The Last Ship: Sting's musical is as solemn and ponderous as a tanker 2/5 The star’s passion project about declining shipbuilding communities in Tyneside runs aground at Theatre Royal Drury Lane Evening Standard · Sep 24
Second Best review – Asa Butterfield is first-class as Harry Potter runner-up Barney Norris’s adaptation of David Foenkinos’s novel shows us a man who just missed out on stardom and is now facing fatherhood The Guardian - UK · Feb 4, 2025
Sex Education star cast in Harry Potter-inspired one man play The production will be Asa Butterfield’s first ever theatre role The Independent UK · Sep 25, 2024
The week in theatre: Why Am I So Single?; The Band Back Together; Our Country’s Good – review Dating disasters fuel a joyful new musical from the creators of Six; three old band members reunite in Barney Norris’s low-key elegy to lost youth. Plus, a hit-and-miss revival of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s penal colony classic The Guardian - UK · Sep 15, 2024
The Band Back Together review – witty reflections on youth and middle-age A trio of friends reconvene in their home town to play together for the first time in two decades The Guardian - UK · Sep 8, 2024
Visitors review – searing study of ageing family frictions Barney Norris’s revival radiates the pain of older parents trapped on deteriorating paths, while their son and end-of-life au pair struggle to find their own The Guardian - UK · Apr 6, 2023
Undercurrent by Barney Norris review – a fine study of fate v free will A man’s encounter with the woman whose life he saved triggers this heartfelt tale of a search for home and meaning The Guardian - UK · Sep 8, 2022
Undercurrent by Barney Norris review – a meditation on love and loss The author and playwright’s latest novel incisively captures the search for meaning in uncertain times The Guardian - UK · Aug 21, 2022
The week in theatre: The Glass Menagerie; Girl on an Altar; We Started to Sing Amy Adams’s star power fails to illuminate underpowered Tennessee Williams; Eileen Walsh burns bright as Clytemnestra; and Barbara Flynn and Robin Soans elevate a family nostalgia fest The Guardian - UK · Jun 5, 2022
We Started to Sing review – Barney Norris’s fragmented family ode A tender series of vignettes explore family dynamics in Barney Norris’s personal play, but it needs some sand in the oyster The Guardian - UK · May 24, 2022
We Started to Sing at the Arcola review: this rambling family yarn is intriguing but exhausting Barney Norris has mined his family’s stories but its meandering structure gives it the air of an anecdote that goes on too long Evening Standard · May 24, 2022