London theatre reviews

There're worse ways to spend a summer afternoon than drinking something cold beneath the trees at Thomas' College, Richmond, while watching a succession of Shakespeare’s characters flirt, bicker and generally make a mess of love. But Tom Littler's brace of shows – a co-production between the Orange Tree Theatre and Guildford Shakespeare Company – have more ambitious designs than pairing two crowd-pleasing romantic comedies…

It’s been unspeakably hot in London for weeks, but it seems the temperature is about to cranked up even more. Matthew Bourne’s sultry dance reinvention of Carmen has returned to Sadler’s Wells in all its sweaty, grimy glory after a decade off-stage, and its timing couldn’t be more apt…

To state the obvious: if you’ve no idea who or what Dog Man is, Dog Man the Musical is probably not for you. That’s not a criticism of Dav Pilkey’s wilfully silly graphic novels for primary schoolers and it’s not a criticism of this off-Broadway originating stage adaptation. But this is not a show with a jot of interest in winning over a casual musical theatre crowd. And why would it? Pretty much every child under 12 in the entire country (plus their parents) will know what Dog Man is. That’s plenty of audience.

Chaka Khan has lived one hell of a life. A teenage Black Panther turned soul star, she worked with everyone from Whitney Houston to Joni Mitchell, shot at her second husband with a rifle, and battled alcohol and drug addiction throughout her life. Khan was born to spawn her own jukebox musical. She’s got the story, and she’s certainly got the hits…

To be totally clear: Now You See Me Live is a stage-magic spectacular that has little to do with the Jesse Eisenberg-fronted film trilogy of the same name. That is to say, there’s no plot here and if the various participating magicians are using it as a front for fighting capitalism via the medium of high-concept heists, then they’re keeping quiet about it…

A love letter to theatre. A love letter to Philip Glass. A meditation on creativity and Taoism. There isn’t really a way to describe this show without making it sound naff or dull.
But that’s to underestimate the great Phelim McDermott who, with his company Improbable, has made some of the most extraordinary work of the last couple of decades, as well as West End hits like My Neighbour Totoro and big operas like Philip Glass's epic Akhnaten. 

Indiana Lown-Collins’ production of Shakespeare’s early comedy about three Spanish noblemen who decide it will be a great idea to swear off women and lock themselves away for three years of study – mere moments before a very eligible princess and her ladies arrive – is awash with sun-soaked flamenco energy…

The list of content warnings is long and heady: prolonged nudity, torture, mutilation, murder, sex, incest, violence, forced eating, drug abuse, homophobic and misogynistic language, blood and needles…

This is not so much a homage to Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and the gang as a soiling of their memory…

The lighting may be dim in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s auditorium – reconfigured to resemble an atmospheric 1960s NYC cabaret club – but the star wattage is bright…