These Theatre Thoughts

The time has come... I have a brand new site where all my reviews, blogs, and plenty of theatre news can now be found.  Please visit: www.thesetheatrethoughts.co.uk and enjoy!

  Date: 7th March 2025  Seat: Stalls Slips 12 Stars: 5 There’s a moment, halfway through Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing , where Tom Hiddleston - suave, composed, effortlessly cool - finds himself completely buried under an avalanche of pink confetti. He writhes, he flails, he attempts (and fails) to maintain dignity, and the audience, already on the edge of riotous laughter, absolutely loses it. That’s the show in a nutshell. After a few years of restrained minimalism, Lloyd is back in full technicolour chaos mode, and thank God for that. This isn’t Shakespeare treated like a precious artifact. It’s Shakespeare like a house party - messy, sweaty, loud, and, crucially, fun. From the second you step into the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the atmosphere is different. The pre-show playlist isn’t the usual classical filler - it’s a blast of 90s club bangers, the kind you forgot you knew every lyric to. The audience is already buzzing before the play even starts. Then - boom - ...

  Date: 3rd March 2025  Stars: 2 Revenge. Bloodlust. Family trauma. And, apparently, the urgent need to assault the audience with as much noise, nonsense, and meaningless theatrics as humanly possible. Welcome to Elektra at the Duke of York’s Theatre - a production so aggressively self-indulgent that I started wondering if it was some elaborate social experiment to see how long people could endure it before walking out.  Brie Larson, Oscar-winner, Marvel superhero, and now, victim of a director with too much creative control, commits fully to the role. She stomps, she wails into microphones, she twists herself into contorted poses like she’s trying to summon a demon. She sings the word ‘no’ every time it comes up. It’s raw, it’s relentless, and it’s utterly exhausting to watch. You can practically see the emotional turmoil radiating off her, but after a while, it just starts feeling like screaming for the sake of screaming.  And then there’s the production itsel...