ReviewsTheatre Reviews

Macbeth 2013

Here at the Globe in London, it’s Joseph Millson and Samantha Spiro starring in Eve Best’s utterly absorbing, unusually amusing staging, which shows us a loving couple whose souls blacken as marriage frays... ...Millson is remarkable: clubbable, capricious, enjoyably sarcastic, frenzied, but always emotionally legible. They give performances to relish of clarity and intimacy... ...This journey to the dark side has rarely been so refreshing. The Times

Rocket to the Moon 2011

Angus Jackson’s atmospheric, moody production maintains our interest thanks to a particularly compelling performance from Joseph Millson, who is one of the most versatile and interesting stage actors around today. He has leading man stature - as demonstrated by his beautiful comic turn as Benedick in the RSC’s last Much Ado About Nothing - but he also has a rare quality of being able to animate blank, underwritten characters like Raoul in the original production of Love Never Dies (and he can hold a note, too). Here, he ideally captures an apparently settled man, resigned to his life and fate, the foundations of whose life are so powerfully shaken. The Stage

• Love Never Dies 2010/11

...her hard-drinking, disaffected gambler of a husband, Raoul (excellent Joseph Millson)... The Independent

• The Priory 2009/10

...Daniel – a delicious study by the ever-excellent Joseph Millson of a kindly, rather anal gay man... The Independent

• Judgment Day 2009

And Joseph Millson's perfomance, as the stationmaster Thomas Hudetz, is phenomenal. There is a touch of the automaton about him, as if doing a job reliant on clockwork had affected his own inner workings. It is painful to behold his stressed, placatory smile. Something fundamental is wrong – even before he goes completely off the rails. The Independent

• The Fairy Queen 2009

You can't fault the acting either, and Joseph Millson's gracefully sinister Oberon and Oliver Le Sueur's unusually sympathetic Demetrius are outstanding. The Guardian

• Every Good Boy Deserves Favour 2009

Joseph Millson is similarly convincing as the shaven-headed Alexander wrestling with the lunacy of his own predicament – that he is a sane man who, in a Catch 22 situation, will only be released when he admits he is mentally ill and denies that sane people get locked up in mental institutions. Going by the programme photos, Millson has lost considerable weight during rehearsals, painting a gaunt and deeply distressing portrait of a man horrendously mistreated and yet fervently standing up for his principles, even against the anguished entreaties of his son who begs him to lie to escape the asylum. The Daily Express

• Hamlet 2008

Joseph Millson’s Hamlet is outstanding. His descent into apparent madness is played with rare energy and surprisingly effective humour, alternating instantly between jester and tragic victim of his uncle’s evil wiles. He delivers a truly multi-layered character, accessible yet unfathomable. Millson’s mesmeric performance is strongly supported by Louise Jameson as a regal, vulnerable Gertrude and Kellie Shirley as a beautifully fragile Ophelia. Christopher Saul is perfectly cast as the pompous Polonius, as is Fergus O’Donnell as the solid Horatio. The Stage

• Cinderella (2007/8)

Joseph Millson moves from heroic roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company to make a square-jawed Prince Charming... Financial Times

• King John (2006)

"She also elicits from her cast verse speaking of the highest clarity, not least from Joseph Millson, who has already triumphantly proved in this season's Much Ado that he is handy with an iambic pentameter." Evening Standard

• Much Ado About Nothing (2006/7)

"I have seen actors from Alan Bates to Matthew Macfadyen play Shakespeare’s Benedick, but – although Mark Rylance in 1992 certainly did something more strangely miraculous with the role – Joseph Millson’s performance in the new RSC production strikes me as definitive. Handsome in voice and in person, he can carry the audience on his roar and draw it into his hush. The elements of wit, anger and vulnerability are thrillingly mixed in this actor: you feel them all when he says of Beatrice “Every word stabs”. He easily lets us laugh at him, so that he clowns the famous eavesdropping scene to the hilt, but next he can be so romantically stunned that, left alone, he can hardly walk a straight line. And it is he, in love, who learns best here to transcend wit: “A college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour . . .  or man is but a giddy thing”. The Guardian

• Pillars of the Community (2005)

Lesley Manville and Joseph Millson as the outcast relatives shine particularly brightly. The Telegraph

• Richard II (2005)

"He is never any match for Joseph Millson's Bolingbroke, who manages to blend passion with dignity even whilst the actor pays lip-service to Berkoffian stylistic excess." Financial Times

• House Of Desires (2005)

I particularly like Joseph Millson's Don Carlos; his aristocratic certainty, second only to his aristocratic looks and bearing, is constantly undermined by his hilarious mental contortions convincing himself that his lover is really totally pure and faithful (which of course she is but he doesn't know it.) Reviews Gate

• Pedro, The Great Pretender (2004)

In particular, Joseph Millson was outstandingly funny in his two roles as a scurrilous, blind con-artist who is outdone by Pedro, and as the king torn between his infatuation with a beautiful gypsy and his queen's uxorial jealousy. Curtain Up

• Dog In The Manger (2004)

"The secretary, too, given a strong, sexy performance by Joseph Millson, is much more complex than the conventional ardent lover." The Telegraph

• Cold Meat Party (2003)

Joseph Millson has all the best lines and delivers them with aplomb and expert timing. Glenmeads

• As You Like It (2003)

Add in the unusually sexy Orlando of Joseph Millson, and one had an "As You Like It" with a rare and real erotic heat alongside a pulsating melancholia. Variety

• The Clearing (2002)

Joseph Millson is a fine Preston – amorous, then confused and finally horrified at the widening gap between himself and his wife. The Independent

• Mill On The Floss (2001)

"Though both the crippled aesthete played by Michael Matus and the self-confident stud played by Joseph Millson could easily become comic caricatures, both actors imbue them with a human reality that is touching and convincing." Theatre Guide