Bonnie & Clyde, Arts Theatre review - great songs, but plot fires too many blanks

★★★ BONNIE & CLYDE, ARTS THEATRE Great songs but plot fires too many blanks

Iconic couple shoot for West End success

One of the more irritating memes (it’s a competitive field, I know) is the “Name a more iconic couple” appearing over a photo of Posh and Becks, or Harry and Megan, or Leo and whoever. I’ve always been tempted to close the discussion down with a photo of Bonnie and Clyde, because couples do not come more iconic than they are. 

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, Royal Court review - Black joy, pain, and beauty

★★★★★ FOR BLACK BOYS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE..., ROYAL COURT With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man

With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man

The title is so long that the Royal Court’s neon red lettering only renders the first three words, followed by a telling ellipsis. But lyrical new play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy lives up to its weighty name.

Scandaltown, Lyric Hammersmith review - Restoration-comedy-style take on 21st Century shamelessness

★★★ SCANDALTOWN, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH Mike Bartlett's raucous chronicle of London in the age of Boris Johnson

Mike Bartlett's raucous chronicle of London in the age of Boris Johnson

If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, then Boris Johnson has played the whole sodding orchestra. Between the parties, the lying, the enabling of Russian financial interests and the record European Covid death-toll he has not just traduced Pitt, he has tap-danced on Churchill’s grave in his narcissistic attempt to assert gravitas.

Zorro the Musical, Charing Cross Theatre review - struggling to find the right tone

★★★ ZORRO THE MUSICAL, CHARING CROSS THEATRE Swordplay and songs never quite hit their stride

Swordplay and songs never quite hit their stride

Zorro (what a name!) is back, swashing and buckling his way into the West End, 13 years after he left and now not the only one wearing a mask. He’s also an entertainer turned political leader, inspiring his people to resist an evil martinet. Well, that sort of thing is back in fashion too.

Wolf Cub, Hampstead Downstairs review - haunting solo play about the American nightmare

★★★★ WOLF CUB, HAMPSTEAD DOWNSTAIRS Haunting solo play about American nightmare

Ché Walker directs his savage play, with a stellar turn from Clare Latham

Ché Walker claims he wrote Wolf Cub, now in the Hampstead Downstairs studio space, in a two-day blitz prompted by Donald Trump’s election win in 2016. He was working in Atlanta at the time, the home city of Claire Latham, the solo performer for this piece.

Persuasion, Alexandra Palace Theatre review - graphic-novel-style Austen

★★★ PERSUASION, ALEXANDRA PALACE THEATRE Graphic-novel-style Austen

The soundtrack features musicians ranging from Robyn and Dua Lipa to Cardi B

Jane Austen’s waspish vision revealed the vanities, delusions and cynical financial calculations that underpinned most of the relationships of her day. The element in which she thrived was repression; the heart constrained beneath the corset, the raging passion held firmly in place by that most important part of an Englishman’s anatomy, the stiff upper lip.

The 47th, Old Vic review - ambitious Trump satire doesn't quite hit its target

★★★ THE 47TH, OLD VIC Mike Bartlett's ambitious Trump satire doesn't quite hit its target

As a playwright, how do you handle an arse-fixated arch-disrupter?

Megalomania is inherently theatrical. So it feels like it was only a matter of time before Donald Trump took to the boards, blasting the assembled crowd with his tangerine paranoia and clownish nihilism. What was less predictable was the turbo-charged brilliance of his reincarnation by Bertie Carvel, whose pitch-perfect observation of every physical tic is underscored by the understanding of Trump’s primal need to reduce everything around him to its basest physical state.

'Daddy' A Melodrama, Almeida Theatre review - production exuberance carries a new play of promise

★★★★ 'DADDY' A MELODRAMA, ALMEIDA Production exuberance carries new play of promise

Jeremy O Harris's scintillating drama poses questions about possession, in life and art

Danya Taymor’s production of “Daddy A Melodrama has a huge exuberance: a tour de force in itself, it's also a scintillating introduction to the work of Jeremy O Harris. The young American dramatist earned considerable attention, and acclaim for the acuity of his investigation of race issues, for his 2018 Slave Play, but it's this earlier piece, written when Harris was in his mid-twenties, that reaches London first (after a two-year Covid delay).

Anyone Can Whistle, Southwark Playhouse review - full-on bonkers

★★★ ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE Niche Sondheim gets no-trumpets-barred revival

Niche Sondheim gets an, um, no-trumpets-barred revival

Musicals don't get madder than Anyone Can Whistle, the 1964 Broadway flop from onetime West Side Story and Gypsy collaborators Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents which makes history of sorts at Southwark Playhouse as the first Sondheim show to be revived since his death last year, age 91.

Project Dictator, New Diorama Theatre review - anarchic satire

★★ PROJECT DICTATOR, NEW DIORAMA THEATRE Anarchic satire

Loud madcap comedy morphs into mime and flops when it should fly

When Rhum + Clay conceived this show, the idea of a comic becoming a political leader might have prompted thoughts of Boris Johnson's carefully cultivated buffoonery on "Have I Got News For You" and elsewhere. Since then, a certain Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given politician-comedians a rather better name. Comedy, as is so often the case, is in thrall to timing.