Citysong, Soho Theatre review - big writing, big heart

★★★★ CITYSONG, SOHO THEATRE Big writing, big heart

A poetic journey through time and space in Dublin is beautifully written

Irish playwright Dylan Coburn Gray's new play won the Verity Bargate Award in 2017, and his reward is a fine production of this beautifully written account of one Dublin family over several decades. It is a light-touch epic which is partly a humorous account of ordinary people's daily lives, partly a meditation on time and partly a social history of changing attitudes to family, and to sex, over the years in Ireland.

Sweat, Gielgud Theatre review - searing drama of working life

★★★★★ SWEAT, GIELGUD THEATRE The indelible power of Lynn Nottage’s new play confirmed

The indelible power of Lynn Nottage’s new play confirmed in Donmar transfer

There’s a joke early on in Sweat, Lynn Nottage's superlative drama about American working lives, in which a lively bar-room conversation turns to the seemingly unlikely subject of NAFTA. It’s 2000, the Bush presidency just around the corner, and the impact of the acronymic North American Free Trade Agreement is about to hit the country's industrial heartlands.

Jude, Hampstead Theatre review - Greek tragedy for today

★★★ JUDE, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Greek tragedy for today

New tragi-comedy about a Syrian refugee's Oxford dreams is just too gnomic

Edward Hall bids farewell to this venue, where he has been artistic director since 2010, with this production of a new play by Howard Brenton. The playwright has been a regular at the Hampstead Theatre, and he has enjoyed stagings of his history plays here, including 55 Days (2012), Drawing the Line (2013) and Lawrence after Arabia (2016).

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.

Top Girls, National Theatre review - dazzlingly perceptive classic

★★★★★ TOP GIRLS, NATIONAL THEATRE Enjoyable high-definition revival of Caryl Churchill's 1982 feminist classic

Enjoyable high-definition revival of Caryl Churchill's 1982 feminist classic

Caryl Churchill is a phenomenal artist. Not only has she written a huge body of work, but each play differs in both form and content from the previous one, and she has continued to write with enormous creative zest and flair well into her maturity. Now in her 80th year, she can look over her shoulder at a back-catalogue which is stuffed full of contemporary classics, and a handful of masterpieces.

The Son, Kiln Theatre review - darkly tragic

★★★★ THE SON, KILN THEATRE  Powerfully melodramatic

The final part of Florian Zeller's domestic trilogy is powerfully melodramatic

Well, you have to give it to French playwright Florian Zeller — he's certainly cracked the problem of coming up with a name for each of his plays. Basically, choose a common noun and put the definite article in front of it. His latest, The Son, is the last in a trilogy which includes The Father and The Mother.

Eden, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs review - thoughtful commentary on people and principles

★★★★ EDEN, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Thoughtful commentary on people and principles

Hannah Patterson's new play is based on a true story, but stands firmly on its own two feet

"It's gonna be the best golf course in the world," a man in an Aertex shirt and a bright red baseball cap is assuring us. "The best. I guarantee it." You can tell he's the kind of person who thinks talking quickly and loudly is the same thing as being right.

Equus, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - thrilling physicality

★★★★ EQUUS, THEATRE ROYAL STRATFORD EAST Thrilling physicality

Brilliant revival of the 1970s classic about pagan worship and repressed sexuality

There is no doubt that Peter Shaffer's Equus is a modern classic. But does that justify reviving this 1973 hit play in our current social circumstances? And what can it say to us today? The good news is that up-and-coming director Ned Bennett is at the helm of this version, and that he brings not only his individual vision to the piece, but also plenty of guts and balls and feeling: this is much more than a simple retread of John Dexter's legendary original, with its platform-hooved man-horses and starry casts here and in New York (Alec McCowen, Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hulce).

Keith? A Comedy, Arcola Theatre review - Molière mined for Brexit-era laughs

Canny update of a 17th-century classic locates real laughs in today's censorious landscape

Breathe in the love and breathe out the bullshit. After the Arcola Theatre's founder and artistic director Mehmet Ergen read Keith? A Comedy, a wild spin on the quasi-ubiquitous (these days, anyway) Tartuffe by the critic and writer Patrick Marmion, the theatre moved to cast and stage the play in a matter of weeks.