Five star - Latest Top Rated Stage Reviews from the Guardian

Do Not Go Gentle review – a profound exploration of ageing and dementia
Patricia Cornelius’s play co-opts Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the south pole to follow a band of adventurers who are actually in an aged care home - Steve Dow
John Kearns review – hilarious oddball marvels at the beautiful banal
The standup delivers the finest set of his career – touching on fatherhood, bin bags and Van Gogh Lego - Brian Logan
The Second Woman review – Ruth Wilson’s spellbinding theatrical marathon
Over 24 hours, the star offers variations on the same scene with 100 different partners, including some famous faces – and the result is astonishing - Arifa Akbar
Dear Billy review – brilliant tribute to the Big Yin
Gary McNair delivers verbatim interviews and misremembered Connolly routines from ordinary people in this love letter - Mark Fisher
August in England review – Lenny Henry’s remarkable one-man show about the Windrush scandal
The actor makes his debut as a playwright with a richly detailed character study, performing with warm humour and outrage at injustice - Chris Wiegand
Cymbeline review – Shakespeare’s knotty romance is a fabulous farewell for Doran
Departing artistic director Greg Doran reinvigorates this tale of a royal family in crisis with clarity and intelligence - Mark Lawson
Breakin’ Convention review – vibrant hip-hop party is a triumph
The 20th edition of Jonzi D’s hip-hop theatre festival showcases new styles and old-school vibes with bags of personality - Lyndsey Winship
Wuthering Heights review – a deliciously dark Brontë with its jagged edges restored
Coal-black humour propels Brontë’s tale of murderous desire, animal torture and family abuse - Arifa Akbar
The Shape of Things review – seductive sociopaths show cruel intent
The tension is raised in Neil LaBute’s dark comedy as entitled Evelyn sets about remoulding unworldly Adam from geek to good-looking boyfriend - Arifa Akbar
Edinburgh international children’s festival review – the playful inner child v the serious grownup
For children wondering what their parents do all day, many of the delightful shows programmed here will show them that they’re not really so grown up - Mark Fisher
Requiem review – Mozart meets stomping South African movement
A double bill from Phoenix Dance Theatre and Opera North contrasts Mozart’s wretched souls with Neo Muyanga’s After Party – two very different ways of dealing with death - Lyndsey Winship
Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations review – Eddie Izzard seduces in charismatic one-woman show
Izzard uses humour instinctively, helped by Dickens’s love of the exaggerated or comic grotesque - Arifa Akbar
A Passionate Woman review – Kay Mellor’s wry rummage through middle-aged angst
A year after Mellor’s death, Tess Seddon directs her 1993 play marked by dry northern wit, knowing ridiculousness and deep, understated sadness - Arifa Akbar
Phil Wang review – all kinds of funny from the super-droll standup
In a quietly confident show with gags from the sophisticated to the stupid, the comic is consistently enjoyable - Brian Logan
The Comedy of Errors review – full of wit and pizazz
Amped-up visual gags and a cast that brings its own distinctive comic gifts to the Bard’s dialogue ensure a contemporary feel to the classic comedy - Miriam Gillinson
The week in theatre: Operation Mincemeat; 4000 Miles; The Circle – review
SplitLip honour as well as spoof with their all-conquering espionage musical. Plus, Eileen Atkins at her most subtle, and a new twist on Somerset Maugham - Susannah Clapp
Brokeback Mountain review – perfectly pitched staging of the heartbreaking love story
The desolately poignant tale is brought into stark relief in Jonathan Butterell’s production through Eddi Reader’s beautiful vocals and a compelling cast - Arifa Akbar
Anna Karenina review – sparky feminist reading of Tolstoy
Lesley Hart’s adaptation of the classic novel is driven with tremendous energy following its tragic heroine as she discards bourgeois convention - Mark Fisher
UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey review – earth, air, fire and water send a powerful message in Wayne McGregor premiere
This bleak but powerful meditation on our ailing planet combines dance, poetry, film and music to startling effect - Lyndsey Winship
Idle, They Yammer review – could the luxury flats business be more absurd?
Set on the scaffolding atop a building that never gets finished, Matthew Trevannion’s two-hander is full of dazzling, strange ideas - Gareth Llŷr Evans
Operation Mincemeat review – irrepressible wartime musical is a West End triumph
With gag-packed songs and gender-swapped roles, this fringe show about a secret service plot is a joyful success on the big stage - Emma John
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher review – true crime classic turned into tense drama
Kate Summerscale’s Victorian potboiler is deftly condensed in a production that brings out the misogyny and class snobbery of the era - Mark Lawson
Blue Now review – remarkable retelling of Derek Jarman’s final film
Searing collection of diary excerpts from the time, brought to life by prominent queer voices, recalls the devastation of Aids with fury and frankness - Kate Wyver
In Short, Europe: Explore review – a continental tasting menu for cinema
Slovenian girl power, Scottish body-positive burlesque, an animated Belgian throuple and a trans-curious Irish stablehand all feature in this collection of potent shorts - Phil Hoad
Judi Love review – solo tour crowns funny girl done good
You’d expect bawdy lines delivered with deadpan frankness from the rising TV star, but injections of knockabout physicality raise her stage showpiece to higher joy - Brian Logan
The Circle review – love, tears and tender truths when Jane Asher comes to call
Strong emotions rule in a candid and well-judged Somerset Maugham comedy twisting romantic fates across generations of squabbling society - David Jays
Breakin’ Convention; Russell Maliphant Dance Company: Vortex review – sheer pleasure and virtuosity
Breakin’ Convention celebrate 20 years of dazzling virtuosity, while one of the UK’s most thoughtful choreographers shines a new light on Jackson Pollock - Sarah Crompton
Happy Days review – Judith Lucy is wonderfully disturbing in Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece
Sumner Theatre, Melbourne Theatre CompanyThe former stand-up is a natural fit for the role of Winnie, a tragic woman attempting to stave off hopelessness in the face of great horror - Tim Byrne
We Need New Names review – playful staging of NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel
Director Monique Touko keeps the tone lively with this tough story of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe in which the actors switch race, age and gender with ease - Claire Armitstead
The Vortex review – Noël Coward’s swirling jazz age psychodrama
Lia Williams and her son Joshua James make a scintillating double act in a resonant revival of the 1924 hit - Emma John
Protest review – schoolgirls unite with the power of dissent
This show for young audiences builds to a stirring drama of waking up to injustice and trying to right it - Mark Fisher
Blanket Ban review – startling account of abortion laws in Malta
Maltese duo use firsthand interviews – and warm humour – to highlight the lack of reproductive rights on the island - Kate Wyver
The Book of Will review – friends fight to save Shakespeare’s plays
Fearing the playwright’s works will be lost to history, former colleagues enact a rescue plan in Lauren Gunderson’s generous-hearted comedy - David Jays
Retrograde review – toxicity meets integrity in exceptional Sidney Poitier drama
Ryan Calais Cameron’s terrific three-hander dramatises a meeting in 1955 Hollywood, mapping the dilemmas that actors of colour still face - Arifa Akbar
A Thong for Europe review – hilariously subversive Eurovision celebration
An inspired parody of coming-out dramas meets a deliciously daft plot involving Sonia in Jonathan Harvey’s comedy - Mark Fisher
Dixon and Daughters review – comic domestic noir reveals grim shadows
When Mary returns home from prison, there is both humour and horror in store, as Deborah Bruce’s play explores a cycle of abuse - Arifa Akbar
Nederlands Dans Theater NDT1 review – a cri de coeur about the climate crisis
Sadler’s Wells, LondonIn a strong triple bill, sublimely danced, Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney’s Figures in Extinction [1.0] stands out as a powerful portrait of nature under threat - Sarah Crompton
Hate Radio review – vivid and urgent retelling of ‘Radio Machete’ atrocities
Depicting the Rwandan radio station that spurred on genocide, this harrowing show raises a warning to be heeded today - Ryan Gilbey
The Secret Life of Bees review – blazing songs light up civil rights drama
A young white woman and her Black housekeeper flee across the American south amid the historic struggle, buoyed by astonishingly powerful music - Arifa Akbar
Nederlands Dans Theater review – a moving menagerie from a world in crisis
Figures in Extinction [1.0], a Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney collaboration, is the climax to a triple bill featuring excellent technique and film noir atmosphere - Lyndsey Winship
No ID review – a frank, funny and intimate exploration of gender transition
Tatenda Shamiso sings delighted duets with the person he once was and considers the logistical hurdles he has jumped to access treatment - Kate Wyver
Dancing at Lughnasa review – an exquisite staging of Brian Friel’s evocative drama
There are superb performances from a cast including Siobhán McSweeney and Ardal O’Hanlon in Josie Rourke’s production - Arifa Akbar
The Silence and the Noise review – star-crossed romance along county lines
The daughter of an addict and a young man trapped in the drugs trade meet in an unsentimental tale that blends tenderness and tragedy - Arifa Akbar
Fat Ham review – Pulitzer-winning Hamlet revision hits Broadway
James Ijames’s electrifying take on Shakespeare’s classic, with a Black queer man at its centre, makes for a smart update - Gloria Oladipo
I, Daniel Blake review – Kafkaesque benefits story rekindles righteous anger
Politicians’ glib statements frame the struggles of one man confounded by a bewildering welfare system, in an adaptation of the Ken Loach film that both moves and provokes - Mark Fisher
Panti Bliss review – forceful account of a remarkable life
The Irish drag queen and activist, AKA Rory O’Neill, feelingly recounts her journey in a country long hostile to difference - Brian Logan
Mad About the Boy - The Noël Coward Story review – brisk trot through life and career
Speeding through Coward’s journey from humble origins to all-round megastardom, we don’t get to engage with his complex private life - Cath Clarke
Carmen review – Paul Mescal’s moves will have his fanbase melting
Mescal and Melissa Barrera lead this modern-day version of Bizet’s opera, which awkwardly combines tough realism with high-gloss romance - Cath Clarke
Gypsy review – the ultimate stage mother rules with hard-bitten brashness
Mama Rose drags her two daughters from one vaudeville fleapit to the next in a bulldozer of a role - Mark Fisher
Jacky review – incredibly uncomfortable, thoughtful theatre
Fairfax Studio, Melbourne Theatre CompanyBy Arrernte playwright Declan Furber Gillick, Jacky follows two Indigenous brothers who clash over the expectations of white people around them - Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
No Pay? No Way! review – a bubblegum drama of despair
Dario Fo and Franca Rama’s bitterly comic 1974 satire is a timely fit for today’s cost of living crisis, here impeded by a cartoonishly bright set - Clare Brennan
The Lies review – from tooth fairy fibs to colonial myths
Degna Stone’s ambitious play moves from the imperial to the domestic in its exploration of the legacy of untruths - Mark Fisher
A Midsummer Night’s Dream review – giddy shenanigans with a brilliantly chaotic Puck
This bright, bold show tries to balance humour and darkness but tends to land on the silly side of things - Kate Wyver
Welcome to the Family review – Alan Ayckbourn’s ingenious 88th play promises more than it delivers
The playwright’s latest comedy boasts some fine acting, and touches on big themes, but fails to engage emotionally - Clare Brennan
No Pay? No Way! review – rising food prices lead to theft and farce
An updated version of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s 1974 satire speaks to our times but also suffers from a lack of cohesion - Nick Ahad
A Brief List of Everyone Who Died review – a lifetime of loss
From childhood pets to octogenarian friends, playwright Jacob Marx Rice addresses mortality in a warm and thoughtful play - Chris Wiegand
Tina: the Tina Turner musical review – Ruva Ngwenya is a revelation in a muddled show
Racism, family violence, addiction and attempted suicide is a lot for a sparkly jukebox musical – and this is a little clunky. But its star is transcendent - Cassie Tongue
Bleak Expectations review – agreeably funny Dickensian spoof as cosy as a woollen teapot
Caroline Leslie’s production sends up the less problematic Victorian foibles with a terrifically spirited barrage of juicy one-liners, blunt anachronisms and pleasing melodrama - Brian Logan
Once on This Island review – stirring Little Mermaid musical in colonial Haiti
A young woman offers her life to save an unworthy aristocrat in a passionately sung fable of Caribbean history - David Jays
Kizlar review – a dance of the warriors with hip-swinging swagger
Ceyda Tanc’s all-female troupe put on a display of sass and self-possession as they redesign a traditional Turkish folk dance - Lyndsey Winship
Babatunde Aléshé review – good vibes from the jungle escapee
He’s a celebrity and he got out of there, as we learn during this lively standup set with a reality TV slant – Matt Hancock gossip included - Brian Logan
Around the World in 80 Days review – a stately adventure
This engaging production makes the most of a small cast and minimal staging, but needs more urgency early on - Clare Brennan
Skid/Saaba review – speed, struggle and surrender on a steep slope
GöteborgsOperans Danskompani’s versatile dancers tumble, slide and climb in Damien Jalet’s vertiginous piece then switch to more measured movements by Sharon Eyal - Lyndsey Winship
Loaded review – Danny Ball is magnificent in Christos Tsiolkas adaptation
The stage adaptation thrums with dark energy – but the stakes and politics that drove the 1990s novel don’t quite land when it’s set in the modern day - Tim Byrne
4000 Miles review – Eileen Atkins and Sebastian Croft connect in tale of distant relations
Amy Herzog’s play about a grandmother surprised by her grandson is given a contemplative staging by Richard Eyre - Chris Wiegand
Candy Gigi: Friday Night Sinner! review – all-out bid for showbiz glory
Torn between wifely duty and her dream to become ‘the Jewish Barbra Streisand’, this would-be star finds an in-between world of outrageous comedy - Brian Logan
Shamel Pitts: Black Hole review – fragile glimpses of an Afrofuturist world
The US dancer conjures a potent spectacle filled with mysterious symbolism as three figures strain, combine and detach in stirring, almost ritual patterns - Sanjoy Roy
Russell Maliphant Dance Company: Vortex review – Jackson Pollock in pure motion
Abstracted figures moving at a mesmerically measured pace recreate the US artist’s painting technique - Lyndsey Winship
Mayflies review – online dating waiting game crashes IRL
A long-gestating app romance fails to sync offline in this innovative musical with songs that outshine the dialogue - Catherine Love
The Motive and the Cue review – Gielgud and Burton battle it out
Mark Gatiss and Johnny Flynn star in Jack Thorne’s play about the prickly pair’s 1960s Broadway production of Hamlet - Arifa Akbar
Korea National Contemporary Dance Company review – rhythmic repetition and gleeful jumping
Double bill of Jaeyoung Lee’s Mechanism and Sung Im Her’s Everything Falls Dramatic opens the sixth annual Korea showcase, which this year tours for the first time - Lyndsey Winship
It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure review – a darkly comic satire on disability
This debut from disability-led theatre company FlawBored is not afraid to make us squirm as it skewers virtue signalling and corporate buzzwords - Kate Wyver
The Killing of Sister George review – lots of jokes but something’s missing
Frank Marcus’s 60s black comedy, about a radio soap star whose character has been axed, suffers from a rather two-dimensional makeover - Clare Brennan
A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction review – Lydia West takes command
The star narrates an innovative, pedal-powered production that muses on the climate crisis but the wide range of topics limits the storytelling - Arifa Akbar
Big Aunty review – regrets and raucous partying as siblings deal with death
Corey Campbell’s impressionistic production can lose focus but it benefits from engaging performances - Mark Fisher
Animal review – candid comedy drama explores sex and disability
David has cerebral palsy and is determined to lose his virginity using Grindr in Jon Bradfield’s entertaining play - Ryan Gilbey
BRB2 review – great start for Carlos Acosta’s young squad
Birmingham company’s offshoot ranges from classical showpieces to modern shorts, allowing its dancers to tackle roles usually kept for principals - Lyndsey Winship
Jules and Jim review – an affecting love triangle but no match for Truffaut
While there is compassion and curiosity in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s adaptation, this production lacks the whirlwind quality of Roché’s novel and the film - Chris Wiegand
The Killing of Sister George review – cruel comedy is an uncomfortable watch
Should we sympathise with Hayley Carmichael’s irascible radio soap star as she risks being axed, or condemn her as she bullies her young vulnerable young lover? - Mark Fisher
Alleyne Dance: Far From Home review – compelling movers roam continents
The Alleyne twins and company incorporate Indian kathak, hip-hop and African and Caribbean dance styles in this distinctive, impressionistic piece about migration and refugees - Lyndsey Winship
Zoe Lyons: Bald Ambition review – taking on midlife with ‘grief and relief’
The standup’s new show takes a while to get going, but squares up to hitting 50 with material finely balanced between the thoughtful and the uproarious - Brian Logan
Goner review – horror show with shades of Squid Game and Blair Witch
Marikiscrycrycry opens this year’s Now festival with an occasionally baffling trip through sex, fear and fantasies - Sanjoy Roy
Strike! review – Dublin shop-workers stage an anti-apartheid protest
Depicting a brave group who took a stand against selling South African goods in 1984, this spirited show raises the question of why the Dunnes Stores strike isn’t better known - Arifa Akbar
If You Fall review – an emotive journey through the pitfalls of end-of-life care
Playful yet plaintive, this six-person show condemns the indignities suffered by two vulnerable elderly people navigating our inadequate system - Arifa Akbar
Kidnapped review – tantalising glimpses of Robert Louis Stevenson’s wife
Older, American and previously divorced, Frances Stevenson frames the National Theatre of Scotland’s pantomime-inspired recasting of the novelist’s adventure classic - Clare Brennan
Life Is a Dream review – profound play messes merrily with reality
Cheek By Jowl’s Spanish-language version of the surreal 1635 classic fuses dreamlike garishness with bizarre slapstick - Arifa Akbar
Simon Brodkin review – famed stunt-comic ditches the alter egos
The man who shamed Trump and Blatter turns his gaze inward for an evening of self-reflective standup - Brian Logan
Private Lives review – Coward’s comedy becomes a stark theatre of cruelty
Stephen Mangan and Rachael Stirling bare their teeth in a show that dials up the violence and sometimes struggles to navigate the humour - Kate Wyver
Worth review – darkly comic inheritance drama
What starts as a comedy of sibling manners ends in a soap opera-like recital of childhood abuses and family grievances - Emma John
Hamnet review – slick adaptation captures Shakespeare’s horrified unravelling
Lolita Chakrabarti’s staging of Maggie O’Farrell’s moving novel about the death of the playwright’s son – and his resurrection in Hamlet – is powerfully played, with the occasional cheesy line - Arifa Akbar
Angela Barnes: Hot Mess review – glimpses of the real comic shine through generic lines
The comedian is at her best when she treats us as her confidantes rather than aiming for well-worn targets - Brian Logan
Stornoway, Quebec review – outlaws settle scores with Gaelic swagger
Calum L Macleòid’s western-style drama pits a gunslinging Elspeth Turner against a notorious fugitive in a peculiarly Scottish corner of Canada - Mark Fisher
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof review – giving Tennessee Williams new scope
A mainly black cast and modern setting inject this new production with a dose of symbolic power - Clare Brennan
Under the Kundè Tree review – a fractured tale of family strife and colonial uprising
Boldly directed, lyrically enacted play melds a personal story of rebellion in French Cameroon with the story of independence – but leaves both unfinished - Arifa Akbar
Aspects of Love review – a preposterous blast from the past
Michael Ball returns to sing Love Changes Everything, this time as the uncle, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical of romantic entanglements - Arifa Akbar
The Little Mermaid review – Halle Bailey goes full mermaidcore in Disney’s CGI remake
Bailey is the best thing about this film but, despite a team crammed with talent, this live action reworking can’t match the magic of the 1989 classic - Ellen E Jones
Beau Is Afraid review – Ari Aster sends Joaquin Phoenix on an odyssey to nowhere
This three-plus-hour tale of Oedipal misery sees Phoenix on uncharacteristically boring form, and ultimately collapses into silliness - Peter Bradshaw
Wuthering Heights review – chaotic Brontë adaptation
The classic novel reimagined as a sort of police procedural becomes a storm of ideas struggling to find definition - Clare Brennan
Ain’t Too Proud review – a Temptations jukebox musical by numbers
This plodding account of the Motown band’s highs and lows is more than a little soulless - Arifa Akbar
Richard III review – Adjoa Andoh’s maverick reimagining drags
The actor and director pitches the antihero as a racial outsider. She is compelling, but he is an inconsistent character in a production leached of intrigue - Arifa Akbar