Photo of Clare Brennan
Clare Brennan

Clare Brennan, who has worked as a director, deviser and dramaturg, is The Observer's national theatre critic, providing the out of London reviews.

Photo of Clare Brennan

Clare Brennan

Clare Brennan, who has worked as a director, deviser and dramaturg, is The Observer's national theatre critic, providing the out of London reviews.

  • Clare Brennan
    Monumental figures and pop-up performances: highlights of the Galway International Arts Festival

    This year’s event transforms the city with a diverse programme that includes 22 major works by Sean Henry

    Sun, 12 Jul 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    The Tempest - Kenneth Branagh’s Prospero plays a masterstroke

    Shakespeare’s protagonist is reimagined as a conductor in Richard Eyre’s accomplished, quaintly magical staging

    Sun, 31 May 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Even These Things explores the making of Manchester

    A superbly directed community cast carry Rory Mullarkey’s witty portrait of a city shaped by violence, resilience and reinvention

    Sat, 30 May 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: laughing at provocation

    Alexandra Wood reimagines Hilary Mantel’s controversial tale as a ludicrous, playfully subversive two-hander

    Sun, 17 May 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    In Magic, David Haig explores the extraordinary bond of Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle

    The actor writes and stars in this dramatisation of two men of extremes joined - separated - by grief

    Sun, 10 May 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    At a York festival, Shakespeare is the world’s common language

    Philip Parr’s international event kicks off with a deeply moving, poetic puppet version of Romeo and Juliet by a Georgian theatre company

    Sat, 25 Apr 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet – a joyous glimpse inside the mind of a Muslim boy

    Zanib Mian’s children’s book and its zinging illustrations are brought to sharply coloured onstage life at Leeds Playhouse

    Sun, 19 Apr 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Good Golly Miss Molly at the New Vic: a harmonious vision of social turmoil

    Bob Eaton’s rock’n’roll musical about social change through the decades is a glorious trip down memory lane

    Sat, 11 Apr 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Henry V at the RSC – Shakespeare’s war play fails to resonate

    Alfred Enoch is dynamic in a production that prioritises combat scenes over moral probing

    Sun, 29 Mar 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Small Island on stage: a patchily successful adaptation

    Matthew Xia’s powerfully acted but uneven production retells Andrea Levy’s 2004 novel spanning colonial Jamaica and postwar Britain

    Sun, 22 Mar 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    The Grand Babylon Hotel – Arnold Bennett’s fun, frolicking farce

    A caper about the mystery of missing hotel staff is carried off by a multi-talented, multi-roling cast with joyous aplomb

    Sun, 15 Mar 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    The Manningtree Witches is a stage adaptation meant for the screen

    Ava Pickett, the young playwright behind the Olivier-nominated 1536, reimagines AK Blakemore’s witchy historical novel in a punchy but patchy production

    Sat, 7 Mar 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Trevor Nunn’s deft, delightful Noël Coward revival

    Easy Virtue at the Arts Theatre Cambridge skewers upper-middle-class morals with a witty, well-balanced cast

    Sat, 28 Feb 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Crown of Blood moves Macbeth’s blasted heath to Yorubaland

    Oladipo Agboluaje’s reimagining of the Shakespeare tragedy is ambitious, finely crafted and occasionally confusing

    Sat, 21 Feb 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    War of the Worlds is a visually thrilling portrait of desolation

    Imitating the Dog transports the hero of HG Wells’s novel to 1960s London where paranoia and fascism is on the march

    Sat, 14 Feb 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Manipulate festival: candyfloss puppets and cabaret Anna Karenina

    The city’s international festival is smaller and shorter than its summer siblings – but big on imagination

    Sun, 8 Feb 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    The Little Mermaid on stage proves the fairytale has legs

    Theresa Heskins’s adaptation features beach parties and an Instagramming prince

    Mon, 5 Jan 2026

  • Clare Brennan
    Treasure Island – A New Musical Adventure is not as thrilling as it could be

    The cast transport us to a world of pirates, sea voyages, talking parrots and singing coconuts – but the story lacks the fear factor of the Robert Louis Stevenson original

    Wed, 31 Dec 2025

  • Clare Brennan
    Hull Truck theatre’s Oliver Twist reveals the darkness and light of Dickens

    This adaptation daringly delivers the novel’s broad-brush humour and unsanctimonious message

    Sat, 20 Dec 2025

  • Clare Brennan
    A Child’s Christmas in Wales is a delight

    Emma Rice’s imaginative production captures the joy, fear and melancholy yearning of the poet’s work

    Mon, 15 Dec 2025

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