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

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

Leo Butler’s wonderful new one is not a play, but a passionate book about a writer’s life and the craft of playwriting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Text of the day: “I wasn’t.”

Text of the day: “Secrecy is the curse of our British system.”

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

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

The Soho Six project delivers a gorgeously quirky love story fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe

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

Text of the day: “But it was no good.”

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

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…

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

New play about zero-hour contracts is powerfully authentic, but also rather depressingly unentertaining

Let us remember the radical acts of 50 years ago.

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

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

Antony Sher and Tara Fitzgerald shine in a rather static West End transfer of Arthur Miller classic

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

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

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

A couple of days ago, I was at the Soho Theatre.

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

Grace Barnes’s excellent new book is both provocative and illuminating

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

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

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

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

Adaptation of the John le Carré Cold War thriller is a tense courtroom drama, but could do with some more fleshing out

Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestseller about Shakespeare’s wife and son is moving, but pedestrian

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

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

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

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

Suzie Miller’s follow up to her massive hit Prima Facie stars Rosamund Pike, whose dazzling performance makes up for the questionable writing

The classic TV serial takes to the stage like a politician to a pay rise, but lags a bit behind reality

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

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

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

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