Theatre review: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

I'm starting 2026 with a show that's already had some upheaval, as Omar Elerian's production of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is on its third actor in the title role after a month on stage. Peter Forbes is now playing the Tiger, once an apex predator but now starving in a bombed-out cage in Baghdad in 2003. Most of the animals have fled the zoo - generally ending up shot dead soon afterwards - but the Tiger has stoically stayed behind until the arrival of two US marines: Tommy (Patrick Gibson) goads the animal and gets his hand bitten off for his trouble, and Kev (Arinzé Kene) shoots and kills the animal. But Rajiv Joseph's metaphysical drama isn't done with him, and the ghost of the Tiger stalks the ruined city, searching for meaning in an afterlife it never believed in, and haunting the man who killed him until Kev starts to go mad.

Theatre review: Macbeth (ETT / Lyric Hammersmith)

Déjà vu at the Lyric Hammersmith, which hasn't seen such a burst of European Director's Theatre-style expressionism since the Sean Holmes years, but makes up for it with English Touring Theatre's take on Macbeth: Richard Twyman throws everything except the nudity and the food-fighting (I'd say the kitchen sink but there is one of those) at the story of Scotland emerging from war only for the king to be assassinated and his successor to throw the country into tyranny and chaos. In a production the projections tell us is divided into three parts, Home, Kingdom and Nation, we begin with a very domestic Macbeth in which Lady Macbeth (Lois Chimimba) opens the show in a luxurious but clinical modern apartment, listening to a voice note from her husband.

Theatre review: The Jungle

I originally had a ticket to see Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's The Jungle at the Young Vic last year, but was too ill to go. But in the welcome recent trend of acclaimed shows that don't necessarily look like instant commercial smashes getting a West End transfer, I got a second chance as it's moved to the Playhouse for a summer run. And in many ways I was glad to have seen it here instead, because while it's not unusual to see the Young Vic host an immersive staging, there's something particularly impressive about Miriam Buether's design transforming a Victorian West End proscenium arch into the makeshift Calais refugee camp that was always in the news a few years ago. Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin's production starts at the end, with the French authorities evicting everyone and bulldozing the camp, before going back to the beginning.