Selected reviews by Dominic Maxwell, theatre and comedy critic for The Times and the Sunday Times.
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Further than the Furthest Thing at the Young Vic Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"A vivid elegy for a vanished world" "For once, the trigger warnings underdo it... there is a steady strangeness and…
The Times
The Winter's Tale at the Shakespeare's Globe (2023)
★★★
"A jolly caper that needs to find its heart" "Bring an extra layer. And a woolly hat. And maybe a…
The Times
The Walworth Farce at the Southwark Playhouse Elephant (2023)
★★★
"A funny but cryptic family tragicomedy" "The super-local south London setting makes reviving Enda Walsh’s 2006 play an obvious choice…
The Times
Romeo and Julie at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"The lovers get a witty, gritty, working-class update" "As it turns out, this witty, gritty yet generous rom-com by Gary…
The Times
Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical at the Birmingham Rep (2023)
★★★
"Polish but not enough bite" "There is too much going on in Sean Foley’s production for it to get boring,…
The Times
Phaedra at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Succession meets Peep Show in stunningly sharp update" "It’s Phaedra, kind of, but Simon Stone’s rivetingly black-comical psychodrama is also…
The Times
The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Prospero magic holds long show together" "... Elizabeth Freestone’s production may veer between the inspired and the rather clunky, but…
The Times
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Wordplay rom-com is short and sharp, but hits a character limit" "Can two good actors and a gifted director, Josie…
The Times
Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Frayn’s immortal farce is an antidote to winter gloom" "... even if sinking into the door-slamming, trouser-dropping netherworld of a…
The Times
The Unfriend at the Criterion Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Steven Moffat’s comedy hits the funny bone" "... with Alan Ayckbourn’s West End supremacy a distant memory and good farces…
The Times
Cirque du Soleil: KURIOS at the Royal Albert Hall (2023)
★★★★
"A weird and wondrous spectacular" "Together, they encourage a gently spooky sense of joy. There are capering conjoined twins, men…
The Times
A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Magnetic Paul Mescal is no normal leading man" "Mescal is tremendous: he makes the latent violence of Stanley Kowalski into…
The Times
Derren Brown: SHOWMAN at the Apollo Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Britain’s favourite magician conjures another hit" "He brings his own life on stage and fuses raw honesty with prestidigitation, misdirection…
The Times
One Woman Show at the Ambassadors Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Much more than a Fleabag spoof" "People, most importantly, have seen it and laughed, laughed, laughed. Its mix of the…
The Times
Jack and the Beanstalk at the London Palladium (2022)
★★★★
"Camp innuendo, Dawn French and a singing cow" "Dawn French having more fun as “juicy old Dame Trot” — the…
The Times
Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre (2022)
★★★
"This is very much Dolly Does Dickens. It’s country music, not carols," "Parton, who writes the songs, and her co-adapters,…
The Times
Sons of the Prophet at the Hampstead Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Grief and grievances in a brilliant tragicomedy" "... a show that, never mind the BlackBerries wielded by its mid-2000s protagonists,…
The Times
Disney's Newsies at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Spectacular dancing, but where’s the story?" "If an audience can’t find thrills in the director and choreographer Matt Cole’s large-scale…
The Times
Mother Goose at the Hackney Empire (2022)
★★★
"Panto dame Clive Rowe holds court in Hackney" "Is Clive Rowe the greatest pantomime dame of the century? Oh, he…
The Times
Elf The Musical at the Dominion Theatre (2022)
★★★
"A functional family Christmas treat" "... functional family seasonal treats on this scale don’t grow on Christmas trees. And, within…
The Times
A Christmas Carol at the The Old Vic (2022)
★★★
"Jack Thorne’s Dickens comes with all the trimmings" "Short of ushers guiding you to your seats on sleighs made of…
The Times
Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial at the Wyndham's Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Wagatha Christie play hits back of the net" "Vardy v Rooney proved to be a high-wire act, all right, but…
The Times
From Here To Eternity at the Charing Cross Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Tim Rice’s Pearl Harbor musical fights again" "... Rice’s son Donald has joined Bill Oakes to co-write the book, a…
The Times
@sohoplace at the @sohoplace (2022)
"@sohoplace is the first new purpose-built theatre to arrive in the West End in 50 years. I can’t love the…
The Times
Marvellous at the @sohoplace (2022)
★★★★
"A life-affirming show that’s true to its name" "I can feel the adjectives queueing up in my head, ready to…
The Times
Local Hero at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Entertaining, not quite enchanting" "Evans has a sure way with a musical, and from the moment the grey thrust stage…
The Times
Good at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Tennant’s nice then Nazi in this insidious revival" "In this hugely rewarding revival of CP Taylor’s 1981 play about Nazi…
The Times
The Doctor at the Duke of York's Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Juliet Stevenson stuns in the play of the decade" "It is the most politically pertinent play of the decade. And…
The Times
Dmitry at the Marylebone Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Dynastic ding-dong that befuddles then bewitches" "An unabashedly high-theatrical style that at first makes you clutch your seat in fear…
The Times
The P Word at the Bush Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"A tremendous two-man rom-com" "... The P Word delights on pretty much every level. Akhtar has the two men each…
The Times
Gary Barlow - A Different Stage at the Duke of York's Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Tales from the boy-band boy scout" "Barlow is an energetic and engaging storyteller, but you won’t mistake A Different Stage…
The Times
Chasing Hares at the Young Vic (2022)
★★★
"A fitfully fascinating study of compromise and coercion" "At its best, Chasing Hares is a pacy, thrilling depiction of compromise…
The Times
Billy Elliot The Musical at the Curve Theatre Leicester (2022)
★★★★★
"This revival will have you dancing for joy" "It’s a flat-out masterpiece. And if you had any worries that a…
The Times
Disney's Beauty and the Beast at the London Palladium (2022)
★★★
"An all-singing, all-dancing piece of the Disney brand" "Spectacle wins out over storytelling in this extravagant, exuberantly played revival of…
The Times
Jitney at the Old Vic Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"A funny, fractious dive into the lives of 1970s American taxi drivers" "Tinuke Craig’s fluid and absorbing revival oozes an…
The Times
Murder On The Orient Express at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Henry Goodman is outstanding" "Goodman has entirely cracked the mystery of how to put a new spin on the world’s…
The Times
My Fair Lady (2022)
★★★
"A bit more power and it would be really lovely" "a very decent, very stylish, eventually quite audacious My Fair…
The Times
Grease at the Dominion Theatre (2022)
★★★
"It’s highly professional." "Arlene Phillips’s choreography offers some thrills" "[When] Olivia Moore takes centre stage.. to sing good-girl Sandy’s impassioned…
The Times
Much Ado About Nothing at the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Shakespeare’s sparring lovers start the Globe’s new season in style" "Something about Much Ado’s sprawling mix of the cheering (flirtation,…
The Times
Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre (2022)
★★★★★
"Mark Rylance mesmerises in one of the best plays you will ever see" "A thousand playwrights try to write the…
The Times
Prima Facie at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Shapeshifter Jodie Comer takes the stage by storm" "If you’ve seen Jodie Comer play the murderous Villanelle in Killing Eve…
The Times
Marys Seacole at the Donmar Warehouse (2022)
★★★
"An ambitious tribute to the pioneering nurse of Crimea" "This kaleidoscopic play is by turns abstruse, amusing, irked, forgiving. Mother-daughter…
The Times
Bring It On: The Musical at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (2021)
★★★★
"Cheerleading musical will put smiles on faces" "Inspired by the film series of the same name, Bring It On here…
The Times
A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story at the Nottingham Playhouse (2021)
★★★
"Mark Gatiss’s new Dickens adaptation puts a smile on your face" "This is how to make Dickens’s greatest hit feel…
The Times
Magic Goes Wrong at the Vaudeville Theatre (2020)
★★★★
"Revelling in the art of the complex cock‑up" "It’s a magic show. It starts going wrong. It keeps going wrong,…
The Times
Groan Ups at the Vaudeville Theatre (2019)
★★
"Bigger in scope, smaller in impact" "I’d love to say that it’s another smash. It has some lovely moments, especially…
The Times
The Girl Who Fell at the Trafalgar Theatre (2019)
★★★
"Lurching through a mothers grief " "The lurches from idea to idea that stop The Girl Who Fell from being…
The Times
Vassa at the Almeida Theatre (2019)
★
"Like a tone-deaf pre-Soviet Succession." “Redmond is a terrific actress, but struggles to suggest any inner life for a woman…
The Times
Come From Away at the Phoenix Theatre (2019)
★★★★★
"9/11 musical has a heart the size of Canada" "A feelgood 9/11 musical? Can that really be a good idea,…
The Times
All About Eve at the Noel Coward Theatre (2019)
★★
"Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a boring night... the multimedia staging knocks the wit out of this drama"…
The Times
Hole at the Royal Court Theatre (2018)
★★
‘This hour-long explosion of the deeply felt meets the intellectually playful meets performance-art spectacle starts and ends with the same…
The Times
Billionaire Boy at the NST City, Southampton (2018)
★★★★
“An imaginative, irreverent adaptation of David Walliams’s book captures the story’s fun and its heart” “Good news for Robbie Williams:…
The Times
📷 Main photo: Critics - Dominic Maxwell
