Theatre

James Graham’s new play about the great economist has a powerfully contemporary message for our own times – a moment for government to act, intervene and address the huge challenges of the 21st century

The party's police and crime commissioner for Norfolk faced a backlash for choosing to tread the boards

Electra/Persona merges Sophocles and Bergman with enthralling results

A modern update of Molière’s The Misanthrope sees the Killing Eve star battling conformity and cancellation

The Slow Horses star follows Gambon and Hurt in Krapp’s Last Tape – and outshines them both

The Taxi star revelled in creating chaos and confusion

A stage adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s book about an killer and the Tory PM questions both violent rhetoric and violence itself

The former cabinet minster moans theatres won't stage his one-man show because they're woke. Might it be because they'd struggle to sell tickets?

The singer also known as Self Esteem is phenomenal as she follows revival in a revival of David Hare’s Teeth ’n’ Smiles

Four-letter words and modern slang are meant to make this revival accessible, but something has been lost as a result

A flawed play makes a timely point - we shouldn’t complain about refugees when we help to create them

The foul-mouthed vinyl-botherer is leaving cinema behind to bring a "swashbuckling comedy" to London's West End

If you don’t think that a comedy club is a place to find talented actors up on stage then sorry but you’re a snob

A new show in the west end examines the life of CS Lewis. But are most of the crowd simply there to see the Downton Abbey star in the flesh?

The Old Vic’s elegant new production of Arcadia understands the power of the late playwright’s words

The actor talks gangsters from New Jersey to Washington DC – and why he feels ‘sick’ about the state of his country

Oh, Mary!, the surprise West End hit about Mrs Abraham Lincoln, is a triumph of childish, profane pointlessness

ROTUS: Receptionist of the United States is a searingly smart and unexpectedly dark piece of political satire. It’s also uncomfortably plausible

A superb revival of When We Are Married gleefully demolishes 25 years of pious respectability

Our writers on their cultural highlights of the year

Eddy Payne is reminiscent of Ralph Richardson in a night full of fun and charm

Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Paapa Essiedu make for magnificent theatre - just ignore the tree

At the heart of Tom Morris’s brilliant production is Toby Jones’s astonishing performance of Iago. It is, by far, the best I've ever seen

There’s more humanity in this standout play about Thatcher’s Britain than in the decade itself

Despite the star power, it’s hard to feel engaged or uplifted by a self-indulgent snooze

This Hamlet is an unignorable feat of acting genius

The former professional wrestler has proved himself a screen performer to be taken very seriously indeed

Once shocking, Mr Sloane now feels quaint - but still fun

The actor excels as a pub philosopher in Conor McPherson’s The Weir

Indhu Rubasingham banishes the doldrums of her predecessor with a big, bold Bacchae

In Suzie Miller’s latest legal drama, the Hollywood favourite plays a judge and mother facing her worst nightmare

Culture is increasingly filtered through social media – do we need critics any more?