London theatre reviews from the UK newspaper The Daily Mail.
Here’s a selection of reviews of London shows from the theatre and arts critics at The Daily Mail newspaper.
London theatre critics for the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday include Patrick Marmion, Georgina Brown and Robert Gore Langton.
See below for a full run-down of star ratings and theatre opinions about West End shows in London from The Daily Mail.
Great Expectations at the Garrick Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Verdict: Is 'ard not to love it" "Now we find Izzard doing a spellbinding solo turn in Charles Dickens's saga…
Rose at the Ambassadors Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Forget Beattie on the phone, 'Rose' is Maureen Lipman in full bloom" "Verdict: Dame Maureen Rises" "Performed sitting on a…
Aspects of Love at the Lyric Theatre (2023)
★★★
"The same show 34 years on - and Michael Ball blows us away all over again" "Verdict: Great moments, long…
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Shakespeare's Globe (2023)
★★★★
"A Midsummer Night's love tangle that's half dream, half nightmare" "Verdict: A devilish charm" "Shakespeare's playful comedy of errors is…
The Comedy of Errors at the Shakespeare's Globe (2023)
★★★★
"Verdict: Twin Peaks" "Shakespeare's first — and shortest — comedy can, in the wrong hands, sometimes feel misnamed. But Sean…
Bleak Expectations at the Criterion Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Are there enough fans to render this more than an old curiosity shop?" "Verdict: Not the Dickens" "To be fair…
Brokeback Mountain at the Soho Place Theatre (2023)
★★
"How to turn a steamy cowboy encounter into a yawnfest on the mountain top:" "Verdict: A 90-minute snooze" "Brace yourself…
Ain't Too Proud - The Life And Times Of The Temptations at the Prince Edward Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Hits galore will thrill their fans - but this Temptations tribute lacks soul" "Ain't Too Proud is a catalogue musical…
Dancing at Lughnasa at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Brian Friel's Donegal memory play can quite reasonably be performed as pleasantly sentimental, but I longed for Josie Rourke's revival…
Private Lives at the Donmar Warehouse (2023)
★★
"... Michael Longhurst's horribly unfunny revival, which scrapes away the brittle artifice of the writing and reveals the ugly truth…
A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"A little grim, but A Little Life is worth the pain" "Assuming the frenzied anticipation didn't finish you off, the…
Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Sit down? Not with this rocking revival!" "Daniel Mays is the go-to Cockney geezer du jour... All that’s what makes…
The Great British Bake Off Musical at the Noel Coward Theatre (2023)
"A mille-feuille with layers of jammy wokery and enough sugar to make the teeth scream" "Syrian immigrant Hassan (Aharon Rayner)…
The Merchant of Venice 1936 at the Watford Palace (2023)
★★
"Now Shylock’s an East End matriarch facing down fascists" "Historical mis-match" "In a radical new production of The Merchant Of…
Shirley Valentine at the Duke of York's Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Sheridan Smith is wall to wall sunshine, a one-woman pina colada with a cocktail umbrella!" "When the curtain rises on…
Oklahoma! at the Wyndham's Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Oh, what a thrilling hoedown!" "Sexy, spare and stunning" "Shameless Ado Annie isn’t the only one who ‘Cain’t Say No’…
The Winter's Tale at the Shakespeare's Globe (2023)
★★★★
"Globe’s first tale over TWO venues" "Double the fun" "Sean Holmes’s production begins in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, at the…
Grenfell: System Failure at the The Playground Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Raw, uncompromising, state-of-the-nation theatre" "Staged in the Playground Theatre, in the shadow of Grenfell, on a replica of the shabby…
Sylvia at the The Old Vic Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Slightly tamed suffragette" "Audaciously, it casts black actors in the white leading roles: soul diva Beverley Knight as Emmeline Pankhurst;…
Standing at the Sky's Edge at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Six decades on a Sheffield estate... and you'll love it" "Soaring love song to Sheffield" "This mighty, moving play with…
Phaedra at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"A Shadow Cabinet minister ruined by lust? It's a tragedy!" "Good-value meltdown" "Janet McTeer is now perhaps best known for…
The Lehman Trilogy at the Gillian Lynne Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"A bunch of bankers you might like to meet" "First time around, it's easy to be blown away by the…
The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Alex casts her spell as the first female Prospero" "... make no mistake, this is no politically correct stunt by…
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2023)
★★
"More mute than cute - Aidan and Jenna's show is a lemon" "Give them — or almost anyone — a…
Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"It's comedy with the precision of a high end cuckoo clock" "... as a bravura piece of comic plotting, Michael…
The Unfriend at the Criterion Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"A rollicking blast from the past" "Steven (Sherlock) Moffat's debut is a peculiarly old-fashioned play, a very British comedy of…
Cirque du Soleil: KURIOS at the Royal Albert Hall (2023)
★★
"Stop clowning around please, I'm allergic!" " It's the usual assembly of cunning stunts, although far less impressive than previous…
Alex Edelman: Just for Us at the Menier Chocolate Factory (2023)
★★★★
"Whoever had the idea of mic-ing him up in this intimate venue must be seriously hard of hearing." "It's a…
George Takei's Allegiance at the Charing Cross Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Oh my, Mr Sulu!" "Allegiance is a wholesome musical about an unwholesome subject: the internment of Japanese-Americans in the aftermath…
A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Gone are Normal People's Paul Mescal's boyish charms, he's a beast off the leash" "Much the best reason for seeing…
On The Ropes at the Park Theatre (2023)
★★
"Needs to shed some weight" "Dougie Blaxland’s lumbering script, written with Vanriel, actually makes him less sympathetic by being too…
Watch on the Rhine at the Donmar Warehouse (2023)
★★★
"It's a hodgepodge of storylines, but this World War II drama has a Casablanca thrill to it" "It starts off…
Jack and the Beanstalk at the London Palladium (2022)
★★★★★
"This sauced-up panto is a right treat" "... Jack And The Beanstalk, a triumph of smut and glamour — and…
Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre (2022)
★★★
"Yee-ha! it’s a very dolly Christmas for Scrooge" "Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol is everything you’d expect: a bright…
Paradise Now! at the Bush Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Avon calling!" "Originality is a precious commodity in a theatrical world that is often too eager to run with the…
Mother Goose at the Duke of York's Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"What sauce! Dame Ian McKellen is in fine feather for this classic panto" "The old ham is fantastic. Hair full…
Orlando at the Garrick Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Emma Corrin is pixie perfect in this frisky ode to freedom" "Ever since Emma Corrin catapulted to stardom, after peeping…
A Sherlock Carol at the Marylebone Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Not sure about this, Sherlock" "I wanted to adore it — and it is only two hours (a big plus…
Elf The Musical at the Dominion Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Who needs Will Ferrell? This show is a real cracker" "Verdict: Slick festive fun" "The 2003 film Elf is an…
A Christmas Carol at the The Old Vic (2022)
★★★★
"Dickensian feast for the eyes" "2022's Scrooge is Owen Teale from Game Of Thrones and my favourite so far: fabulous…
Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial at the Wyndham's Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"You really couldn’t make this story up and the fact it’s all true is like a scene out of Dynasty!"…
Matilda The Musical (2022)
★★★★★
"This magical Matilda is pitch perfect... even Roald Dahl would be delighted" "Matilda The Musical fully deserves to join it…
The Sex Party at the Menier Chocolate Factory (2022)
★★★★
"Sex parties, lies and the joys of a nice cup of cocoa" "Johnson’s play, with insane courage, walks into a…
Marvellous at the @sohoplace (2022)
★★★
"It's a bold move by producer Nica Burns using Theresa Heskins' no-star production to open the 600-seater Soho Place theatre."…
Local Hero at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Daniel Evans's farewell production in Chichester, before he takes charge of the Royal Shakespeare Company next year, is a great…
My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Psst! A big cuddly surprise in this sugar-rush of a show" "For sheer, turbo-charged, off-the-Richter scale, sigh-inducing spectacle, you will…
The Boy with Two Hearts at the National Theatre (2022)
★★
"Heartfelt but saccharine" "An oddly saccharine saga of an Afghan family fleeing the Taliban and seeking help for their eldest…
John Gabriel Borkman at the Bridge Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Hard to take seriously " "Cut loose from its period detail and set in a contemporary 'palace' of embossed concrete,…
The Crucible at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Arthur Miller's classic witch hunt makes today's woke wars seem trivial" "... the really great thing about Lyndsey Turner's gruelling…
The Two Popes at the The Rose Kingston & UK Tour (2022)
★★★★
"Two popes and one question - how do we move from era to era?" "At a time of succession in…
The Snail House at the Hampstead Theatre (2022)
★★★
"More pain, please!" "One of the great directors of modern times, Eyre (a late-onset writer at 79) unfolds the action…
The Clothes They Stood Up In at the Nottingham Playhouse (2022)
★★★
"Funny pair, quirky play... should be a perfect fit" "Verdict: Second-hand Bennett" "Still, even second-hand Bennett has its pleasures. For…
Gary Barlow - A Different Stage at the Duke of York's Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Soppy, sappy... but Barlow still shines like a superstar" "I first saw the show in the community centre of Gary's…
I, Joan at the Shakespeare's Globe (2022)
★★★★
"I, Joan is not all po-faced politics" "... let’s face it, the Catholic warrior who cut off her hair and…
The Narcissist at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Each character is self-regarding, in line with the title — though, interestingly, Lloyd's Jim is the least so. He's the…
The Narcissist at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Harry Lloyd is fluent and passionate in the role, but good heavens this is wordy and dense stuff, comprising mostly…
All's Well That Ends Well at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon (2022)
★★
"'Unloved' play just got unlovelier" "The story is so far from modern protocols around matchmaking that Helena can only strike…
Into The Woods at the Theatre Royal Bath (2022)
★★★★
"Magical spectacle" "Gloating may be unseemly but Terry Gilliam has certainly earned the right to crow about his stunning new…
The Trials at the Donmar Warehouse (2022)
★★
"See title" "The Trials is a net-zero entertainment set in a dystopian near future where juries of children have been…
Identical at the Nottingham Playhouse (2022)
★★★★★
"Tale of twins reunited is a double delight" "Director Trevor Nunn, former RSC supremo, well-versed with Shakespeare's tragicomedies of errors…
Sister Act at the Eventim Apollo (2022)
★★★★
"Just divine! A habit worth getting in to" "Playing the night club singer Deloris van Cartier, who hides from the…
101 Dalmatians at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Puppet puppies are too cute to be worn by Cruella" "Zinnie Harris and Johnny McKnight’s somewhat worthy adaptation combines the…
Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"The Guvnor's back with a bawdy romp" "Richard Bean is back at the National Theatre with a snortingly good, crowd-pleasing…
Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre (2022)
★★
" Not much about ado" "There seemed little love lost between the actors in Simon Godwin’s lightweight production, which doesn’t…
Crazy For You at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Guaranteed to put pep in your step!" "When shows are as good as this staging of Crazy For You, they’re…
Billy Elliot The Musical at the Curve Theatre Leicester (2022)
★★★★
"Billy still has the power to move us to tears" "It’s fair to say that Sir Elton’s finest work lies…
Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Delightful and de-lovely as ever aboard SS American" "About 20 minutes into this joyous show, I stopped taking notes —…
Patriots at the Almeida Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"The rise and fall of Putin’s arch enemy " "Rupert Goold directs with characteristic touches of song and dance on…
Richard III reviews - RSC Stratford at the Stratford Upon Avon (2022)
★★★
"Psycho super-villain? No, he’s more of a naughty boy" "Hughes gives it his all. The actor, who has radial dysplasia,…
Jitney at the Old Vic Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Gutsy" "The pleasure of this gutsy and absorbing revival of August Wilson’s 1970s taxi-office drama is that it spares us…
Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] at the Park Theatre (2022)
★★★★
MAIL ON SUNDAY "A raucous New Labour spoof that's not afraid of a cheap laugh" "This is a raucous spoof…
Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] at the Park Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Harry Hill's musical takes bite out of Blair" "Verdict: Joyfully profane tonic" "All hail Harry Hill and his musical writing…
The Unfriend at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Deathly dull " "Comedies of procrastination can only go on so long before something must give. Only here, it doesn't."…
ABBA Voyage at the ABBA Arena (2022)
★★★★★
"The Abbatars will take you on a magical trip back to the 70s " "For all the razzamatazz, the show…
ABBA Voyage at the ABBA Arena (2022)
★★★★
"Abba-cadabra! With a touch of magic, they're back on stage... ADRIAN THRILLS watches classic band's 'live return' on first night…
My Fair Lady (2022)
★★★★
"Never mind that Amara Okereke is the first black Eliza Doolittle in a West End production of this joyous musical…
Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Mark Rylance still shines as juicy Johnny 'Rooster' Byron in the thrillingly well-written and almost magical Jerusalem" "It’s thrillingly well…
Punchdrunk: The Burnt City at the One Cartridge Place (2022)
★★
"Punchdrunk's immersive Greek tragedy show The Burnt City may leave you footsore and slightly confused, but the designs are marvellous"…
Straight Line Crazy at the Bridge Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"My way, or the highway, for Fiennes the megalomaniac" "Ralph Fiennes had better watch his back. Terrific as he is…
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club (Playhouse Theatre) (2021)
★★★★
"At Eddie’s Cabaret, even the set’s wunderbar" "It may be a little parsimonious in its pleasures, but this eagerly anticipated…
Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical at the Lyric Theatre (2021)
★★★
"Marley is magic but the drama needs some redemption" "As much as I love Marley and his music, this version,…
Back to the Future at the Adelphi Theatre (2021)
★★★★★
"From Doc to the DeLorean, this blast from the past hits all the right notes" "Where to begin, with a…
Frozen The Musical at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (2021)
★★★★★
"More magical than the film, this stage version of Frozen is one hot hit" "But whatever we grown-ups may think…
Les Miserables at the Sondheim Theatre (2020)
★★★★★
"The mighty Mis is still revolutionary" "... this 'new staging' of one of the world's longest-running musicals remains fit to…
Magic Goes Wrong at the Vaudeville Theatre (2020)
★★★★
"The secret of the so-called Wrong Boys’ success is surely that it’s deeply familiar parody, with a twist of Monty…
The Girl Who Fell at the Trafalgar Theatre (2019)
★★★★
"A sparky, modern show … Rutherford is a fresh voice"
Come From Away at the Phoenix Theatre (2019)
★★★
"Is this 9/11 musical too hearty?" "It’s based on real-life accounts of how residents on the island of Newfoundland coped…
9 to 5 The Musical at the Savoy Theatre (2019)
★★★
"The crowd lapped it up" "McQueen as Doralee (unmistakably the rootin’-tootin’ Dolly Parton role) is the closest thing to stardust…
All About Eve at the Noel Coward Theatre (2019)
★★★★
"Superbly assured, but it's All About gimmicks" "Gimmickry can be fascinating, as when Margo’s face is rapidly aged in a…
Company at the Gielgud Theatre (2018)
★★★★
"Sondheim revamped with a gender bender twist" "Yet another old show has been warmed up with gender bending." "In places…
Red at the Wyndham's Theatre (2018)
★★★★
"Red has smashing performances and is directed and designed with great care and skill" "John Logan wrote the edge-of-your-seat film…
Tina - The Tina Turner Musical at the Aldwych Theatre (2018)
★★★★★
"That voice, I tell you: it could reduce the very citadel of Jericho to rubble" "Adrienne Warren. Dimples to kill.…
Sister Act The Musical at the London Palladium (2009)
★★
"Hold on to your wimples" "Call me a miserable old monk, but I hated Sister Act"
Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (2009)
"It is pointless to say that Sir Cameron Mackintosh has a hit because advance ticket sales are already enormous, but…
📷 Main photo: Daily Mail
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