Selected reviews by Susannah Clapp, theatre critic for the Observer.
Susannah Clapp is the theatre critic for the Guardian’s Sunday publication the Observer.
She is also the author of With Chatwin and A Card from Angela Carter, and a regular broadcaster. Susannah was one of the founders of the London Review of Books.
More about Susannah Clapp:
The Guardian & Observer Bio & Articles | Twitter | MuckRack | Instagram
Marjorie Prime at the Menier Chocolate Factory (2023)
★★★
"Nancy Carroll and Anne Reid surf memory and identity" "Something happens in Nancy Carroll’s face that I have not seen…
The Observer
Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"The audience is swept along with the action in Nicholas Hytner’s thrillingly immersive new Guys and Dolls" "Not merely rocking…
The Observer
Shirley Valentine at the Duke of York's Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Sheridan Smith makes Willy Russell’s midlife monologue her own" "It is nimble, generous and truly feminist in showing that the…
The Observer
Grenfell: System Failure at the The Playground Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicolas Kent’s second Grenfell drama is a shocking dissection of negligence" "Staging actual trials and tribunals, using…
The Observer
Women, Beware The Devil at the Almeida Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Director Rupert Goold and co have a field day with Lulu Raczka’s elusive new Jacobean folk horror" "The trouble is…
Romeo and Julie at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Star-crossed Cardiff teenagers snare hearts and minds" "It is unusual to sit in the stalls hanging on a plot twist.…
The Observer
Trouble in Butetown at the Donmar Warehouse (2023)
★★★
"Diana Nneka Atuona brings wartime Cardiff to life" "Diana Nneka Atuona draws on the place’s well-known qualities to make Trouble…
The Observer
Medea at the @sohoplace (2023)
★★★★
"Sophie Okonedo breathes fire as Medea" "The success of the play depends on general plausibility being swamped by the strength…
The Observer
Sylvia at the The Old Vic Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Dance, not speech, powers Kate Prince’s suffragette musical" "Sylvia unrolls its story of a mighty movement with exhilaration, in uncompromising…
The Observer
Standing at the Sky's Edge at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Richard Hawley’s paean to Sheffield finds a home from home" "... the lives of these imagined residents – a steelworker…
The Observer
Phaedra at the National Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Janet McTeer is mighty in Simon Stone’s electric remaking of myth" "Simon Stone’s Phaedra is unlike anything I’ve experienced before.…
The Observer
The Lehman Trilogy at the Gillian Lynne Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Illusion captivates in a revival of Sam Mendes’s banking saga" "If anything, The Lehman Trilogy has become weightier, more threatening…
The Observer
Linck & Mülhahn at the Hampstead Theatre (2023)
★★★
"The 21st century erupts into a tale of 18th century gender subversion" "The RSC needs to prove it is essential,…
The Observer
The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Alex Kingston’s fine Prospero weathers an RSC concept storm" "The climate crisis is one in a blizzard of ideas that…
The Observer
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman keep it brief in Sam Steiner’s social media allegory" "The questions tick round as they…
The Observer
Sound of the Underground at the Royal Court Theatre (2023)
★★★★
"Travis Alabanza and friends joyously return drag to its radical roots" "Anyone who thinks theatre costumes are incidental decorations should…
The Observer
The Unfriend at the Criterion Theatre (2023)
★★★
"Steven Moffat and co flirt with farce" "Humorous, with a few chiller touches" "Frances Barber, both luscious and frightening, has…
The Observer
A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida Theatre (2023)
★★★★★
"Paul Mescal, Patsy Ferran and Anjana Vasan captivate in Rebecca Frecknall’s headlong take on Tennessee Williams" "This Streetcar is transporting.…
The Observer
On The Ropes at the Park Theatre (2023)
★★★
"The story of Windrush boxer Vernon Vanriel hits home in song" "It is an important story and it exerts a…
The Observer
Watch on the Rhine at the Donmar Warehouse (2023)
★★★★
"Lillian Hellman’s 1941 call to arms resonates anew" "Ellen McDougall’s handsome, convinced production speaks to today’s fear of the rise…
The Observer
One Woman Show at the Ambassadors Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Liz Kingsman’s zinging take on Fleabag goes beyond parody" "Here’s a good start to the new year. A show that…
The Observer
As You Like It at the @sohoplace (2022)
★★★
"The many voices of Josie Rourke’s fresh As You Like It are led by Rose Ayling-Ellis, signing the part of…
The Observer
Mandela at the The Young Vic (2022)
★★
"A new Mandela musical can’t do the great man justice" "I have seldom seen a show that began with such…
The Observer
Hex at the National Theatre (2022)
★★
"A bad fairy casts a spell on Rufus Norris’s Sleeping Beauty musical" "For much of the time, watching Hex is…
The Observer
Orlando at the Garrick Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Corrin shape-shifts to perfection in Neil Bartlett’s zestful take on Virginia Woolf’s novel" "Watching Emma Corrin on stage is like…
The Observer
Henry V at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (2022)
★★★★
"Oliver Johnstone mesmerises as Henry V" "In an extraordinary stripped-back version, for which the playwright Cordelia Lynn was the dramaturg…
The Observer
Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial at the Wyndham's Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Vardy and Rooney go head to head" "Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial is a game of two halves.…
The Observer
The Sex Party at the Menier Chocolate Factory (2022)
★
"Terry Johnson leaves little to the imagination" "Pity the talented cast enmired in The Sex Party." "Terry Johnson’s new play,…
The Observer
Not One of These People at the Royal Court Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Sometimes lines and image seemed congruent, sometimes they were wildly unexpected, but, then, what sentence wouldn’t be unexpected from the…
The Observer
Super High Resolution at the Soho Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Jasmine Blackborow comes shooting out of the traps as a glowing talent in Super High Resolution" "Nathan Ellis’s new play…
The Observer
Tammy Faye – A New Musical at the Almeida Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Katie Brayben nails the title role as Tammy Faye in a musical otherwise lacking edge" "He [James Graham] has faltered…
The Observer
@sohoplace at the @sohoplace (2022)
"At the first purpose-built theatre in the West End for 50 years, preconceptions melt. At first, Soho Place looks too…
The Observer
Marvellous at the @sohoplace (2022)
★★★★
"The action is warmly circled – the upper tiers glow like copper – and embraced by its audience. I’ve rarely…
The Observer
Local Hero at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Local Hero is appealing, but not dynamic enough for the best display of Evans’s talents" "It is Mark Knopfler’s music…
The Observer
My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"A beloved Studio Ghibli anime is brought to magical life in Phelim McDermott’s new RSC production" "A battery of talent…
The Observer
Good at the Harold Pinter Theatre (2022)
★★★
"David Tennant is transfixing" "Now revived with terrific David Tennant – the more acute because the more restrained – as…
The Observer
The Band's Visit at the Donmar Warehouse (2022)
★★★★
"A vibrant oddball musical bridges the Israeli-Arab gap" "The story is simple and sometimes expressed awkwardly, with bumbling humour in…
The Observer
The Boy with Two Hearts at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★
"An Afghan family seek more than sanctuary" "In Phil Porter’s adaptation of the book by Hamed and Hessam Amiri, speech…
The Observer
Blues For An Alabama Sky at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Thirties Harlem is vibrantly alive at the National" "What a vital evening. Lynette Linton’s production of Blues for an Alabama…
The Observer
John Gabriel Borkman at the Bridge Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Simon Russell Beale is doubly commanding as Ibsen’s charismatic banker in a problem-raising revival" "Nicholas Hytner’s production, even with Simon…
The Observer
The Crucible at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Mob rule meets Little House on the Prairie in an assured revival of The Crucible" "Lyndsey Turner’s assured production rings…
The Observer
Eureka Day at the The Old Vic (2022)
★★
"A new anti-vax satire needs more than a shot of Helen Hunt’s star power" "In turning over the debate between…
The Observer
Silence at the Donmar Warehouse (2022)
★★
"Partition yields neither documentary nor drama" "... in this four-handed adaptation – by Sonali Bhattacharyya, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Ishy Din…
The Observer
I, Joan at the Shakespeare's Globe (2022)
★★★★
"Isobel Thom’s non-binary Joan of Arc blazes on to the stage in Charlie Josephine’s eye-opening new play" "“Non-binary finery”: I…
The Observer
The Narcissist at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Christopher Shinn’s new play of post-Trump politics finds complex characters lost in ego and addiction" "Josh Seymour’s production swoops adroitly…
The Observer
Into The Woods at the Theatre Royal Bath (2022)
★★★
"Terry Gilliam and Leah Hausman’s take on Sondheim is just a bit too much" "The time for Into the Woods…
The Observer
The Trials at the Donmar Warehouse (2022)
★★★
" A teenage jury call their climate-ruining elders to account" "The ‘dinosaur’ generation is put on trial in Dawn King’s…
The Observer
All of Us at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Disablism, austerity and therapy-speak fuel Francesca Martinez’s jolting drama" "There are startling, sparkling episodes in All of Us, revelatory moments…
The Observer
Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★
"Mrs Malaprop’s a loose cannon in Richard Bean’s Battle of Britain take on Sheridan" "Quentin, shiny as a creature on…
The Observer
Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Shakespeare’s comedy is the gift that keeps on giving" "As the hate-to-love, love-to-hate couple, John Heffernan and Katherine Parkinson give…
The Observer
Crazy For You at the Chichester Festival Theatre (2022)
★★★★
"Who can resist Gershwin?" "Development and detail is all in the swelling voices and frisking toes of Carly Anderson and…
The Observer
That Is Not Who I Am at the Royal Court Theatre (2022)
★★★
"A revelatory drama about identity theft is let down by its thriller plot" "At its best, Lucy Morrison’s production spins…
The Observer
A Dolls House, Part 2 at the Donmar Warehouse (2022)
★★★
"Lucas Hnath’s sequel to the Ibsen classic is intriguing rather than revelator" "This Doll’s House is a hybrid: it uses…
The Observer
Jitney at the Old Vic Theatre (2022)
★★★
"August Wilson’s taxi-stand drama has developed new flavour with age" "Punctuated by the constant ringing of the phone, and by…
The Observer
Punchdrunk: The Burnt City at the One Cartridge Place (2022)
★★★★★
"The immersive theatre trailblazers return with an all-consuming vision of the siege of Troy" "The current embracing of all things…
The Observer
All About Eve at the Noel Coward Theatre (2019)
★★★
"Van Hove’s paraphernalia is there – the cameras circling the stage, the video screen capturing and magnifying the action. But…
The Observer
📷 Main photo: Critics - Susannah Clapp
