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Susannah Clapp
Theatre Critic
Susannah Clapp has been The Observer's theatre critic since 1997. One of the founding editors of the London Review of Books, she has also worked as the theatre critic of Radio 3’s Nightwaves as well as the New Statesman, as a publisher’s reader and editor, and the radio critic of The Sunday Times. She is the author of books about Bruce Chatwin and Angela Carter.
Susannah Clapp
Theatre Critic
Susannah Clapp has been The Observer's theatre critic since 1997. One of the founding editors of the London Review of Books, she has also worked as the theatre critic of Radio 3’s Nightwaves as well as the New Statesman, as a publisher’s reader and editor, and the radio critic of The Sunday Times. She is the author of books about Bruce Chatwin and Angela Carter.
Arcadia, Tom Stoppard’s dance to the music of time, is short on swing
American Psycho on stage – style over savagery
Our Town – Michael Sheen’s vision for Welsh theatre
High Noon – far from the wild west
The best theatre to see in 2026
The best theatre of 2025
The Bridge’s Into the Woods is a thrilling, mischievous delight
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo: two and a half hours of smouldering, slow-burning imagination
Ivo van Hove’s All My Sons is a revelation
Meet the Observers: Susannah Clapp
Porn Play is an unflinching portrayal of self-destructive addiction
Faustus in Africa! is a vivid study of colonialism through puppets
David Harewood finally makes Othello the hero of his own drama
The Unbelievers is a swirling study of catastrophe
Mary Page Marlowe is a disappointing play
A high-speed Hamlet is too fast and too flat
London’s new directions
Simon Stone’s 21st-century Ibsen
Marlowe and Shakespeare are the ultimate double act in Born With Teeth
