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The Latest Breaking News from Marc Brenner

The week in theatre: Dear Octopus; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Just for One Day – review

Lindsay Duncan and co create a living period piece in Dodie Smith’s rarely performed marvel of a family portrait; Sarah Snook’s one-woman Wilde is so wrong it’s almost right; and the music carries a tame Live Aid nostalgiafest

The Guardian - UK

King Lear review – Yaël Farber’s modern-dress take is shockingly vicious and supremely moving

The set is a marvel, the performances are electric and the ending – with Lear raging and trembling in a hospital gown on the heath – is profoundly tragic

The Guardian - UK

Samuel Takes a Break review – a stomach-churning tourist trip around an old slave castle

Yard theatre, LondonA Ghanaian tour guide struggles to maintain his composure in the face of historical ignorance and requests for selfies, in Rhianna Ilube’s poignant critique of colonialism and tourism

The Guardian - UK

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The Picture of Dorian Gray review – Sarah Snook plays 26 characters in dazzling, dangerous solo show

Aided by elaborate tech, multiple screens and an angelic wig, the Succession star gives a performance that is mischievous, swaggering and operatic

The Guardian - UK

Dear Octopus review – Lindsay Duncan leads a warm drama about a bickering family

Dodie Smith’s play presents a beautifully drawn, four-generation celebration of a golden wedding anniversary on the eve of the second world war

The Guardian - UK

Tosca review – full of thrills but star soprano Ausrine Stundyte doesn’t quite rise to this challenge

The Lithuanian singer is a superb actor but was not on her best form vocally here. She is strongly supported by Marcelo Puente and Gabriele Viviani and terrific conducting from Karen Kamensek

The Guardian - UK

Going going gone! From Frozen to Backstairs Billy, the shows now closing in the West End

Frozen shocked theatreland this month by announcing its September 2024 closure. These are the other shows not to miss before it's too late

Evening Standard

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Plaza Suite review – Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are spectacles at the celebrity circus

Despite a thrilling premise – New York’s power couple staging unhappy marriages – this dated production coasts on its stars’ fame rather than testing their seasoned skills on the boards

The Guardian - UK

The Enfield Haunting review – Catherine Tate and David Threlfall deliver the shivers

While it doesn’t have the big jump scares of 2:22: A Ghost Story or The Woman in Black, this lo-fi horror builds in creepiness

The Guardian - UK

Theatre: Susannah Clapp’s 10 best shows of 2023

In a thin year for musicals and political drama, an 11th hour Blanche DuBois, a flurry of young actors, two James Graham plays and a pair of Macbeths were among the standouts

The Guardian - UK

Sound and fury, signifying something: what made Macbeth so popular in 2023?

Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant are among the stars playing Shakespeare’s Thane this year. Might the tragedy’s current popularity have something to do with the Tory government?

The Guardian - UK

The week in theatre: The Little Matchgirl and Happier Tales; Cold War; Pandemonium – review

There’s a puppet but no happy ending at Emma Rice’s fine new Somerset venue; Elvis Costello soundtracks a postwar Polish love story; and Armando Iannucci bravely tries to satirise the Tory party

The Guardian - UK

Macbeth review: David Tennant is a compellingly intense Scottish king in Donmar’s show of sonic trickery

Lady Macbeth’s whispers crackle in your ear as audience members wear headphones in Max Webster’s intimate production, but the sound design can sometimes feel like a distraction

The Independent UK

Macbeth review – David Tennant thrills in this high-concept production

The staging is imaginative and expressive, and the audience is immersed in the action by hearing everything through headphones

The Guardian - UK

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The Guardian - UK

Indhu Rubasingham’s National Theatre in-tray: lure megastars, deal with crises and define an era

The incoming artistic director at the NT must lead the institution and the industry, while choosing plays new and old for three stages. The job is a test of nerve and integrity

The Guardian - UK

Pandemonium review – Armando Iannucci’s furiously funny takedown of No 10

Boris Johnson and his successors Less Trust and Riches Sooner are satirised in a superb political pantomime directed by Patrick Marber

The Guardian - UK

The House of Bernarda Alba review – Harriet Walter rules as Lorca gets a refurb

Adapted by Alice Birch and directed by Rebecca Frecknall, this is a stylised study in control and daughterly disobedience

The Guardian - UK

The week in theatre: The Witches; Ghosts; Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) – review

The youngsters steal the show in the National’s terrifying gothic Disney Roald Dahl; a fine cast are stranded in Ibsen by candlelight; and a bittersweet fairytale in New York hits the spot

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The Guardian - UK

Ghosts review – Ibsen’s intense tragedy by candlelight

Joe Hill-Gibbins directs his own version of the psychodrama, creating a potent atmosphere with designer Rosanna Vize

The Guardian - UK

She Stoops to Conquer review – a jolly good Christmas comedy

There are perfectly pitched performances with just the right touch of pathos as Oliver Goldsmith’s play gets a festive staging

The Guardian - UK

The Witches review – frights played for fun in rollicking musical

Roald Dahl’s villains are given a makeover with a gag-filled script by Lucy Kirkwood and a couple of storming numbers

Evening Standard

Patsy Ferran and Anjana Vasan: the Evening Standard Theatre Awards Best Actresses on their winning sister act

The pair were gobsmacked when they were both named as joint winners

The Guardian - UK

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) review – charming romcom is a treat

Two-hander musical matches its wide-eyed hero and sardonic heroine with just the right mix of sugar and sour

The Guardian - UK

I Should Be So Lucky, The Musical review – missing the Hit Factory

Show built around Stock Aitken Waterman’s songs flies so long as the pop classics are playing

The Guardian - UK

To Have and to Hold review – fond family comedy from the writer of One Man, Two Guvnors

Richard Bean’s new play touches on ageing and alienation, care and family love, but focuses on making us laugh

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