The Londoness


Born in Paris.

Made in London.

Teller of London Tales.

  • Home
  • /
  • Category Archives: Theatre

Theatre

London Theatre reviews: Get the London lowdown on all the latest West End and regional theatre reviews.

Carmen la Cubana, review, Sadler's Wellsal in London, review, theatre, what’s on in London this August

Review: Carmen la Cubana

Last updated on August 16th, 2020If you’ve ever been to Cuba, you may have visited La Guarida, one of Havana’s most famous paladar  restaurants and which attained mythical status after Beyoncé sashayed in and out of it with Jay Z. Its gloriously-faded staircase is the set design inspiration for the sizzling new musical, Carmen La Cubana,…

Lehman Trilogy, National Theatre, Sam Mendes, Simon Russell Beale

The Lehman Trilogy – National Theatre

Last updated on January 19th, 2019It’s a familiar story of bucks to bankruptcy, but this one is on a scale that shook the financial world to its core and affected ordinary mortals across the globe. Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy  has been given a Sam Mendes and Ben Power makeover at the National Theatre, with…

Review – Quiz the Play

Last updated on April 22nd, 2018The first thing I will say about James Graham’s Quiz  at the Noel Coward Theatre is that the stage looked a heck of a lot like the set of Network  which has just had its final curtain call over at the National Theatre.  And whilst I’m a big fan of James…

Caroline or Change | Hampstead Theatre

Last updated on April 22nd, 2018Last night was one of firsts. The Hampstead Theatre gave me a singing washing machine, a purring dryer, a trio of serenading radios and yes, a harmonising bus. And as I’m not much of a soap-opera fan, I had never heard of Sharon D. Clarke, so this was my first…

Jubilee, Lyric Hammersmith, punk, Derek Jarman, Chris Goode, theatre review

Review: Jubilee at Lyric Hammersmith

Last updated on April 22nd, 2018If you lived in Paris during the 1970s, it was easy to bypass the whole punk thing the Brits had going on over here. To we Frenchies, “punkness” seemed a bit of a London cliché, something you saw on a postcard: a menacing miscreant standing next to a red phone…

Peggy Guggenheim, Woman Before a Glass, Jermyn Street Theatre, Judy Rosenblatt, theatre review

Portrait of an Art Addict

Last updated on April 22nd, 2018One of my recurring fantasies is the Dinner Party where the living and the dead, my gods and goddesses, come together for dream dinner banter. My table is a large one, admittedly, and it includes Peggy Guggenheim. I’m not even sure I would have liked Peggy, but boy did she…

The Birthday Party review

Review: The Birthday Party

Last updated on December 28th, 2023Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is very, very funny, but it’s also totally doolally. The play had its London premiere at the Lyric Opera House (now the Lyric Hammersmith) in 1958. It was shut down after eight performances, thanks to a raft of disastrous reviews. It’s now considered a classic and has…

Network, National Theatre, mad as hell, Foodwork, Bryan Cranston

I’m MAD AS HELL and I’m not going to take it anymore

Last updated on December 28th, 2023In 1976, a film called Network cleaned up at the Oscars, winning four Academy Awards. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by the great, late Sidney Lumet, the black comedy was written and released during the Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam War, poking fun at the lengths to which the…

Venus in Fur, Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, Natalie Dormer, David Oakes

Venus in Fur at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

Last updated on December 28th, 2023Aphrodite is in the house at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in a hair-raising erotically-charged production of David Ives’s Broadway hit, Venus in Fur. Natalie Dormer treads the boards as the feline Vanda Jordan, and David Oakes of Victoria fame has parked his Prince Ernest to reveal a magnetic Thomas Novachek…

Labour of Love, Noel Coward Theatre, Martin Freeman, James Graham, Tamsin Greig

Theatre Review: Labour of Love

Last updated on March 14th, 2018Love is all around us at the Noël Coward Theatre this autumn. It’s Labour intensive and dirty, and you can catch it in James Graham’s latest blockbuster, the political romcom Labour of Love. Starring Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig, the play is not just a history lesson of the Labour…

1234