News
January 2026
Happy new year everyone.
In the next few days you'll see the December issue as well as the separate Christmas issue featuring all of the pantomimes and other Christmas productions for the year. At the last count there were 56 productions for the Christmas issue. There are many more of course, happening all over the country, and I hope you’ve had the chance to experience one firsthand—to join the sea of voices in every singalong and feel the energy of the crowd as they cheer for the hero and boo the villain. I'm off to see 2 of my local pantomimes at the end of this month.
Usually in January, theatre has a bit of a rest after the end of the pantos, but we'll continue to review everything that we can for the January issue. There is plenty listed on our 'What's On' page, so lots to look forward to.
We're continuing to enter the archive, so everything is now searchable from 1981 up to 1991 - we're getting there!
Thank you as always to all of you for your continued support, and thank you too for all of your suggestions and comments. As always, please keep sending them in to editor@theatrerecord.com, and once again, I wish you all a very happy new year.
Thu 04 Dec 2025
December
We're well into panto season now, and you'll see all the reviews together in the special Christmas issue, which will be published in early January. You can read them all as they happen of course, by looking in the index. A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic with Paul Hilton has great reviews as does Ballet Shoes at The National Theatre. There are still plenty of other productions happening too of course. I was lucky enough to see a touring production at my local theatre of The Lonely Clown Club Theatre Co's production of Hah! Bumhug, which really put me in the Christmas spirit. I'm about to go and see The Fifth Step by David Ireland as part of NT live, and reading the reviews, I think I'm going to have a very enjoyable evening.
Apologies for the speed of adding reviews at the moment. Unfortunately our internet is down (An accident with the main pole and a lorry outside my house!), but all should be up to speed again at the start of next week.
With sadness, we all heard about the death of Tom Stoppard. I had a look at some of his work in the archive of Theatre Record, and was amazed at all of the work he had written and produced. There are some very interesting obituaries available to read, with many an interesting story. R.I.P. Tom, and thank you.
As always, were continuing to make small improvements to the site, and adding more backlog. Do let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.
Lastly, may I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas, and thank you all for your continued support.
Sun 02 Nov 2025
November
Several spooky productions were reviewed in October, and these will appear in the latest issue to be published on the 5th. One such production is 'The Monkey's Paw' seen at the Hope Theatre in London. On the other hand, there is also 'Wendy & Peter Pan ' in a retelling by Ella Hickson at the Barbican, although that has dark touches. There are some powerful plays in the mix too, with 'Don't Look Now' at The New Wolsey in Ipswich, 'The Unbelievers' at the Royal Court in London and 'Eureka Day' at the Playhouse in Nottingham.
This month I saw the NT live cinema screening of Inter Alia by Suzie Miller, which was superb. I agree with a lot of the reviews, in that it was very fast paced, but it was an 'absolute banger' as Robert Gore-Langton said in his Mail on Sunday review.
I have also been adding more backlog to add to the search engine. 1990 is now fully searchable and I was interested to read in issue 5 about the opening of the West Yorkshire Playhouse with a production of 'Wild Oats' by John O'Keeffe. At a cost of £13 million it was Britain's largest theatre complex to be built since the National. Ian Herbert as editor, certainly published many interesting facts and opinions as part of his 'Prompt Corner' pieces in each issue too. In issue 5 there is a piece at the beginning called 'Arts without Frontiers - 101 things you ought to know'. It's all so interesting, and I'm really enjoying going through the whole backlog.
We're continuing to make small improvements to the website, and as ever, do let me have any comments or suggestions.
Enjoy reading all the reviews in the October issue, and enjoy any theatre you see this month.