By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN?: Friday 29 March 2024, runs through 20 April 2024 RUNTIME: 135 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
Film franchise The Naked Gun is probably the closest touchstone for this 80s, US-set musical co-written by Ben Adams (Eugenius, Turbine Theatre) from A1 and Subwoolfer.
By Aline Mahrud
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHEN?: Wednesday 27 March 2024, runs through 12 May 2024 RUNTIME: 105 minutes (no interval)
The artwork (main picture) transforming the titular white sail with 2 eye holes into an image to strike fear into hearts isn’t the only subtlety in this play about an American university lecturer and boating enthusiast who invites a white nationalist to speak there.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN?: Saturday 23 March and runs through 30 March 2024 RUNTIME: 215 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
‘Out, vile jelly!’ We’re in the front row at this intimate venue and Gloucester’s bloody, gouged-out eye rolls across the stage towards us in the 1st King Lear we’ve seen since Kenneth Branagh’s in the West End late last year.
By Aline Mahrud
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN?: Saturday 16 March 2024, runs through 23 March 2024 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval) UPDATE: This production transfers to the Gillian Lynne Theatre 8 March through 2 November 2025 Tickets
The remaining week of performances for this Royal Shakespeare Company and Joe Hisaishi production of the 6 Olivier Award-winning stage version of the beloved 1988 Studio Ghibli film are sold out and we wouldn’t be surprised if it returns to London for another run soon.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHEN?: Saturday 16 March 2024 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (with a 20-minute interval) Update: Transfers to the Theatre Royal Haymarket 1 July through 27 September 2025 Tickets
‘I’m not leaving. I haven’t danced the Macarena yet,’ says the quite brilliant Olivier Awards-nominated Lorraine Ashbourne (main picture, right) playing drunken Auntie Carol who is being ushered towards a taxi from her niece’s wedding.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2
WHEN?: Monday 11 March 2024, opens 26 March and runs through 27 July 2024 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
Hats off to Sheridan Smith (Shirley Valentine, Duke Of York’s Theatre) for fully embracing the role of the leading lady who turns up drunk for her opening night because that must feel uncomfortably close to home.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN?: Tuesday 27 February and runs through 16 March 2024 RUNTIME: 145 minutes (with a 20 minute interval) UPDATE: This production transfers to Southwark Playhouse (Elephant) 6 September through 10 October 2024 Tickets
You join us on 4 October 1936 in the East End’s Cable Street where its community of socialists, communists, Jews and Irish people refuse to let Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) pass.
By Aline Mahrud
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHEN?: Saturday 24 February, opens 6 March and runs through 11 May 2024 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval) Ticket update: Nye returns for a 2nd run at the National 3 July through 16 August 2025 Tickets
A grieving son wraps his dying miner father in his arms, apologises for everything he could have done better to look after him and vows to make good by helping others.
By Aline Mahrud
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN?: Monday 19 February and runs through 13 April 2024 RUNTIME: 190 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
It’s 1948 and Keeley Hawes (TV’s It’s A Sin) is GP, housewife and budding MP Iris Elcock who is working all hours to create Nye Bevan’s National Health Service.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2
WHEN?: Saturday 17 February, opens 23 February and runs through 30 March 2024 RUNTIME: 105 minutes (no interval) Update: Transfers to the Duke Of York’s Theatre 12 August through 12 October 2024 Tickets
Tosin Cole’s Dre and Heather Agyepong’s Des are soul-mates and we follow them over 16 years from their teens to adulthood.
