Reviews & News

Date: 11th March 2024 Seat: J28 (Stalls) Rating: 3 Stars It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time, well within living memory, when the NHS just didn’t exist. Unless you had money and privilege or lived in a big city, access to healthcare wasn’t guaranteed, and even if you could get to a… Read more

Date: 26th February 2024 Seat: D12 Rating: 3 Stars  On 4th October 1936, hundreds of thousands of people from all faiths and backgrounds clashed with Oswald Mosely’s fascist Blackshirts (otherwise known as the British Union of Fascists, or BUF) in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street. With barricades made of furniture and… Read more

Date: 23rd February 2024 Seat: Unallocated Rating: 4 Stars  It’s almost impossible to believe that it’s coming up for four years since the UK’s first lockdown was looming. But don’t worry if your memories of that strange time are starting to fade, as James McDermott’s Jab will bring them all straight back again. It’s not a comfortable journey… Read more

Date: 19th February 2024 Seat: N2 (Stalls) Rating: 2 Stars  Two directors and two actors walk into a room… it sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s actually the setup for John Logan’s Double Feature, currently playing at Hampstead Theatre. And whereas a joke would be funny (ideally, at least), Double Feature is a serious look… Read more

Date: 9th February 2024 Seat: Unallocated (Front Row) Rating: 4 Stars  Before After has the potential to be a complex and befuddling musical, but in the gentle hands of writers Stuart Matthew Price (music and lyrics) and Timothy Knapman (book and additional lyrics), director Georgie Rankcom, and performers Grace Mouat and Jacob Fowler, it instead becomes… Read more

Date: 31st January 2024 Seat: M6 (Stalls) Rating: 3 Stars  Adapting older movies into musicals seems to be a trend these days, some with better results than others, and Bronco Billy, with a book by Dennis Hackin and music and lyrics by Chip Rosenbloom and John Torres (with additional lyrics by Michele Brourman), is one of… Read more

Date: 12th January 2024 Seat: A8 (Circle) Rating: 3 Stars  What does Kim’s Convenience have in store for audiences? A lot of laughs, heart, and a story that everyone can understand, no matter what language they happen to speak.  Kim’s Convenience was originally written in 2011 by Ins Choi, and thanks to how well the one-act… Read more

Date: 9th December 2023  Seat: L3 (Stalls) Rating: 5 Stars  You can’t get much more classic than Sleeping Beauty when it comes to the annual panto, and at The Hawth in Crawley this year, it’s this story that takes centre stage – but don’t worry if you think you’ve seen it all before; there are some fantastic… Read more

Date: 5th December 2023  Seat: A6 (Circle) Rating 5 Stars  You think you know H G Wells’ classic The Time Machine? You might well do, actually, but the characters in Original Theatre’s side-splitting production, aptly named The Time Machine – A Comedy, might not know it quite as well, and their attempt to turn the novel into… Read more

Date: 30th November 2023  Seat: G16 Rating: 3 Stars  Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful character, and Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a fantastic story, so combining these two things should work. And it almost does in A Sherlock Carol. But not quite well enough to be completely satisfying, and the weak points that slow everything down and get… Read more