theater

Pitlochry Festival theatre Writer Douglas Maxwell’s playful conceit sparks a funny and superbly acted exploration of messy relationships There is a clever conceit underlying Douglas Maxwell’s sparky romantic comedy. It imagines the possibility of a sexually charged relationship being sustained without physical contact. Played out on stage, this improbable idea hits home on two levels. Meeting at …

Òran Mór, Glasgow Nay Dhanak’s clownish tale follows an odd couple struggling to live up to their roles passing news from royal power to the public We are in a medieval world of portentous comets, fiery dragons and punitive taxes. For the average peasant, it is tough going, but even in this hierarchical society, two of them have uncommon access to power. One is the town crier, the mediator of new…

Arcola theatre, London Despite some strong satire, there is too much telling and not enough showing in Christine Bacon’s play exploring global inequality This play about the ethics of international development in the global south is a response to a book on world poverty. Playwright Christine Bacon, who is also co-artistic director of human rights theatre company ice&fire , has taken Jason Hickel’…

Hugely successful London show to open in the US, with performances beginning in March Marmalade bagels at the ready: London’s Paddington Bear musical is to open on Broadway next spring. The phenomenally successful show, which won seven prizes at the Olivier awards, will begin performances on 30 March at the Al Hirschfeld theatre in New York, currently home to Moulin Rouge! The Musical. Luke Shepp…

Play at Gillian Lynne theatre in London will cycle through versions with weekend crowds able to pick one In keeping with its well-earned reputation for cloak and dagger, the stage adaptation of the hit gameshow Traitors will present audiences with different renditions of the story depending on which night they attend. The Traitors: Acts of Betrayal will take the form of a five-play cycle, with we…

RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Danny Beard to step into Lily Savage’s heels in Jonathan Harvey’s play Few showbusiness careers begin in a towering blond beehive in the gay pubs of Vauxhall and end with MPs pausing prime minister’s questions to pay tribute. But a new play inspired by the life of Paul O’Grady will chart the beginning of that unlikely journey from care worker to Lily Savage, with her dex…

The theatrical prequel to the Duffer Brothers’ smash-hit Netflix series is to shut down in the West End and on Broadway this winter, after selling more than 1.5m tickets The London and New York productions of Stranger Things: The First Shadow , the theatrical prequel to Netflix’s TV blockbuster, are to both close this winter. The stage spectacular will have run for just over three years in the We…

Audience members said baby’s cooing and gurgling ruined Branagh’s return to the RSC after 30 years, with some seeking refunds Boatswain! The opening scene of Shakespeare’s seminal play The Tempest, in which Prospero conjures up a violent storm to shipwreck his treacherous brother, is enough to wake up anyone – let alone a baby. Audience members at a matinee performance of the Royal Shakespeare Co…

A new West End blockbuster puts Ol’ Blue Eyes in the spotlight and features the superstar’s hits including One for My Baby and Come Fly With Me. Take a first look Photographs by Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Continue reading...

John Lithgow won his third Tony Award for "Giant," while Laurie Metcalf took home her third statue for "Death of a Salesman" at the 2026 Tony Awards.

'Liberation,' Bess Wohl's playful imagining of her mother's feminist consciousness-raising group in 1970s Ohio, deservedly wins the Tony for best play

The Public Theater, New York Susanna Kaysen’s retelling of her time in a psychiatric hospital in the 60s became an Oscar-winning movie in the 90s and now it’s an elegant, if limited, play In 2021, the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann (perhaps best known, as a solo artist, for her contributions to the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia) released an album called Queens of the Summer Hotel, a collection…

Howells puts in a strong turn as Henry Paget, a Victorian marquess who blows his inheritance on hosting wild parties and staging gender-defying theatrical performances Playing the shy Colin in Russell T Davies’s 2021 TV drama It’s a Sin, Callum Scott Howells had to be the humble caterpillar compared to Olly Alexander’s extravagant butterfly. But now Howells gets an upgrade to full butterfly statu…

The Broadway hit delivers all the bangers in telling the R&B star’s New York coming of age story in L.A. premiere.

Pitlochry festival theatre This stripped-down show with a maudlin set of songs makes for the most reluctant of musicals, but this is a production that has the confidence to be silent or stately When Once opened on Broadway in 2012, later to enjoy a run in London’s West End , it was greeted with a degree of surprise. You can see why. In terms of the Great White Way, it is an anti-musical. Based on…

The smutty hockey show gets the Off-Broadway treatment with shirtless scenes, hilarious one-liners and a Liza Minelli send-up Walking into the Culture Club in West Chelsea, New York, for a performance of Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody last week, I was met by three ghosts left over from when the space was called the McKittrick Hotel and it hosted the immersive spookfest, Sleep No …

Brixton House, London Paula Varjack’s kinetic play uses lip syncing and dance routines to show how prejudice turned a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ into a career disaster The year is 2004 and the Super Bowl halftime show is about to begin. What would later become known as “Nipplegate” – in which Justin Timberlake ripped part of Janet Jackson’s bodice, briefly exposing her right breast – will be broadcas…

Soho Theatre Walthamstow, London The Drag Race star brings nuance to the vocals and has a hoot with a frisky script but this bio-drama is too limited and ultimately cramps her style Drag Race fans already know that the series’ “queen of all queens” Jinkx Monsoon does a mean Judy Garland impression from her lurid account of a threesome with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. This revival of Peter Quil…

Royal Exchange, Manchester Rory Mullarkey’s play, expertly directed by James Macdonald, is a bold attempt to encapsulate a whole city in decisive events from across three centuries The theme of the Royal Exchange’s 50th anniversary season is “a homecoming”. But whose home do they mean? Who lives here? Who belongs? Is it, for example, the heavily pregnant Annie Donovan, an Irish immigrant who, in …

'Brigadoon' soars at Pasadena Playhouse but 'Flower Drum Song' only intermittently comes to life at Little Tokyo's Aratani Theatre despite best intentions.