Matt Barton

Worth catching when it heads to Soho Theatre in November

Cracking new (albeit Mamet-indebted) comedy with fangs where Alastair Michael’s professor and Matt Holt’s Dean, who moves twitchily like a velociraptor, play an absurd game of brinksmanship that spirals as they devolve into beasts, finishing with one of Foley’s characteristically brilliant endings

Breaking the Code fails to crack the character of Alan Turing — review The mathematician’s dazzling life is flattened in Royal & Derngate, Northampton’s revival of Hugh Whitemore’s play

A man with the imagination of Alan Turing is given a production with little theatrical imagination. A potentially riveting drama becomes a patience-tester about the code-breaker

www.ft.com/content/e795...

Wasn’t sure what to expect with this, but it was great - so much thought and effort clearly gone into the clever production design and vivid detail of the performances. Michael Hugo a particular hoot

Tribune readers once again by and large absolutely outraged that I’ve dared to find imperfections in a production at their local theatre. This time inexplicably referring to me as “Barton” like a boarding school headmaster

The Crucible's next chapter opens 'Yes, big things happen because of the big capital P[olitics], but really your life changes in a room with your family.'

Back in the Sheffy T reviewing Elizabeth Newman’s first show as AD: a production whose main problem is that it’s a production of Dancing at Lughnasa, a play that makes you think it must’ve been a fallow year when it won its Olivier

www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/the-crucible...

Reviewed Manchester’s Darkfield triple bill; I’m yet to see the light with their shows

A certain irony sat in the NT waiting to see a show about how the manosphere and toxic masculinity take root in young men while flag-bearing rally-goers flood in to use the loos. (“What’s this place then, a casino?” one asks)

A nice touch: Peake has a necklace of pearls to clutch.
A very odd touch: bringing out “gay Jesus” for one of the most awkwardly miscalculated endings I’ve seen in a while.

The Last Stand of Mrs Mary Whitehouse theatre review — Maxine Peake is all steel as the conservative crusader Caroline Bird’s drama reflects the human impact of Whitehouse’s campaigns on the gay community but lacks opposing voices

Felt this treated the damage Whitehouse caused a little too lightly, and found its efforts to take equal sides a bit exhausting and messy. But Samuel Barnett’s performance(s) were powerful, tender and upstaged Peake’s pretty one-note turn

www.ft.com/content/fe0b...

Just out of Giant - a towering piece of theatre and performance from Lithgow. The way he pouts - somewhere between a sneer and a sickly-sweet pucker. Dragon-like, then retreating into feeble wincing with his ailing back, both sly and pathetic. And equally crafty, needling writing

A Moon for the Misbegotten review: Doesn’t quite shine brightly enough ★★★☆☆ 19th July 2025 • Almeida Michael Shannon (Jim) and Ruth Wilson (Josie). Photo: Marc Brenner The first sign of how it’s all going to end for Jim and Josie – the pair who, like opposing magnets…

Caught up with the Almeida’s Moon for the Misbegotten last weekend, which, despite a nice performance from Ruth Wilson, on the whole for me felt destined to be forgotten

upstagereviews.wordpress.com/2025/07/27/a...

Glad to have caught the penultimate perf of this (well, the last one before they perform it at actual 4:48am). It managed to make a long, oblique howl feel naturally conversational and direct. Contemplative but studded with dark bite. “Remember the light and believe the light”

A talky play and a shouty production that thankfully eventually relents to allow for a neat conclusion. Set on a stage where, cleverly, shapes interlock to form a growing island

Catching up on Liberation (or, as it’s otherwise known, Manchester International Festival’s entire theatre programme for 2025)

Caught up with Till The Stars Come Down after missing its NT run. A stunningly good play, especially its faultless first half. The kind of show that would work brilliantly in the round at the Royal Exchange, if only it consistently programmed more new writing

My contribution was a toss-up between ‘the time Jason Manford commented his own 1* review of my review of his performance in Curtains’ and ‘the time I got shat on by a seagull on my way to a press night’. The seagull seemed classier

Happy birthday @millmedia.bsky.social

Hamlet Hail to the Thief is a discordant union of Shakespeare and Radiohead News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

Hamlet Hail to the Thief is a discordant union of Shakespeare and Radiohead

https://www.ft.com/content/17bc7914-34e7-4498-afc6-073c1847b69f

Hamlet Hail to the Thief is a discordant union of Shakespeare and Radiohead There’s more madness than method to an ambitious adaptation at Aviva Studios, Manchester

Radiohead chief bleaksmith Thom Yorke has (co)created this doomy bleakfest for everyone who thought Hamlet could do with being more bleak and doomy. I wasn’t convinced it gains as much as it loses

www.ft.com/content/17bc...

Takeaway at Liverpool Everyman Theatre – review Nathan Powell’s production runs until 17 May

I think if you’re going to get away with programming your own play to open your first season, it probably needs to be better than this. But it has a couple of nice performances and a vibrant set

www.whatsonstage.com/news/takeawa...

My May rec (avoided picking the obvious FI/RSC Hamlet adaptation because I’m countercultural) + spotlight on the most promising director in Manchester for my money

Manhunt review: Raoul Moat evades Robert Icke ★★★☆☆ 8th April 2025 • Royal Court Samuel Edward-Cook and Trevor Fox. Photo: Manuel Harlan Can Robert Icke catch Raoul Moat? This is, in a way, the real manhunt that unfolds in Icke’s new pla…

I thought Manhunt's final act was strong, after a clumsy start. But I'm not sure it had enough to say to justify making it - I'm sure Icke's said art shouldn't offer easy answers, but that's largely what I feel we got here upstagereviews.wordpress.com/2025/04/13/m...

Red or Dead review – Peter Mullan tackles Bill Shankly in uneven adaptation Playing the feted Liverpool FC manager, Mullan leads a bustling new stage version of David Peace’s 2013 novel

Peter Mullan is on Kop form as Bill Shankly, even if I’m not sure Phillip Breen has found the best way to tell his story on stage

www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/a...

Great piece Sarah

Don’t think it was a lack of commitment that we were getting at. Just the pitfalls of prioritising a big concept above all else: coming up with some radical idea, as if every production depends on it, and following it with tunnel vision, losing sight of whether it actually yields a net gain

Of Mice and Men review – a tepid revival of Steinbeck’s dust bowl classic Sarah Brigham’s new production is beautifully designed but struggles to capture the drama’s claustrophobic tension

Strangely lowkey, underpowered Steinbeck that makes a couple of interesting decisions but overall feels as quiet and timid as a mouse

www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/m...

Probably came across as a total purist in this, and fully accept the plays can take a bit of reworking, just a bit bemused by the prevailing attitude to directing Shakespeare which seems to be slap on A Concept at all costs

Glad we’re finally getting to hear another side of the story: “marketing gimmicks planned around it, which allegedly included handing out fake drugs to theatregoers when they arrived… sending young people who are black and brown out with baggies in their pockets”

Did we really need a Shirley Valentine revival in 2025? By sheer force of will and charisma, Liverpool actor Helen Carter makes a strong case for a modern Shirley

I had not expected to fall in love with Shirley Valentine. I could not imagine a better production of the play than this. (And it’s just extended @liveveryplay.bsky.social)

www.livpost.co.uk/did-we-reall...