Most dystopian visions set themselves quite far in the future. However, for In The Net at the Jermyn Street Theatre Misha Levkov keeps us in 2025, specifying that productions should always be set a couple of years ahead of real time, and the setting is London – Kentish Town. This does keep it recognisable and clear of sci-fi fantasy, but it also demands that Britain has gone downhill dramatically fast.
‘Remain on the edge of your seat, though you might fall off laughing’: THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
What could be more seasonal than Flaubert’s tale of wifely frustration, romantic illusions, disastrous adulteries and ruinous shopaholic debt? This adaptation of The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary at the Jermyn Street Theatre is a clown-skilled four-hander by John Nicholson – founder of the gleefully clever Peepolykus.
‘Has a melancholy beauty about it’: SOMETHING IN THE AIR – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
OLD MEN DO NOT FORGET Peter Gill’s new play has a melancholy beauty about it; it’s a sort of poem as the veteran playwright and director engages with age, regret and memory. The one-act, hour-long piece, performed … Continue reading →
‘The whole thing sings’: CANCELLING SOCRATES – Jermyn Street Theatre
The Jermyn Street Theatre – small as it is – has been rocking Howard Brenton’s latest play Cancelling Socrates, set in Ancient Greece and dealing with the last days and condemnation for sacrilege of the philosopher Socrates.
‘This is an Orlando any Woolf would gobble up’: ORLANDO – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★★
This jolly adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando by Sarah Ruhl, directed con brio by Stella Powell-Jones, is a 90-minute treat and holiday too.
NEWS: Cabaret & Spring Awakening lead 31st annual Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards
Two Almeida musical revivals – Cabaret in the West End and Spring Awakening – were the biggest winners at the 31st annual Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, for the first time held just one week before the Olivier Awards.
‘It’s a celebration of lifelong love & that’s always satisfying’: THE MARRIAGE OF ALICE B TOKLAS BY GERTRUDE STEIN – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
American writer and art collector, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas were in a long relationship until the former’s premature death in 1946.
‘A quirky, comic four-hander celebrating a 40-year partnership’: THE MARRIAGE OF ALICE B TOKLAS BY GERTRUDE STEIN – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
With typical wit, the doughty little Jermyn has captured an intellectual-farcical oddity from New York, complete with author-director and star. Tom Littler signed them up for 2020, with obvious results, but lured them back.
‘A powerful & engrossing musical’: THRILL ME The Leopold & Loeb Story – Jermyn Street Theatre
Performed by two singer-actors, a pianist, and a voiceover, Thrill Me is staged in a richly detailed set by Rachael Ryan full of newspaper clippings and photographs.
‘A masterclass in succinct & intensive storytelling’: THRILL ME The Leopold & Loeb Story – Jermyn Street Theatre
Stephen Dolginoff’s 2003 musical Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story was the latest in a long line of cultural products inspired by this infamous murder case in 1920s America.
‘This bijou, quirky production has made me see new things in the play’: THE TEMPEST – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
One of the interesting, rewarding quirks in Tom Littler’s small-but-perfectly-formed Tempest is that Tam Williams doubles as Ferdinand, the ultra-virtuous shipwrecked Prince, and as a particularly farouche bare-breasted Caliban.
‘A well-chosen & beautifully cast pair of plays’: FOOTFALLS & ROCKABY – Jermyn Street Theatre
In the tiny, pub theatre-esque Jermyn Street Theatre Samuel Beckett’s two monologues, Footfalls and Rockaby, exert a powerful hold.
‘This is one of the best comedies running in the West End’: RELATIVELY SPEAKING — Jermyn Street Theatre
This is the first show in the Jermyn Street Theatre’s Encounters season, and they have certainly started it off on a high note. This is a production of one of Alan Ayckbourn’s first plays from 1965, a comedy and farce set around the misunderstandings between two couples.
‘Every beat of comic bewilderment hits home’: RELATIVELY SPEAKING – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★★
We always knew that among the first sproutings of recovery would be a few Alan Ayckbourns, popping up as welcome as snowdrops. I am always fond of this early one, with its deadly-accurate eye on the British qualities of embarrassed, pained civility and insane reluctance to ask the straight and obvious question.
NEWS: Michael Pennington returns; Sian Phillips & Oliver Ford Davies join Jermyn Street autumn
London’s Jermyn Street Theatre has announced its first full season since reopening with the Footprints Festival earlier this year. The Encounters Season, which runs from mid-September to the end of the year, features some of the UK’s best-known stage names.
‘It’s an interesting, accomplished attempt’: THIS BEAUTIFUL FUTURE – Jermyn Street Theatre
When Chirolles Khalil’s production of This Beautiful Future at Jermyn Street Theatre works it is by laying out before us the hopelessness of innocence in a savage wartime world, and underlining the banality of evil.
‘Concentrates on the indomitability of the human spirit’: LONE FLYER / ENG-ER-ALND – Jermyn Street Theatre (Online review)
Footprints Festival at Jermyn Street celebrates female empowerment
‘Beautifully memorialised’: ODE TO JOYCE – Jermyn Street Theatre (Online review)
Ode To Joyce is an enjoyable 75 minute celebration of the wit and wisdom of a self-effacing performer who did much to pave the way for a later generation of women to seize the comic nettle.
‘Thrilling & chilling’: ROCKY ROAD – Jermyn Street Theatre (Online review)
With some subtle Hitchcock references and more than a hint of Sam Shephard about it, Rocky Road, like its confectionery counterpart, is a sweet moreish treat with some hidden surprises.
NEWS: English theatres will reopen their doors from 17 May 2021
English theatres will finally be able to reopen their doors from next week after the Government today confirmed the next stage of its post lockdown roadmap will begin on 17 May 2021.