John Nathan

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Film

After The Hunt review: Julia Roberts at her superb best in campus thriller ★★★★

The actor shines as a lecturer caught in the crossfire of a culture war showdown

2 min read

Commanding performance: Julia Roberts as brittle, high-flying Yale professor Alma

The drama of life: Andrea Riseborough in Mary Page Marlowe

Mary Page Marlowe review: ‘no life is uninteresting’ ★★★★

1 min read

Pooch perfect: Indy the dog and his on-screen owner Todd, played by Shane Jensen

Good Boy review: Woof! Woof! A four-legged star is born ★★★★

1 min read

Juliet Stevenson, Cosima Shaw and Caroline Loncq star in the National Theatre's 'The Land of the Living.' (Photo: National Theatre)

The Land of the Living review: ‘Fatally wears its messaging on its sleeve’ ★★★

1 min read

Amy Rosenthal on what drove the Mitford Sisters to extremes

The playwright believes her new play answers this long-standing question

4 min read

September 25, 2025 16:31

Flora Spencer-Longhurst as Debo in The Party Girls

Patrick Marber: I’m seen as the ‘Jew director’ of our times

The director on why he saturated The Producers with a Jewish sensibility, about his late-onset Jewishness and why he thinks hatred from strangers is not the worst thing

5 min read

September 22, 2025 13:04

Patrick Marber in rehearsal for The Producers

The Producers review: ‘deserves to end up on Broadway’ ★★★★

Patrick Marber’s inventive new production, which transferred to the West End this week, avoids the big-Broadway-show thing but The Great White Way is surely where it’s headed

2 min read

September 17, 2025 12:18

Partners in crime: Andy Nyman as Max Bialystock and (right) Marc Antolin as Leo Bloom (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

The Long Walk: ‘call it the Dystopian State Teen Killing genre’★★★★

One hundred young men compete in an endurance event until there is only one is left. Those who are moving too slowly are shot in the head in this tough-to-watch movie adapted from Stephen King’s first novel

2 min read

September 16, 2025 16:00

Death march: Cooper Hoffman (centre, in hat) and David Jonsson (third from left) in Frances Lawrence's The Long Walk

Born With Teeth review: ‘hollow as a crown’ ★★

It is odd that director Daniel Evans has chosen this work, which isn’t really a history play at all, for his inaugural production as co-artistic director of the RSC

1 min read

September 12, 2025 14:27

Edward Bluemel (left) and Ncuti Gatwa in Born With Teeth (Photo: Johan Persson)

Holding Liat review: ‘A loving family rent apart by October 7’ ★★★★

This documentary reveals the anguish and shock of a family torn asunder by the massacre, and its attempt to reconcile the horror with their politics of peaceful coexistence

2 min read

September 9, 2025 17:10

Helplessness: the Beinin family embraces

Juniper Blood review: A topical warning of what’s to come ★★★★

Mike Bartlett’s latest play grapples with the issue of environmentalism and sustainability through a group of people ideologically divided

1 min read

August 29, 2025 15:06

Jonathan Slinger, Hattie Morahan, Nadia Parkes and Terique Jarrett in 'Juniper Blood' at Donmar Warehouse. (Photo by Marc Brenner)

The Roses review: Colman and Cumberbatch are at their very British best in this fizzy comedy ★★★★

A British married couple descend into barbarity against the backdrop of stunning California in this thrilling adaptation

1 min read

August 29, 2025 14:50

Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch in 'The Roses'. (Photo by Jaap Buitendijk, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)

Savages review: ‘diminished by preachy tone’ ★★★

The environmental issues behind this film about an adopted orangutan are certainly urgent, but it wears its campaigning heart on its sleeve and it doesn’t help

1 min read

August 15, 2025 17:47

Forest family: Clay comes alive in this affecting tale

Every Brilliant Thing review: ‘a funny play about suicide’ ★★★★

After 70 uninterrupted minutes, we emerge knowing something of life under the pall of depression and suicide – and it makes for a funny and moving night out

2 min read

August 15, 2025 17:25

Audience participation: Lenny Henry shares the stage in this life-affirming production

Oscar Levant: The Hollywood pianist who self-destructed

Doug Wright, writer of a new play about the unfulfilled career of Jewish talent Oscar Levant, shines the spotlight on Hollywood’s most gifted has-been

5 min read

August 14, 2025 16:07