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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button review – warm and winsome musical tugs at the heartstrings
Ambassadors theatre, LondonRelocating the F Scott Fitzgerald story to a Cornish fishing village, this is a vivacious yet touching showF Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of a man who ages in reverse suggests that time is what you make of it. And the five years it has taken Jethro Compton and Darren Clark’...
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Stranger Things reveals episode names in final season teaser
The last adventure takes place in 1987.
Shadow justice secretary accuses PM over early release scheme
Robert Jenrick took aim at Sir Keir Starmer over the case of a former actor accused of evading arrest after being released from jail early.
Manhunt launched for tattooed former actor released early from prison
Jason Hoganson, 53, is wanted over an alleged breach of his licence conditions by Northumbria Police.
‘Every minute at Vogue felt like an emergency’: Devil Wears Prada author Lauren Weisberger on igniting a scandal
Her novel about being Anna Wintour’s assistant caused such a storm, she wished she’d never written it. As the story becomes a musical with songs by Elton John, the author reveals why the imperious editor hasn’t spoken to her sinceWhen Lauren Weisberger was 22 years old, she got the job that sh...
Deck the stalls! 20 of the UK’s best festive theatre shows
Theatre’s boom season offers puppy puppetry, hungry houseplants and fresh spins on Dickens, Dumas and DisneyRoyal and Derngate theatre, Northampton, 7-31 December Continue reading......
Barcelona review – Lily Collins and Álvaro Morte share a night of tapas, torment and toe-sucking
Duke of York’s theatre, LondonThe stars of Emily in Paris and Money Heist team up for a curiously flat drama mixing suspense, comedy and politicsEmily in Paris star Lily Collins makes her stage debut by stepping into not a French garret – or even a Roman apartment – but a flat in the Catalonia...
Dr Strangelove review – Steve Coogan scores a quadruple cold war coup
Noël Coward theatre, London Adding a fourth role to Peter Sellers’ three turns in the classic film, the comic excels in a fun yet unadventurous adaptationStanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire, about cold war brinkmanship tipping into nuclear conflict, seemed to be a vehicle for Peter Sellers to showboa...
‘The worse the world gets, the better for this play’: Armando Iannucci on staging Dr Strangelove with Steve Coogan
Stanley Kubrick’s pitch-black comedy about nuclear armageddon was once called ‘sick’. Iannucci explains why – in the age of Trump, Putin and Musk – this madcap story is as relevant as ever‘Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!” In fact, it is a rehearsal studio o...
West End on course for its strongest Christmas since before the pandemic
Domestic spending is forecast to be 7% up on last year as cost of living fears ease
Behind the scenes with The Lion King in London at 25 – in pictures
Our photographer is given backstage access at The Lion King in the lead up to the 25th anniversary of the London production at the Lyceum Theatre. Since 19 October 1999 the musical has been seen by more than 19 million theatregoers Continue reading......
The Duchess [of Malfi] review – Jodie Whittaker trapped in Tarantinoesque revenge tragedy
Trafalgar theatre, London Zinnie Harris’s version of the Jacobean play makes potent points about power but is hamstrung by an overbearing productionJohn Webster’s revenge tragedy contains a terrible timelessness. To modernise this story of a woman who refuses to be submissive and is killed by he...
Oedipus review – Lesley Manville and Mark Strong electrify ancient saga turned political thriller
Wyndham’s theatre, LondonOpening in a campaign room on election night, Robert Icke’s modern retelling is riveting from beginning to end, the formidable leads supported by a stellar ensemble castIt begins with a birth certificate. A politician standing for election promises to prove his origins t...
Shaftesbury Avenue: New safer cycling route proposed into heart of West End
Cyclists woule be segregated from vehicles between St Giles High St and Cambridge Circus
Country singer Twinnie-Lee Moore joins Emmerdale cast for guest stint
The singer will make her first appearance on the ITV soap on Friday as ambitious and ruthless boxing promoter Jade.
Juno and the Paycock review – Mark Rylance delights as a drunken fantasist Dubliner
Gielgud theatre, LondonRylance is entertainingly Chaplinesque as a dissolute husband in Seán O’Casey’s 1924 tragicomedy, but Succession’s J Smith-Cameron is its heart and soul as the long-suffering wifeA volley of gunshots at the start signifies the violent backdrop to Seán O’Casey’s 192...
White Rabbit Red Rabbit review – a game Michael Sheen hops to it
@sohoplace, LondonNassim Soleimanpour’s experiment in live theatre has a different performer discover the script for the first time each night – but Sheen is especially well suited to its mix of bunny-themed whimsy and rousing exhortationNassim Soleimanpour’s 2010 play has been performed in mo...
Boy whose Mousetrap show at school led to legal threat joins West End cast
Alasdair Buchan, who directed his version aged 11 in 1997, will play mysterious stranger in long-running whodunnit As the curtain falls on every performance of The Mousetrap, the world’s longest-running play, applauding audience members are famously urged not to go on to reveal the secret solution...
Barbara Leigh-Hunt obituary
Highly expressive actor of impeccable technique that could encompass high comedy and full-blown tragedy There is a huge raft of exceptional British stage actors who merit commemoration even though they never hit the “big time” in a film franchise or a television soap. Barbara Leigh-Hunt, who has...
First look at Vinnie Jones as crime boss in Only Fools And Horses The Musical
The former footballer turned actor will play one half of the notorious Driscoll brothers, Danny Driscoll, in the production.