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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marius von Mayenburg’s latest is a satire on art and anti-Semitism — both absurdist and unsettling

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

Text of the day: “We shall never have all we need.”

Triumphant, if crude, West End transfer of a heartfelt account of a Renaissance woman who has been hidden from history

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

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

New drama about addiction and acting is highly subjective, but also very powerful, informative and moving

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

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

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

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

Humanity in high definition: brilliant revival of this key absurdist play stars Lucian Msamati and Ben Whishaw

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…

Exciting mash up of the Renaissance classic gets a luridly contemporary setting, but loses much of its poetry

Text of the day: “Healthcare is part of the entertainment industry.”

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

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

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

Text of the day: “I don’t personally know any Jew who doesn’t want a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.”

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

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

Return of the emotionally intense exploration of Palestinian identity — both personal and political

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

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

History play gives an imaginatively queer reading of the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889 — with mixed results

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

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

West London new writing venue reopens with an ethically troubling play about another architectural marvel

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

Hilary Mantel and Ben Miles perform a labour of love that has many virtues, even if it is less than the sum of its parts

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

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

Book of the week: Greg Hersov, who joined the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in 1980, and then was artistic director from 1987 until 2014, has written a book called Something…

New coproduction between Graeae and Tamasha is not perfect, but it offers a moving insight into ritual and belief

Thrillingly epic account of a defining American institution delights in three superb performances

Maggie Smith is absolutely triumphant in this memoir of a Berlin secretary in the Nazi era

Vigorous and illuminating double bill: two all-time 1950s classics, Look Back in Anger and Roots, get super revivals by young directors

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

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

It’s not often that I get to say a heartfelt thank you to any newspaper, but I really must acknowledge the good work of the Guardian, and especially its arts website.

Arnold Wesker’s wonderful 1959 classic about love and politics gets a rare, but very moving revival