and scene-stealers, Christine Baranski and Richard E. Grant." "The lines…
The Standard
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the @sohoplace (2026)
★★★★
"Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup give towering performances." "This is a chance to see two actors at the top of…
The Standard
The Last Ship at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (2026)
★★
"Many of the songs have a certain majesty, and a resonant sense of working-class community and pride, not least because…
The Standard
Fences at the Leeds Playhouse and Lyric Hammersmith (2026)
★★★★
"Ray Fearon’s sturdy, fiery Troy Maxson is a loving husband and a showmanlike embroiderer of his own myth[...]Fearon gives a…
The Standard
Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy at the Stratford East (2026)
★★★★
“With masked gangs of angry men currently on British streets, Ava Pickett’s riposte to toxic masculinity, which transposes the aftermath…
The Standard
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf at the The Yard Theatre (2026)
★★★★
“The scrappy Hackney Wick venue elbowed into a crowded London theatre scene in 2011, presenting innovative commissions and programming in…
The Standard
Kimberly Akimbo at the Hampstead Theatre (2026)
★★★★
" Michael Longhurst’s wry, nimble production also hands 66-year-old musical theatre star Maria Friedman a glittering singing role and an…
The Standard
The Story at the National Theatre (2026)
★★★★
“A cracking melodrama about race and the media in America.” “Tracey Scott Wilson’s 2003 play has the pace and punch…
The Standard
Who Killed Marilyn? at the Emerald Theatre (2026)
★
“Purporting to reclaim Marilyn as a talented actress and an independent woman rather than a victim, it in fact ploughs…
The Standard
How the Other Half Loves at the The Old Vic (2026)
★★★
"meticulously plotted and executed, elegantly staged in the round as originally conceived" "coasts successfully on the comic timing of Dorothy…
The Standard
I’m Every Woman - The Chaka Khan Musical at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre (2026)
★
"The singing voices of a cast led by an extravagantly bewigged Alexandra Burke are pretty much the only saving grace"…
The Standard
Tao of Glass at the @sohoplace (2026)
★★★★
"it's magic, and arguably profound." "Fundamentally it's about acceptance — of age and death… and the unknowable mystery of where…
The Standard
Jesus Christ Superstar - London Palladium at the London Palladium (2026)
★★★★
"An OTT, aorta-pumping concert-style production… thrilling, high-octane." "Sheader's production… has the bleary, transportive mood of a festival." "This JCS is…
The Standard
PRIDE The Musical at the National Theatre (2026)
★★★★
“Not every story needs to be turned into a musical, but Matthew Warchus’s 2014 film Pride seemed to be crying…
The Standard
Cyrano de Bergerac at the Noël Coward Theatre (2026)
★★★★
“Director Simon Evans and writer Debris Stevenson, who is a poet as well as a playwright, academic and “professional raver”,…
The Standard
Glengarry Glen Ross at the The Old Vic (2026)
★★★★
"Patrick Marber’s all-female staging of David Mamet’s hyper-masculine 1984 study of desperate real-estate salesmen somehow feels compellingly new and strange."…
The Standard
High Society at the Barbican Theatre (2026)
★★★
"See this for George, Kendal, Dyer and Lindsay" “It’s the women who impress in this reworked, airy Cole Porter musical…
The Standard
Equus at the Menier Chocolate Factory (2026)
★★★★
"A fine revival of a deeply odd but significant play" "A forceful revival of Peter Shaffer’s strange play at the…
The Standard
Sherlock Holmes at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre (2026)
★★
"A garbled take" "Joel Horwood’s script, loosely based on [Conan Doyle's] story The Sign of Four, is an uneasy mix…
The Standard
1536 at the Ambassadors Theatre (2026)
★★★★★
"As the plot unfolds we judge how much and how little has changed since 1536." "Ava Pickett’s debut play, which…
The Standard
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