Five star - Latest Top Rated Stage Reviews from the Guardian

Kunene and the King review – poignant two-hander illuminates post-apartheid South Africa
John Kani beautifully captures the complex divides of race, class and politics in a remarkable and moving new play - Michael Billington
What the Constitution Means to Me review – a five-star Broadway triumph
Heidi Schreck’s funny, impactful and breathlessly exciting ode to the constitution is one of the year’s best shows - Alexis Soloski
Romeo and Juliet review – stunningly swoonsome study of wide-eyed love
Lauren Cuthbertson and Matthew Ball sumptuously express the recklessness of youth in Kenneth MacMillan’s fine ballet - Lyndsey Winship
Medea review – a funny, brutal and raw masterpiece
Simon Stone’s smart and harrowing retelling of Euripides is performed by a flawless ensemble - Natalie Haynes
All My Sons review – Annette Bening and Tracy Letts power sturdy revival
Thrilling, note perfect performances elevate yet another staging of Arthur Miller’s transgressive tragedy - Alexis Soloski
Amélie the Musical review – a rocking realisation of the film
Clever staging and warm performances make this adaptation of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film a visual treat - Clare Brennan
Night of 100 Solos review – Merce Cunningham lives on
A star-packed tribute honours the choreographer’s ground-breaking approach to technique and staging - Sara Veale
Amélie the Musical review – sepia-toned surrealism that's high on imagination
The arrival of the kind-hearted and introverted Parisian on the UK stage is a magical and emotional triumph of adaptation - Arifa Akbar
Sweet Charity review – Anne-Marie Duff has the rhythm of life
Josie Rourke turns this spirited Broadway musical into a hymn to female resilience in her exhilarating farewell production at the Donmar - Michael Billington
The Half God of Rainfall review – Inua Ellams' striking modern myth
Ellam’s poem about a basketball-star demi-god and his mother fighting celestial beings gets a stunning outing on the stage - Gareth Llŷr Evans
Night of 100 Solos review – a fresh and radical Merce Cunningham experience
Six decades of solos form an unsentimental and surprising celebration of the legendary choreographer’s highly technical dance experiments - Lyndsey Winship
Sweeney Todd review – raging underdog adds politics to the pies
Nick Bagnall’s ingenious revival reminds us that Sondheim’s musical thriller is also a savagely political piece about injustice - Michael Billington
Heart of Darkness review – challenging reconstruction of Conrad
Imitating the Dog interrogate their own staging of the controversial novella as well as its themes - Clare Brennan
She Persisted review – a fine rebalance
Frida Kahlo rubs shoulders with bare-chested men in the ENB’s dazzling celebration of female choreographers - Lisa Allardice
A German Life review – Maggie Smith shines as Goebbels' secretary
Smith returns to the stage in triumph as she relives one woman’s extraordinary experience in Nazi Germany - Michael Billington
Rooms review – Enda Walsh's empty spaces are full of despair
Part installation, part prose-poem, this strangely beautiful piece takes its audience into other people’s heads - Michael Billington
West Side Story review – exhilarating show sidesteps Broadway blueprint
Sarah Frankcom and Aletta Collins ditch Jerome Robbins’ choreography and keeps the stakes high in a superb production - Mark Fisher
Going Through review – migrant's words flow freely across borders
This gently uplifting play about child migration – performed in English and beautifully signed – delights in language - Miriam Gillinson
Pah-La review – fascinating Tibetan drama sets theatre ablaze
Abhishek Majumdar’s play launches a philosophical inquiry into non-violence and defying oppression - Michael Billington
Scary Bikers review – John Godber saddles up for a bumpy Brexit ride
In his funny and perceptive two-hander, Godber and his wife play a quarrelsome couple on a tandem trip to Europe - Michael Billington
English National Ballet: She Persisted review – odes to Frida, Pina and Nora
Ibsen gets an urgent retelling, Kahlo dances with a monkey and Bausch’s masterwork is back in Tamara Rojo’s stellar triple bill - Lyndsey Winship
Aziz Ansari: Road to Nowhere review – combative set hits raw nerves
The US standup tackles morality, racism, R Kelly and Michael Jackson in a barbed satirical show - Brian Logan
Dear Europe review – a tearful love letter from Scotland to the continent
Originally planned to coincide with the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the National Theatre of Scotland’s night of cabaret and comedy was performed under a sombre cloud - Mark Fisher
Local Hero review – musical with a moral heart
Bill Forsyth’s adaptation of his 1983 film, with new music by Mark Knopfler, is topical all over again - Clare Brennan
Romeo and Juliet review – star-cross'd magic from Matthew Ball and Lauren Cuthbertson
The principals lead an emotionally charged reprise of Royal Ballet’s old faithful - Sarah Crompton
Grief Is the Thing With Feathers review – Cillian Murphy is a wonder
Murphy has an astonishing athleticism playing both man and crow in an adaptation of Max Porter’s story of grief - Michael Billington
Hannah Gadsby: Douglas review – comedian brings laughs but retains edge in Nanette follow-up
Gadsby takes aim at men who complained her award-winning show was not comedy but a lecture - Jenny Valentish
Nora: A Doll's House review – Ibsen gets three heroines in feminist rewrite
Stef Smith’s excellent adaptation has three Noras experience economic and emotional pressures through history - Mark Fisher
Harriet Kemsley review – ebullient comic slams slut-shaming
Kemsley packs in high-calibre jokes in a tour through the gendered politics of promiscuity - Brian Logan
SparkPlug review – a soul-searching inquest into race, class and machismo
David Judge fuses poetry and exquisite theatricality into a lovingly delivered personal monologue - Gareth Llŷr Evans
Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story review – tender Frank Sidebottom tribute
This documentary about Sievey’s wacky comic creation makes a good case for bestowing posthumous national treasure status - Peter Bradshaw
Local Hero review – oil-movie gem strikes a salty musical note
Bill Forsyth’s bittersweet comic drama about a Scottish village’s fight with an oil firm sheds its whimsy in this tougher version, scored by Mark Knopfler - Peter Ross
Russell Maliphant and Vangelis: The Thread review – reimagining Greece
Myth meets modernity in this profound and thrilling collaboration - Sarah Crompton
La Forza del Destino review – guilt and obsession with opera's biggest stars
Christof Loy cannot quite bring Verdi’s ungainly drama together but Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko and Antonio Pappano force their operatic flair to the fore - Tim Ashley
Downstate review – big-question drama on how we live with child abusers
Four sex offenders are confronted by one of their victims in Bruce Norris’s viscerally acted drama about how and why we punish - Michael Billington
Standing at the Sky’s Edge review – Richard Hawley's ode to Sheffield estate
This across-the-decades Park Hill musical is cleverly staged, moving through idealism, dilapidation and gentrification - Catherine Love
White Noise review – Suzan-Lori Parks provokes and disturbs
The Pulitzer prize-winning playwright has created an absurdist, challenging drama about the fallout from a racially motivated attack by police - Alexis Soloski
The Bay at Nice review – David Hare's battle of duty and desire
Penelope Wilton gives a fine turn as an understated heroine in this revival of Hare’s play about a one-time pupil of Matisse - Michael Billington
Ballet Black review – welly-wearing dancers stage miners' strike
Classical ballet and African dance fuse in a powerful piece inspired by events that led to South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement - Lyndsey Winship
The Crown Dual review – inventive, fun parody of Netflix original
Skilfully combining play-that-goes-wrong antics with a potted history of the royals, this has fringe festival hit written all over it - Mark Lawson
Peeling review – fierce and funny trio storm the stage in vulva gowns
Kaite O’Reilly’s play challenges societal expectations of deaf and disabled women and tick-box exercises in inclusivity - Gareth Llŷr Evans
Suzi Ruffell review – anxiety comedy could not be more uplifting
Nocturnal is notionally about the things keeping the standup awake at night, but this cheery set shows she has nothing to worry about - Brian Logan
Betrayal review – Hiddleston is superb in haunting drama of deception
Tom Hiddleston conveys unhealed emotional wounds in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Harold Pinter’s play - Michael Billington
Admissions review – a harsh lesson for white liberals
When positive discrimination appears to rob a boy of his college place, the racial pieties of America’s left are exposed in Joshua Harmon’s drama - Michael Billington
From Shore to Shore review – drama while you dine at a Chinese restaurant
This rich, dreamlike play feeds body and soul as it chronicles the complex lives of migrants from China - Mark Fisher
Hamlet review – this fresh prince is fully and gloriously female
Amy Leach’s thriller-like version of Shakespeare’s tragedy gives familiar lines a revelatory ring: there is zero suggestion that Tessa Parr is playing a male role - Catherine Love
Northern Ballet: Victoria review – royal story is a feast of brilliance
Cathy Marston’s new ballet about Queen Victoria and her daughter Beatrice is outstandingly choreographed, cinematically scored and danced with nuance - Sanjoy Roy
The Last Yankee review – Arthur Miller’s haunting delve into despair
Marital tensions and mental health are expertly explored in David Thacker’s production of Miller’s 1993 play - Clare Brennan
Kourtney Kardashian review – dive into fantasy as the world burns
Sleepwalk Collective’s mesmerising and dreamlike show riffs hypnotically on nostalgia, technology, climate change and the glamour of opera - Catherine Love
The Children review – Lucy Kirkwood's taut tale of human and atomic meltdown
Three nuclear physicists are reunited in this engrossing drama about ageing, marriage and sexual rivalry, directed by Oonagh Murphy - Helen Meany
Fleabag review – Phoebe Waller-Bridge triumphs off-Broadway
The witty, filthy, tragic one-woman show arrives stateside, with all its jagged edges still intact - Alexis Soloski
BalletBoyz: Them/Us review – dreamy double bill confounds cliche
With one piece choreographed by the company and the other by Christopher Wheeldon, this is a fresh, thoughtful show - Lyndsey Winship
Richard II review – women of colour's blazing show reflects our current chaos
Adjoa Andoh is extraordinarily expressive in a production with politics to the fore that makes one see the play afresh - Michael Billington
Hillary and Clinton review – Laurie Metcalf on winning form in solid drama
The Tony award winner dominates as the politician in a 2008-set work of speculative stage drama with John Lithgow as her supportive husband - Alexis Soloski
Tumulus review – chemsex, murder and social satire in 'queer noir' thriller
There’s comedy and mystery but darker themes are under-explored in this original but tricksy meta-theatre production - Arifa Akbar
Three Sisters review – Frecknall and Ferran reunite for clannish Chekhov
Patsy Ferran’s Olga is one of the many admirable performances in a production by Rebecca Frecknall that fails to deliver a full Chekhovian experience - Michael Billington
Burn This review – Adam Driver ignites patchy Broadway revival
Hudson Theatre, New YorkA standout performance from the brooding actor is the main selling point of an 80s-set comedy drama that fails to match him - Alexis Soloski
The Little Prince review – charming retelling through song and dance
Four performers deftly bring the Saint-Exupéry story down to earth in Luca Silvestrini’s comic production - Sanjoy Roy
Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story review – fast-moving dance biopic
The story of the Cuban ballet dancer’s rise to fame, told with the help of the man himself - Simran Hans
Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story review – unflinching biopic of a ballet superstar
This energetic account of the life of the electrifying Cuban never shies away from the truth about his tough upbringing - Cath Clarke
Atomic 50 review – hammer away in a ghost factory for metalheads
This craft-based installation celebrates a London borough’s history of metalwork – and the wonder of tin - Chris Wiegand
The Jungle Book review – riotous show gets into the swing of Kipling
The tales of Mowgli, Baloo and Bagheera are inventively staged with integrated sign language and a community cast - Kate Wyver
Fosse/Verdon review – showbiz miniseries is stylish but scatterbrained
The new FX series, which boasts magnetic lead performances from Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, has highs and lows like its subjects’ partnership - Jake Nevins
Come from Away review – surprisingly uplifting 9/11 musical
Making a song and dance of how Newfoundland took in thousands of diverted passengers after the World Trade Center attack is fun up to a point - Claire Armitstead
The Omission of the Family Coleman review – a family comedy with issues
Punchy characters, great pace, prizes… but something doesn’t work in this play about dysfunctional relatives - Clare Brennan
Alleyne Dance: The Other Side of Me review – brawn and poise
Kristina and Sadé Alleyne’s taut, elegant double bill explores notions of imprisonment - Sara Veale
King Lear review – Glenda Jackson dominates flawed Broadway show
The Tony winner returns to the role she played in 2016 in an updated take on the tragedy that’s both thrilling and messy - Alexis Soloski
Top Girls review – Churchill's study of bourgeois feminism gets an epic makeover
With a boosted cast of 18, Lyndsey Turner’s revival of Caryl Churchill’s classic sometimes feels like three separate plays - Michael Billington
The Crucible review – gender twist gets you thinking but not feeling
Jay Miller’s reworking of Arthur Miller’s classic delivers tender chemistry, clever characters and a female John Proctor, but its quest for novelty loses focus - Miriam Gillinson
Little Miss Sunshine review – feuding family hits the road to a new tune
This lively musical take on the 2006 film satirising child beauty pageants is likable but lacks bite - Michael Billington
Creditors review – Strindberg lays bare the self-pitying male psyche
Howard Brenton’s no-nonsense translation of Strindberg’s astute drama charts the marriage of a failed artist and his more successful wife - Mark Fisher
Maggie May review – Lionel Bart's musical knows how to show you a good time
Bart and Alun Owen’s 1964 musical about a Liverpudlian dockside prostitute and her sailor beau gets a foot-stamping first professional revival - Michael Billington
Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel review – murder victims refuse to come to life
ENO and composer Iain Bell’s reimagining of the lives and times of the Ripper’s victims is laudable and sincere but dramatically inert - Andrew Clements
Mo Amer and Guz Khan review – hip-hop and hummus in a double dose of funny
Netflix’s Vagabond star teams up with Man Like Mobeen’s Khan to headline a mischievous night of smart gags - Brian Logan
Dangerous Liaisons review – ballet never looked so much like a strip club
Heart-stopping scenes and delectable period costumes lift this exploration of sexual appetite, but the titillation and characterisation are over the top - Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
Wolfie review – Sisters Grimm weave a fairytale with a social conscience
Ross Willis’s surreal debut is driven by a concern for vulnerable children, but will be remembered for its two remarkable actors - Michael Billington
Edmond de Bergerac review – all the fun of the farce
A reimagining of the life of Cyrano de Bergerac writer Edmond Rostand is a whirl of can-cans and cavorting - Clare Brennan
Edmond de Bergerac review – France's hectic answer to Shakespeare in Love
This slapstick look at the classic play about Cyrano the long-nosed poet has been given a witty, kaleidoscopic staging - Michael Billington
Ain't Too Proud review – thrilling music but shallow drama in Temptations musical
Broadway’s latest jukebox music is electrified by fantastic singing and dancing but let down by some inert storytelling - Alexis Soloski
Falling review – teen daughter's postcards from the edge
Near catastrophe in a back garden sparks up this heartfelt if over-signposted play strongly influenced by children’s theatre - Miriam Gillinson
The Taming of the Shrew review – RSC's battle of reversed sexes
Gender-swapped roles turn this courtship power game into a strange puzzle – although the trick plays dividends with its gleeful subplots - Michael Billington
National Dance Company Wales: Awakening review – a welcome return
Works by Marcos Morau, Fernando Melo and Caroline Finn make for an enjoyably ambitious triple bill - Ka Bradley
Strike Up the Band review – cheese-war satire roasts the American whey
The Gershwins’ upbeat music sits uneasily with a cheerily absurd script in this revival of George S Kaufman’s comedy - Michael Billington
Manus review: real-life stories of oppression told verbatim with vital storytelling
The production, for all its pain, hums with vital life, and some scenes stay in the mind long after the curtain has set - Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
The Ridiculous Darkness review – Conrad, Coppola and the 'white saviour' complex
A story from a Somali pirate kicks off this outlandish comic critique of Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now - Arifa Akbar
Waitress review – bittersweet Broadway musical served warm in the West End
Based on Adrienne Shelly’s film and scored by Sara Bareilles, the New York hit arrives in London in a lively production - Michael Billington
Richard III review – Tom Mothersdale hypnotises as the unhinged overlord
A spider-like central performance dominates a production that offers charm, hi-tech excess and a spattering of bodily fluids - Kate Wyver
Gary review – Taylor Mac's Titus sequel is a bloody mess
An inspired idea, a comedic follow-up to Shakespeare’s brutal tragedy, is sadly not enough to sustain a disappointingly thin show - Alexis Soloski
Intemperance review – sepia-toned tragicomedy offers only despair
In this revival of Lizzie Nunnery’s debut about a family in 19th-century Liverpool, misery is piled upon misery - Mark Fisher
Keep Watching review – tech dystopia becomes a song and dance
Jesse Fox’s play about the perils of surveillance is at its best when observing the bond between sparring siblings - Kate Wyver
Intra Muros review – prison play takes liberties with a serious subject
An English version of a play by golden boy of French theatre Alexis Michalik is too cavalier in its depiction of prison life - Michael Billington
Wilderness review – separated parents frame family's destruction
The crumbling set mirrors the failed relationship of a couple in Kellie Smith’s heavy-going drama - Miriam Gillinson
The Idiot review – Dostoevsky's good prince makes a quivering retreat from love
Saburo Teshigawara’s take on the Russian classic isolates its hero, creating striking scenes that leave you pining for a connection - Lyndsey Winship
The Rubenstein Kiss review – passion and paranoia as spy drama implodes
This drama inspired by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is ripe for revival but the flawed story asks more questions than it answers - Arifa Akbar
Goodbye Norma Jeane review – the man behind Marilyn Monroe steps forward
Choreographer Jack Cole’s vitality is lost in Liam Burke’s play that tackles issues of ownership of women’s bodies - Kate Wyver
The Thread review – Russell Maliphant and Vangelis join forces in a Hellenic Riverdance
Rooted in traditional Greek dancing, the choreography only blooms when it ditches folky footwork for more elastic moves - Sanjoy Roy
God of Chaos review – to delete or not to delete
Phil Porter’s timely new play about social media moderators doesn’t quite click - Clare Brennan
The Mother review – Isabelle Huppert shines in otherwise stale play
The prolific Oscar nominee has fun playing a woman unmoored by the absence of her husband and son in a dark farce with questionable politics - Alexis Soloski
Inside Bitch review – prison truths beyond Orange Is the New Black
Clean Break’s satirical look at the stereotypes around life in jail ends up undone by its own artifice - Arifa Akbar
Mrs Brown's Boys D'Musical? review – where are d'jokes and d'good songs?
Brendan O’Carroll and co cheerfully gurn their way through two hours’ of weak gags, unmemorable songs and wasted opportunities - Peter Ross