London theatre reviews

Although I would struggle to actually recommend this one-man zombie apocalypse rock musical from Korea, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time at it. 

The rumours are true: two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon has touched down in London to play icon of the silver screen – and the transatlantic gay community – Judy Garland. If you’re a fan, you’ve probably seen Monsoon impersonate Garland before – on Drag Race or, if you’re lucky, at one of her live cabaret shows. But this is a different thing entirely…

Care – stylised as CARE – is acclaimed writer-director Alexander Zeldin getting back to his roots. Kind of.

Who even remembers when Rachel Reeves, newly appointed as the UK’s first female chancellor, insisted that she was going to get rid of the urinal in No 11 as a defiant act of girl power, only to find out that she couldn’t as the latrine had been used by Winston Churchill and therefore was of historical significance? Rosie Holt, that’s who. 

Obviously Peter Shaffer’s landmark 1973 play Equus has dated in some ways. It has gone from a story set ‘now’ to a ‘70s period drama. Its views on psychiatry are, at the very least, simplistic, speaking of an era where the concept was novel. But my god: it’s hard to see that mainstream British theatre ever getting more extreme – certainly psychologically – than Shaffer’s opus.

Michelle Terry, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, takes on one of theatre’s great female roles in Anna Jordan’s translation of Bertolt Brecht’s coruscating condemnation of the soul-destroying endlessness of warfare, directed by Globe associate artist Elle While.

This hugely enjoyable new Sherlock Holmes adventure from playwright Joel Horwood gives you all you could possibly want from The Great Detective: the catchphrases, the wild connect-the-dots genius, the Victoriana, the post-Cumberbatch notion that the guy is a bit of an autistic weirdo but cranked up to 10 and given a flamboyant drug habit.

Lyric Hammersmith associate director Nicholai La Barrie’s revival of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 mirth-y morality play has flair to spare. Performed by an all-Black cast, in both tone and energy, it follows on the impeccably stylish heels of the National Theatre’s extravagant The Importance of Being Earnest.

Ava Pickett has had the career start every writer dreams of. Your debut play about Anne Boleyn (but not really about Anne Boleyn) becomes the hottest ticket in town at the Almeida Theatre and earns you two Olivier nominations. In the process, you gain the attention of it-girl star of the moment Margot Robbie, who declares you a generational talent. Oh, and you’re also writing a film about Joan of Arc with Baz Luhrmann. Because why not.

Krapp’s Last Tape is one of those formally groundbreaking, emotionally devastating Samuel Beckett plays that is nonetheless so locked into being staged the same way every time – thanks to notoriously rigid Beckett estate – that it can be tricky to comment on a new production. Even if it is one that’s directed by, stars and is designed by Gary Oldman, his first stage performance since the mid-’80s.