Last night was Press Night at Hampstead Theatre for 55 Days. Guests included Penny Smith, Zoe Wanamaker and Stephen Fry.

★★★★ The Guardian
‘The real pleasure lies in seeing a pivotal moment in English history presented with such fervent dramatic power’

★★★★ The Times
‘Douglas Henshall, gives us a still, burning, troubled Cromwell, part politician, part zealot, jabbing at Bible verses. Mark Gatiss, beaky and disdainful with a camp Morningside diction, beautifully delivers Brenton’s 17th-century rhythms, especially in Charles’s authentic lines’

★★★★ The Telegraph
‘At its considerable best, the play depicts the political process with clarity and vigour’

★★★★ Independent
‘The only figure in seventeenth century costume is Charles I, rivetingly played by Mark Gatiss with a Scots burr, an ironically edged sense of total entitlement, and a gasping stammer of revulsion and fear whenever he has to pronounce the words “people” and “parliament”’

★★★★ Financial Times
‘Absorbing and rich, 55 Days is a rewarding warning against revolutions that turn 360 degrees’

★★★★ Daily Mail
‘Douglas Henshall’s Cromwell is an unexpected creation. Mr Henshall makes him almost a male model at times, fussing about his own blond hairdo and turning up his jacket collar to look just so’