By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Tuesday 10 March 2026, runs through 2 May 2026

There’s a lot to unpack in this drama about a north London Jewish family mourning the death of their Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldier son as their daughter returns home from working for the UN in Geneva investigating alleged human rights abuses in Gaza in 2009.

• Read on for reasons including how this is a thorny play prompting plenty for the audience to find both relevant and challenging

Author Ryan Craig explains in the programme that this production was premiered at the National Theatre in 2011 and took as its inspiration the real-life story of Richard Goldstone, a Jewish lawyer investigating alleged war crimes involving the IDF and Hamas, who was asked not to attend his grandson’s bar mitzvah.

Given current world events it seems sensible to retain the play’s 2009 setting while the audience has an opportunity to view it from 2026 with all the knowledge of what would follow and the rolling news coverage of what is happening in the region currently.

The Rosenbergs are Nicholas Woodeson’s David (pictured below left) and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s (The Merchant Of Venice 1936, Trafalgar Theatre) Lesley who are kosher caterers with a business on the brink of collapse after a customer death which could be saved if a dinner with a friend and potential lucrative client goes well.

Alex Zur’s nervous and convincingly awkward Rabbi Simon visits wayward Rosenberg son Jonny, an artistic and truculent Nitai Levi, to try to persuade him to work for the family business while attempting to warn returning daughter Ruth, an excellent Dorothea Myer-Bennett, to miss the service for her dead brother because of expected protests about her legal work.

Director Lindsay Posner (A View From The Bridge, Theatre Royal Haymarket) gives us what is described in the programme as ‘the dining room of a modest and slightly rundown semi-detached house in Edgware, spring 2009’ and what becomes clear very quickly is that though global events are being responded to here we are seeing them through the eyes of a fractured family with real love for each other.

Myer-Bennett’s daughter Ruth tells a sweet and complicated story to explain how she met an elderly couple on a plane struggling to be specific with each other but with a shared knowledge to understand each other and Oberman’s straight-to-the-point mother immediately asks when she last had a romantic partner.

Woodeson’s father David may not understand his surviving son’s rebellious streak but he’s chided by his wife for being too soft on him as he lets him leave the house with the car keys to propel a night out drinking rather than spending it around the family dining table.

Author Craig explains in the programme how influenced by Arthur Miller he is but The Holy Rosenbergs isn’t as deft as either Miller’s best work (All My Sons appears to be a touchstone) or Broken Glass now running a stone’s throw away at the Young Vic.

The Holy Rosenbergs is a thorny play prompting plenty for the audience to find both relevant and challenging.

Although equally we could understand others feeling this is a debate so current it is better suited to rolling 24-hour TV news rather than a night out at the theatre.

• Main pictures by Manuel Harlan via Facebook courtesy Menier Chocolate Factory Tickets
• Have you seen a Menier Chocolate Factory show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
• Enjoyed this preview? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook