Al Smith’s new play was jinxed before it started — and, bogged down in cartoonish detail, it never really recovers

Take an imaginative ride through 400 years of British theatre with our fictional guides

Lucy Prebble’s latest tells the story of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, but prefers buffoonery over analysis

Peter Morgan’s award-winning story of Putin’s triumph is vivid, but lacks real complexity

New play about the plight of children in a Palestinian town has good moments, but lacks a really compelling story

Quote of the day: “Being a practised liar doesn’t mean you have a powerful imagination.”

Text of the day: “Em.”

Yesterday, I took a break from my sunny local park and turned a room in my house into the Finborough fringe theatre.

A few days ago, I watched the National Theatre At Home streamed recording of Michaela Coel’s award-winning Chewing Gum Dreams.

Joe DiPietro’s cult hit is enjoyable enough, but rather predictable in both form and content

New play about the civilized face of fascism is fascinating, but also a bit flawed

Explore the work of a handful of British theatre’s brightest and most exciting writing talents

Starry revival of this brilliant classic is marred by some unconvincing acting and unnecessary music

West End transfer of National Theatre hit stars Stephen Fry and Olly Alexander — yes, it’s a dazzling and delightful queer fest

The Dickens classic, as adapted by this venue’s artistic director, is an example of deluxe seasonal storytelling

Superbly plotted family drama beautifully explores the relationships between the personal and political

The Royal Court’s international season continues with savage Ukrainian play about women and war

Philip Ridley continues to surprise and delight with this brilliant new monologue — in the teeth of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown

Nick Payne’s latest stars Nicola Walker and Paul Higgins, and is about a cruel loss. I’m a believer? No, not at all.

In the Brexit era, this site-specific revival of Agatha Christie’s 1953 courtroom drama works like a treat

The longest-running play in world history is in good shape, despite the lackluster and mechanical cast

Here is a sample from the introduction to my latest book about postwar British theatre — an alternative history

Nick Stafford’s sturdy beast rides again — and retains its colt-like freshness and wild beauty

Populist show is now on its sixth cast, but despite some noisy shocks it fails to chill the blood

One of the most important characteristics of contemporary British new plays is that they aim to provide a forum for the discussion of ideas.

Can theatre habituate us to extreme violence? Blasted is both a denunciation of the horrors of war and maybe a domestication of them

Bad stuff and change in a time of pandemic: a derivative lockdown poem

Playwright or director? Who is ultimately responsible for a piece of theatre? Our Critic attempts to find out

Let us remember the radical acts of 50 years ago.

Fabulously queer extravaganza: London transfer for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s riotous comedy Western

New Anthony Neilson two-hander about sex is playful, wise and funny, but fails to achieve a climax

Seasonal Eng Lit mash-up returns with its festive message of forgiveness, but it seems a bit spiritless

The death of David Bowie provokes the Critic to take a trip down the motorways and side alleys of memory

Meditations on mortality and music: the final episode of David Eldridge’s emotionally strong trilogy is profoundly moving

Martin Crimp’s Not One of These People has been staged using help from AI — but what does AI think of the show?

Artificial Intelligence is much hyped — but can it review a theatre show?

Censorship appears to be simple, but is actually quite complicated.

Favourite stage direction: “The funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth II goes past.”

Revival of Sean O’Casey’s modern classic shows its continued relevance, but is a bit meticulously sombre

Can the stranglehold of naturalism and social realism in British theatre ever be broken?

The love affair between playwright and actor lasted far beyond their early divorce

The Angry Young Men of the 1950s were more of media phenomenon than a coherent movement

More overviews of British new writing from the In-Yer-Face Theatre archive.

The poet laureate’s verbatim play about Brexit sinks into journalistic and untheatrical banality

Tidings of discomfort and noise: this venue’s annual festive classic is joyous, but its writing is frankly patronizing

Another over-hyped new play: this time about porn addiction, but superficially imagined and lacking in drama

Star cast give energy to a superb, if old fashioned, play about the anti-Semitism of Roald Dahl

Text of the day: “They were extremely, and I really do mean extremely, convivial.”

Joseph Fiennes is mesmerizing as Gareth Southgate in James Graham’s sport-of-the-nation docu-drama

Text of the day: “There are good days and bad days.”

Maxine Peake struggles to make the voice of reason heard in a rather reactionary feminist history play

As a new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is about to open in London’s West End, I was lucky enough to get the chance to watch The Impossible Itself (2010), Jake Ad…

Brilliant new writing: new play about a paedophile ring foregrounds the voices of British Pakistani women

Jack Holden’s stage version of Alan Hollinghurst’s modern classic 1980s story is both subtle and appealing

Julia Pascal’s new play is an epic story of Jewish identity from Dublin to Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s