Josh O’Connor shines in Golden Boy, a boxing epic at the Almeida Life&Style Golden Boy | Almeida | ★★★★★ Boxing – and fighting more generally – has always made for thrilling pop culture. Raging Bull, Rocky, The Fighter, The Wrestler, The Smashing Machine: there is something inherently dramatic about stepping into the ring: two people, cordoned off from the world, engaged in a violent battle of wills. One [...]
Cleansed is still the most harrowing play you’ll ever see Life&Style Cleansed | Almeida | ★★★★☆ There’s a hint at what you’re in for with Cleansed when the Almeida staff tape over everyone’s phone on the way in to prevent any photography; there is a lot of nudity in this play, and none of it is the good kind. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Sarah [...]
Under the Shadow at Almeida: Psychological horror set against Tehran’s 1988 bombing Life&Style Under the Shadow | Alneida Theatre | ★★★★☆ This has been quite a year for horror theatre. In January we saw the UK debut of the Paranormal Activity stage show, dragging the voyeuristic, found-footage franchise kicking and screaming into the West End. And soon after the Hampstead Theatre premiered a more fringe-y affair in the [...]
A Doll’s House at the Almeida: Thrilling, steamy and ambitious April 14, 2026 A Doll’s House | Almeida | ★★★★☆ As Oscar Wilde probably never said, “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” I can’t think of a pithier summary of this propulsive, steamy, ambitious retelling of Ibsen’s most enduring play, A Doll’s House. In this thoroughly modern version by Anya Reiss, [...]
American Psycho musical at the Almeida review: Bloody brilliant February 3, 2026 American Psycho at the Almeida | ★★★★★ A lot has happened over the years Rupert Goold has been artistic director of the Almeida. In 2013 he opened his tenure at the Islington theatre with this wickedly amoral musical: six British Prime Ministers and one pandemic later, he completes the oroborus with the same riotous show. [...]
The Line of Beauty at the Almeida review: Horny and exceedingly fabulous October 30, 2025 The Line of Beauty at the Almeida review and star rating: ★★★★ Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty is considered alongside The Normal Heart and Angels in America to be one of the seminal queer texts confronting the AIDS pandemic. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2004 but is more interested in queer hedonism [...]
A Moon for the Misbegotten: Michael Shannon and Ruth Wilson shine June 27, 2025 A Moon for the Misbegotten | ★★★☆☆ | Almeida You know what I do not tend to think after watching a brilliantly miserable three and a half hours of A Long Day’s Journey Into the Night: this could really do with a sequel. But Eugene O’Neill did pen a follow-up to his horrifying family drama [...]
Rhinoceros at the Almeida: The kazoo can’t save this absurdist mishmash April 2, 2025 A play in which Frenchmen start turning into rhinoceroses, even the fun of the kazoo can't save this absurdist mishmash, writes Anna Moloney.