Author: The Reviews Hub - London

Writers: Asif Khan, after the book by Zanib Mian Director: Sameena Hussain Planet Omar is a delightful show. Eight-year-old Omar may be a‘trouble magnet’, as the subtitle has it, but he has a big heart and a zany imagination. Early in the story, he moves with his family from Whitechapel to a bigger house in Harrow, where he and his big sister Maryam start at a new school. Remaining at home is Isaar, their baby brother, embodied by a charming puppet. At school, Omar is instinctively drawn to Charlie, who becomes his loyal friend. Early scenes at home and at…

Writer: Peter Shaffer Director: Caroline Steinbeis It’s been quite a moment for Peter Shaffer. Michael Sheen is opening his Welsh National Theatre in Cardiff with a revival of Amadeus, the Menier Chocolate Factory is doing good business with a new production of Equus, and now the Orange Tree chips in with Black Comedy. For an almost forgotten stalwart of 1960s British theatre, it’s a big turnaround. Black Comedy is the least heralded of Shaffer’s plays, a slighter, sprightlier offering, but a triumphant exercise in farce, in the mechanics of getting laughs, and the Orange Tree production achieves its comedic aims…

Writer: Martin McDonagh Director: Angelina Voznesenskaia Martin McDonagh’s pitch-black nursery story is an infrequent visitor to British stages, and there’s a reason for that. It’s a really tough play. Tough to act, tough to direct, tough to watch. There is a fair amount of McDonagh’s signature farcical fun, waiting to see whose head gets blown off next when the wrong psychopath comes in. And those moments are really very funny for many audiences, but it’s a particular sort of humour. This play transfers the fun to the interrogation cells of a vicious police state, where a teller of tales, Katurian,…

Writer and Director: Ellen Davies Ellen Davies’ new play, We, The Women Wild, explores a world of women destroyed by a man and like Ava Pickett’s 1536 and to some extent Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, the growing influence of a man starts to unpick and actively poison a near-harmonious commune of female ‘sisters’ and ‘mothers.’ Performing at the Old Red Lion Pub & Playhouse, Davies’ world creation is exemplary for an hour show, a fully thought-through society with hierarchies, mythology and methods of control all built around a distinctive form of worship that offers the characters many potential…

Writers: Peter Clifford and The Great Baldini Director: John Nicholson Co-created and performed by stage magicians Peter Clifford and The Great Baldini, Holmes and Watson, and The Curious Case of the Masked Magician mashes up broad comedy with a pastiche of a Conan Doyle story and a selection of classic illusions that might best be described as deriving from the ‘Golden Age of Magic’. Seeing platform magic performed live at Wilton’s, the world’s oldest surviving grand music hall, has a certain site-specific charm, and the two magicians bring a robust joviality to the evening. But the 75-minute show itself, burdened…

Book: Jonathan Prince Music and Lyrics: Lindy Robbins, Dave Bassett and Steve Robson Director: Georgie Rankcom Based on a 1940s play by Howard Richardson, this new musical is a hybrid affair featuring Country and Western songs for the townspeople living in Buck Creek, set in the Appalachians and heavy Rock numbers for the witches and Conjur people who live invisibly alongside the humans.  For the duets between the two lovers – inevitably, one witch and one human – we have more familiar musical theatre tunes. It just about works, but other aspects of this supernatural show are less successful. Most…

Director and Choreographer: Dada Masilo Tumelo Lekana, representing Hamlet, shouts a selection of famous soliloquies, ripped out of context and delivered with an astounding lack of nuance. The entire court of Denmark quaffs out of goblets full of poison, and their corpses strew the stage in a manner more reminiscent of Jonestown than Elsinore, and notably failing to include the dancer presenting Gertrude, the most flamboyantly noticeable character, danced by Llewelyn Mnguni in a magnificent golden gown. Gertrude apparently escapes the carnage. Does any of this matter?  The late South African choreographer, Dada Masilo,  has chosen to piggyback her choreography…

Writer: Jamie Radford Director: Sapphire Shoferpoor Skilfully set in motion just before the 2026 US World Cup, Jamie Radford’s revelatory new play is a dynamic, incisive and heartfelt take on the notorious fraternal feud between Bavarian businessmen Rudolf (Rudi) and Adolf (Adi) Dassler, whose hugely influential brands Puma and Adidas have shaped sport globally. The brothers’ revolutionary footwear designs, customised for different sports disciplines like never before, helped to give decisive winning edge to legendary figures like Jesse Owens, Pelé and Muhammad Ali. Sprinting through a vast arena of Dassler folklore, rumour and conjecture – the brothers always lived their…