All My Sons, Old Vic review - starry but disappointingly uneven

★★★ ALL MY SONS, OLD VIC Arthur Miller's classic family drama has one outstanding performance - and one dud

Arthur Miller's classic family drama has one outstanding performance - and one dud

Superstar Sally Field has come to town. With two academy awards and countless other accolades, the actor who played Forrest Gump's mother and dozens of other roles, from Frog to Mrs Lincoln, in Hollywood blockbusters and on television now returns to the stage to play a delusional and deceitful matriarch in Arthur Miller's All My Sons, part of the Old Vic's continuing tribute to the American playwright.

The American Clock, Old Vic review - Arthur Miller's musical history lesson drags

★★★ THE AMERICAN CLOCK, OLD VIC Arthur Miller's musical history lesson drags

Rachel Chavkin's creative revival can't quite tame this sprawling epic

This year’s unofficial Arthur Miller season – following The Price and ahead of All My Sons at the Old Vic and Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic – now turns to his 1980 work, The American Clock, inspired in part by Miller’s own memories of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression.

A Christmas Carol, Old Vic review - Dickens adaptation returns, depth and mince pies intact

Last year's festive-season hit, re-cast, continues to enchant

The Old Vic's revival of its successful Christmas Carol first seen this time last year had me at the mince pies: they were served before curtain up by a Bob Cratchit figure while we admired the shoal of Victorian lanterns lighting the way over a cross-shaped stage that cuts the audience into quarters. Top-hatted gentlemen and gentleladies in swishing black great coats strolled about tossing oranges.

Wise Children, Old Vic review - Emma Rice in fun if not quite top-flight form

★★★ WISE CHILDREN, OLD VIC Emma Rice in fun if not quite top-flight form

Angela Carter adaptation strains to sustain its high spirits

"What could possibly go wrong?" The question ends the first act of Wise Children, the debut venture from the new company birthed by a director, Emma Rice, who must have asked herself precisely that query at many points in recent years.

Mood Music, Old Vic review - riveting critique of the music biz

★★★★ MOOD MUSIC, OLD VC Joe Penhall’s new play about the music industry really rocks

Joe ‘Sunny Afternoon’ Penhall’s triumphant new play about the music industry really rocks

Playwright Joe Penhall and the music biz? Well, they have history. When he was writing the book for Sunny Afternoon, his 2014 hit musical about the Kinks, he had a few run-ins with Ray Davies, the band’s lead singer.

The Divide, Old Vic review - Alan Ayckbourn’s overblown dystopia

★★ THE DIVIDE, OLD VIC Alan Ayckbourn’s overblown dystopia

Epic, very long satire on religion and sexual segregation prefers comedy to tragedy

Playwright Alan Ayckbourn basically comes in two flavours: suburban comedies of embarrassment and sci-fi fantasies. His latest, The Divide, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival last year in a two-part six-hour version, has been now been trimmed down to a single very long evening for its short stay at the Old Vic in London.

A Christmas Carol, Old Vic review - Rhys Ifans takes on Scrooge, triumphantly

★★★★ A CHRISTMAS CAROL, OLD VIC Superb staging resurrects Dickens' morality tale

Superb staging resurrects Dickens' morality tale

Fresh from the success of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Jack Thorne now gives us his exuberant adaptation of another much-loved text. Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol is the well-worn morality fable seared into our collective memory by countless screen versions and stage musicals.

The Lorax, Old Vic Theatre review - a sage tale for young theatre goers

★★★★ THE LORAX, OLD VIC THEATRE A brilliantly British take on the Dr Seuss kids' classic

A brilliantly British take on the Dr Seuss kids' classic

With mentions of Theresa May, cricket jumpers and DMs, Trump slurs and a host of characters with Northern accents, The Old Vic's return version of Dr Seuss' The Lorax, proves itself to be poles apart from the recent, popular Universal Pictures movie.