Fiona Mountford

A review of Sharleen Cooper Cohen’s play argues that its theory blaming the Kennedy family and secret services for Marilyn Monroe’s death is presented through a slow, wooden production. Pixie Lott is considered adequate as Monroe, but her repeated coquettish gestures undermine the play’s attempt to portray Monroe as a complex person rather than a sex symbol. The reviewer also criticizes the exposition-heavy writing, low-energy direction by Philip William McKinley and the ensemble’s stiff performances, concluding that Marilyn Monroe may now be best left to rest in peace. The production runs at London’s Emerald Theatre until October 29.

Shakespeare’s Globe’s first production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children is praised as a gripping success. Anna Jordan’s adaptation and Elle While’s direction bring the play’s anti-war themes into the conflict-ravaged world of 2026, while Michelle Terry delivers a commanding central performance as the pragmatic, survivor-like Mother Courage. The production combines bleak satire, music and emotional force, with particular praise for Terry’s interaction with the Globe’s wraparound space and the ensemble performances. It runs in repertory until June 27.

Winsome Pinnock’s The Authenticator examines the legacy of slavery through a modern country house whose owner discovers ledgers documenting her ancestor’s Jamaican slave plantation and the compensation that helped rebuild the estate. The review argues that the 90-minute play crams in themes of reparatory history, oral history, hidden identities and supernatural suspense without adequately developing its characters or resolving its implausibilities. Rakie Ayola and Cherrelle Skeete are praised despite underwritten roles, while Sylvestra le Touzel is singled out for an entertaining comic performance.

Fiona Mountford finds the revival of David Hare’s 1969 play about a disintegrating touring rock band largely lacking in contemporary relevance and hindered by thin, speech-like characters and unexplained context. Rebecca Lucy Taylor brings force to the self-destructive singer Maggie, while Phil Daniels gives the manager warmth and cunning. The production improves substantially in its second half, particularly through the cast’s live music and Taylor’s powerful performance of “Maggie’s Song,” but the review concludes that the play has mostly lost its bite.

Chadwick Boseman’s 2005 play Deep Azure receives its UK premiere six years after his death. The hip-hop-inflected Shakespearean drama follows a murdered university student who haunts the friends and girlfriend trying to understand his death, with themes of police brutality, grief and racialized beauty standards. Fiona Mountford praises the play’s verse, central ideas and Selina Jones’s performance, but criticizes its overwriting, distracting chorus, convoluted staging, unnecessary Rasputin subplot and excessive two-hour-40-minute running time.

David Eldridge’s End concludes his trilogy about relationships with a standalone story centred on Alfie, a 58-year-old DJ with advanced cancer who refuses further treatment, and Julie, his long-term partner and a crime novelist. The play explores whether decisions about dying belong solely to the individual or must also account for loved ones. Rachel O’Riordan’s sensitive production uses silence and unhurried pacing while balancing grief with memories of shared joy. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves are praised for emotionally devastating performances, making the production a beautiful and poignant examination of love, illness and mortality.

Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s Porn Play at London’s Royal Court follows Ani, an award-winning John Milton scholar whose fixation on violent pornography undermines her relationships and capacity for intimacy. Fiona Mountford finds the production provocative and occasionally surprising, but criticizes its relentless bleakness, unsubtle treatment and frequent masturbation scenes. Ambika Mod gives Ani a deliberately blank performance, while the resulting emotional distance makes it difficult for the audience to connect with her. The play runs at the Royal Court Theatre until 13 December.

Fiona Mountford praises Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida as a bitter, unconventional and underperformed work, but criticizes Owen Horsley’s three-hour Shakespeare’s Globe production for trying to inject comedy into its bleak material. The review finds the staging overlong and confused, argues that gender-swapping and comic elements weaken Cressida’s vulnerability and the play’s unsettling tone, and recommends a more dramatically edited, straightforward and downbeat revival.

Fiona Mountford praises Anthony Lau’s spare, imaginative production of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies at Chichester Festival Theatre. Nigel Williams’s adaptation depicts schoolboys stranded after a plane crash as quickly forming factions and abandoning law and order, with inventive theatrical devices including a microphone as the conch and a giant piñata as the hunted pig. The production’s momentum, sound design and exploration of bullying, fear and power make the familiar story feel immediate and unsettling, despite occasional moments of unclear action.

James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham reimagines Hamlet through Juicy, a young gay Black man in a Southern family whose barbecue business and personal tensions replace Shakespeare’s tragic Danish court. The production is praised for subverting stereotypes of Black masculinity, especially through its celebration of softness and self-expression, and for inventive touches such as replacing Shakespeare’s players with karaoke. However, Fiona Mountford finds the characters overly exaggerated, the ideas under-developed and the drama only intermittently affecting, resulting in a three-star review.

Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar, directed by Lisa Peterson and starring Sean Hayes as Oscar Levant, transfers to London after winning acclaim on Broadway. Set during a 1958 NBC chat-show appearance arranged while Levant is committed to a psychiatric institution, the play explores the exploitation of mental illness for entertainment. The review finds the production’s American cultural references challenging for British audiences and criticizes its superficial characterization, limited emotional depth and uneasy treatment of Levant’s addiction and psychiatric problems. Hayes’s seven-minute performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is praised as dazzling, but it is judged insufficient to rescue the production.

Fiona Mountford reviews Anne Boleyn the Musical at Hever Castle, praising the spectacular setting, ambitious scale, community ensemble and innovative binaural headphone sound design. The production presents Anne as an educated feminist and reformer, with Emily Lane praised for her voice and Mark Goldthorp for his Henry VIII. However, the musical lacks the wit, energy and memorable songs of Six, and its sympathetic portrayal of Anne largely avoids the complications of her relationship with the already-married king. Despite high ticket prices, the immersive evening is judged impressive and suggests a promising future for Historalia in Britain.

Lynette Linton's revival of Lynn Nottage's 2003 play at the Donmar Warehouse is praised as a devastatingly fine production, led by Samira Wiley's remarkable performance as Esther, a Black seamstress in 1905 New York who dreams of romance and opening a beauty parlour. The play explores race, class, desire and personal independence through Esther's relationships with a Barbadian laborer, a Jewish fabric merchant, her prostitute friend and a wealthy white client. The full cast is described as pitch-perfect, with the production marking a strong conclusion to Tim Sheader's first season as artistic director.

Sean Holmes’s production of Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe relocates the play to a lawless American frontier town, a setting the review finds natural and accessible rather than gimmicky. Rawaed Asde gives Romeo a lively, charismatic stage debut, while Lola Shalam offers a strong Juliet, though the central romance lacks convincing chemistry. Jamie-Rose Monk stands out as an earthy Nurse, and the production’s still, haunting final tableau of the dead surrounding Juliet’s monument leaves the strongest impression. The production runs until 2 August 2025.

Michael Longhurst’s RSC production relocates Shakespeare’s romantic comedy to the world of elite European football, with Messina FC facing Madrid FC in a Euro League final. The football setting, inventive video design and Eleanor Worthington-Cox’s Hero are praised, but the production underplays Don John and Beatrice’s broadcasting role, while Freema Agyeman and Nick Blood’s central relationship lacks sufficient spark. The Claudio-Hero plot dominates, and the return of Dogberry and the security men slows the second half. Despite falling short of a major success, the production’s arrival at Stratford is viewed as a positive sign for the RSC’s future.

Simon Armitage’s new version of Hansel and Gretel relocates the fairy tale to a troubled modern world marked by hunger, displacement, bombings and possible conscription. Fiona Mountford praises the atmospheric Shakespeare’s Globe setting, committed performers and some of Armitage’s vivid writing, but criticizes the unclear plot logic, over-extended staging and songs that outstay their welcome. Despite being more fully realized than some recent Globe Christmas productions, the one-hour show is judged disappointing for family audiences.

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s traditional, largely gimmick-free production of Shakespeare’s Othello lets the text take center stage and features evocative 17th-century-inspired design, especially in its striking final image. However, the central romance between John Douglas Thompson’s Othello and Juliet Rylance’s Desdemona lacks convincing passion, making the rapid descent into jealousy feel insufficiently motivated. Will Keen’s quietly venomous Iago supplies much of the production’s tension, but Tim Carroll’s staging ultimately emerges as solid, visually memorable in places, and emotionally underpowered.

Nathan Englander and Patrick Marber’s London stage adaptation, revised after the October 7 attacks, explores ideological divisions within contemporary Judaism through two Jewish couples whose lives and views have diverged. The review praises Marylebone Theatre for staging the politically sensitive production and acknowledges its robust airing of opposing arguments, but criticizes the play for reducing its characters to mouthpieces and awkwardly confining references to Gaza rather than addressing the central conflict naturally. The production runs until November 23, though ticket prices above £70 are deemed excessive.

Katherine Moar’s debut play Farm Hall dramatizes the true story of six leading German nuclear scientists detained at a country house near Cambridge in 1945. The review praises Stephen Unwin’s direction, the nuanced performances—particularly Alan Cox as Heisenberg—and the production’s successful transition from a small studio theatre to the Theatre Royal Haymarket. News of the American atomic bomb intensifies the drama, prompting debates about scientific rivalry, German failure, and the scientists’ moral responsibility for the bomb’s devastating use in Japan.

Tamara Harvey’s RSC production of Shakespeare’s episodic late romance Pericles is praised as a bold and unexpectedly successful revival. Alfred Enoch gives the wandering hero a performance of warmth and honesty, while Rachelle Diedericks, Leah Haile and Christian Patterson also draw praise. The production embraces the play’s absurdity before finding emotional depth in Pericles’s separation from and reunion with his daughter Marina, although Marina’s role as chorus is criticized as awkward. Overall, the RSC’s gamble is judged to have paid off with a warmly received theatrical hit.