Theatre review: London Tide

With the exception of Oliver Exclamation Mark and umpteen Christmas Carols, the works of Charles Dickens (Chickens to his friends) have largely resisted the musical theatre treatment. Ben Power (book and lyrics) and PJ Harvey (music and lyrics) haven't been deterred by the idea that there might be a reason for this, so have tackled Our Mutual Friend, well-known among Dickens' novels as being... definitely one of them. Retitled London Tide, this stage version frames the story as being that of two women who never meet until the very end, but are both affected when a body is fished out of the Thames and identified as the missing heir to a dust fortune. From context I think that means dust as in a waste management firm, not Dark Materials. Bella Wilfer (Bella Maclean) had been due to marry the dead man despite never having met him, and is now suddenly considered a widow without ever having actually married or come into the inheritance.

Theatre review: Machinal

Richard Jones' production of Machinal was originally seen at the Theatre Royal Bath, something that's immediately apparent as Hyemi Shin's set clearly originates somewhere much smaller than the Old Vic: The sickly yellow wedge is very appropriate for conveying the claustrophobia of the story, a bit less ideal for the sightlines as it gets lost somewhere in the middle of the huge darkened stage, squeezed behind a pillar from where we were sitting*. Sophie Treadwell's 1928 play is considered a masterpiece of expressionism, something that's referenced in particular in the opening scenes as a young woman (Rosie Sheehy) travels on a packed New York subway train to her office, where her coworkers fuss and gossip about her being late. Adam Silverman's lighting throws their shadows onto the back walls to loom ominously over her.

Theatre review: The Cord

Writer-director Bijan Sheibani has worked with Irfan Shamji multiple times before, so you can see why he'd take advantage of that working relationship to cast the extraordinary actor in his latest play as well, putting him at the centre of an intense mental breakdown in The Cord. It's an evening that put me in mind of The Father, in the sense that it's a brilliant evening of theatre I'm glad I caught, but not necessarily one I'd want to put myself through again. Ash (Shamji) is a new father, whose wife Anya (Eileen O'Higgins) is still recovering from a birth with some complications, but apart from the inevitable lack of sleep is largely settling into her new life, and bonding with the baby. Ash seems to feel slightly excluded from their new group, but it's only after his mother Jane (Lucy Black) visits that this seems to tip over into a more serious mental condition.

Theatre review: An Actor Convalescing in Devon

Richard Nelson's An Actor Convalescing in Devon, about a Shakespearean actor who lost part of his jaw and soft palate to cancer and had to learn how to speak again, was written especially for Paul Jesson - a Shakespearean actor who lost part of his jaw and soft palate to cancer and had to learn how to speak again. The other elements of his story borrow from a variety of other sources and themes though, perhaps too many for a short monologue. Jesson's character, simply called The Actor, is waiting to board a train to Exeter and then on to a friend's country cottage for a long weekend. If he's going there to convalesce it's not so much from his physical illness though - while he was in hospital his partner and fellow actor Michael had a heart attack and, because he wasn't resuscitated quickly enough, suffered brain damage that left him confused about what was reality and what was a story he was performing in.

Theatre review: The Comeuppance

Like Appropriate, the last Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play I saw, The Comeuppance also takes a mainstay of American storytelling and gives it a gentle but noticeable tweak. This time it's the high school reunion, and the triumphs and disappointments that hang over people meeting again after years apart. Although in this case the people we meet have stayed in touch to varying degrees, and not just because these reunions have been happening every five years - the upcoming 20th anniversary is the first one successful artist Emilio (Anthony Welsh) has actually returned for, which may be part of the reason his old friendship group have decided to meet for a pre-reunion reunion. They meet on the porch of Ursula's (Tamara Lawrance) house: Having lost the grandmother who raised her and the sight in one eye in quick succession, Ursula has become somewhat reclusive, and isn't planning on following the others to the party itself.

Non-review: A Midsummer Night's Dream(Flabbergast / Wilton's Music Hall)

It's been a while since I decided I was better off cutting my losses and leaving a show at the interval (in fact this is my first time post-Panny D) but physical theatre company Flabbergast's take on A Midsummer Night's Dream did nothing to make me want to return. As a result I can't review the show as I didn't see all of it, but I can say the relentless clowning style of performance put me off from the start. The blurb says the company has a respectful approach to the text, and I'm sure they do, as the bombastic performance by whoever happens to be speaking it at any given time is generally accompanied by slapstick business inspired by the lines. In practice it means Oberon lays an egg at one point, and anything one of the rude mechanicals says or does is accompanied by a chorus of wailing, gossiping and clucking from the rest of them.

Theatre review: Underdog: The Other Other Brontë

They might not be quite up there with Jane Austen in terms of enthusiastic fanbases undimmed through the centuries, but the Brontë sisters probably come in a close second, so Underdog: The Other Other Brontë seems a fairly safe bet to be a hit. Sarah Gordon's play is narrated by Charlotte (Gemma Whelan,) the oldest sister and the last to survive, and therefore the one who gets to decide how the authors will be remembered by history. And if Gordon's version of her is to be believed, that's exactly how she would have wanted it. With their alcoholic brother Branwell (James Phoon) getting through the family's money at a rate of knots, Charlotte, Emily (Adele James) and Anne (Rhiannon Clements) are pragmatic enough to plan how to make their own money.

Theatre review: Gunter

Keeping the Royal Court busy in the brief perineum period between artistic directors' programmes, Dirty Hare's Edinburgh hit Gunter gets a transfer Upstairs: Created by performers Lydia Higman and Julia Grogan, and director Rachel Lemon, it's the story of a real Jacobean witch-hunt, a subject that's hardly unusual on stage. But while the prejudices and inequalities it highlights are familiar, the way the actual story plays out is full of twists. Opening with Michelle Alise's video design featuring archive clips of those insane traditional football matches where entire villages play against each other in the fields and streets, interspersed with clips of more recent riots and fights, it's hard to miss either the fact that these scenes are entirely male-dominated, or that they're virtually indistinguishable from each other.

Theatre review:Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle

While Mischief Theatre is still happily franchising around the world, its original cast have been doing more work separately since the TV show. Probably less of a big gossip-worthy falling out and more of a "The Play That Goes Wrong is celebrating a decade in the West End and they might fancy a change" thing, and the core writing trio of Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields are still together for their latest show, a spin-off from Magic Goes Wrong: Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle has Lewis reprise his titular psychic for a full two hours. He's joined by Sayer as Steve the Stooge, the Mind Mangler's flatmate who comes out of the audience in a series of impenetrable disguises (a T-shirt that says "audience member" and later a T-shirt that says "different audience member") and still can't manage to help get the tricks right.

Theatre review: The Earthworks

Like the black holes that form in the Large Hadron Collider, shows in the Young Vic's Clare space are small in scale, and are pretty much over as soon as they've opened. The latest of these is Tom Morton-Smith's The Earthworks which takes place on the night before the Collider's official opening in 2008 - not at CERN itself, but in a Geneva hotel where various interested parties are staying. Most are asleep because they've got work to do in the morning, but journalist Clare (Natalie Dew) is up late in the hotel bar: The online science correspondent for a broadsheet, her actual speciality is biology, and she's being kept awake by wanting to understand the physics enough to write a proper article about it, not just rehash a press release like usual.

Theatre review: The Divine Mrs S

April De Angelis' The Divine Mrs S feels, in subject at least, like a successor to Jessica Swale's Nell Gwynn: Tracing the history of the original star actresses, we're in the Georgian era but the Restoration style of theatre still rules the London stage, and a woman can be the biggest draw and a genuine celebrity - and on acting talent alone this time, without the royal connection of her predecessor. Of course, having achieved her fame without a history of gossip and scandal, she's not immune to them once she's in the public eye. Rachael Stirling plays Mrs Sarah Siddons, member of the Kemble acting family, eclipsing her brothers in talent and popularity, but subject to the fickle moods of the papers and public that plague any woman who seems to be getting a bit too popular: Over the course of the evening we see how she can't win, and at the play's opening she's been criticised for returning to work too soon after her daughter's death.

Theatre review: Opening Night

Ivo van Hove's done it again! Unfortunately not that thing he does: The other thing he does. Diving back into his fondness for films where people behave like no real human has ever behaved, this time the adaptation is a musical. van Hove (book) and Rufus Wainwright's (music and lyrics) Opening Night is based on a John Cassavetes film I've not seen and hadn't even heard of before this adaptation was announced, and I can't say I'll be rushing to catch up with it now. Myrtle (Sheridan Smith) is a star actress about to open on Broadway in the premiere of a play nobody, including the writer, seems to understand a word of. Playing her husband is her actual ex, Maurice (Benjamin Walker,) she's possibly sleeping with the married director Manny (Hadley Fraser,) and producer David (John Marquez) is also in love with her in one scene, sure why not.

Theatre review: Harry Clarke

Here's me trying to stop filling my theatre reviews with Traitors references even I won't understand in a few years' time, and then someone puts a show on about a convincing liar called Harry Clark(e).

Transferring from New York, David Cale's Harry Clarke is an elusive - but not in an interesting enough way - monologue in which Billy Crudup plays 19 characters. Although for the most part he concentrates on two: Stewie from Family Guy and Spike from Buffy (in the last two seasons after Tony Head left, and James Marsters didn't even have anyone to remind him what he was aiming for.) Growing up in Indiana, at the age of eight Philip Brugglestein started speaking in a parody of a posh English accent, and despite the bullying - mainly from his father - that became his actual voice into adulthood. Moving to New York after his parents' death but not really knowing what to do once there, he spends an afternoon stalking a handsome man. When by chance he actually meets the man some months later, he panics and slips into another alternate persona, of Harry Clarke, who speaks like Damon Albarn having a stroke.

Theatre review: The Duchess of Malfi

This blog is now so old (and I'm so old) that theatres are celebrating milestones that I've previously reviewed here. The Swanamaker is marking its tenth anniversary with a new production of The Duchess of Malfi, the play that launched the venue. John Webster's infamous love of all things gory, twisted and morbid makes for a play I largely enjoy for how its extremes tip it into (possibly unintentional but honestly who knows) comic hysteria by the second half, but Rachel Bagshaw's production actually manages to find a genuine character piece in there as well. The Duchess (Francesca Mills) has been widowed very young and left with a life of luxury ruling her court: She promises her brothers she has no intention of ever marrying again. But this is a distraction technique to stop anyone trying to find a suitable second husband for her.

Theatre review: Nye

The second major show about the founding of the National Health Service currently playing in London, Tim Price's Nye ends up pretty much where Lucy Kirkwood's The Human Body began: With the NHS about to be born out of a seemingly impossible, looming deadline, and Britain's doctors only at the last minute putting their voices behind this complete shakeup of their profession. In fact the play seems to squeeze this major event in with almost as much urgency, serving at it does predominantly as a broader biography of the Welsh politician whose brainchild the service was, and who pushed it through opposition from all sides. We meet Aneurin Bevan (The Actor Michael Sheen) in need of the service himself, on his deathbed - though he doesn't know that - on an NHS hospital ward.

Theatre review: Casserole

Yes, among the many less-than-highbrow reasons for me choosing what shows to see is when a title is as hilariously banal as James Alexandrou, Kate Kelly Flood and Dom Morgan's Casserole, although the one-acter itself proves to have a lot less to laugh about. On the other hand I'm on the record as being wary when writers direct their own work or actors direct themselves, so how would I get along when Alexandrou does both? He plays Dom while Flood plays Kate, a couple both of whom are music video directors - although while his career is over for reasons that are never revealed, hers is at its peak, and as the play begins she's meant to be collecting an award. But instead she's had a panic attack and come home to find Dom drunk, stoned, and surrounded by rubbish. The two are alternately affectionate and bickering - her panic was caused by thinking she'd lost a token of her dead mother's, and this is the subject that ends up dominating the evening.

Theatre review: King Lear (Almeida)

Given that it doesn't look like Yaël Farber’s going anywhere anytime soon, I feel like Rupert Goold's Almeida has really found the right match for the highly ritualistic South African director, by sticking to those Shakespeare plays where an apparent complete absence of a sense of humour isn't a major obstacle. So after her Macbeth we now get a nearly four-hour long King Lear that despite being a particularly nihilistic take on the play is easily the best work I've ever seen Farber do. Regular readers of this blog may both decide for themselves how much of a compliment that actually is - but I'd say it's also one of the better Lears I've seen in general. We begin at a live TV broadcast by the Royal Family where the succession is to be formally announced. Lear (Danny Sapani) asks his three daughters how much they love him, and the eldest two go along with the ritual, singing his praises.

Theatre review: The Lonely Londoners

Roy Williams' The Lonely Londoners is the first stage adaptation of Sam Selvon's classic novel of the Windrush generation, and he makes a concise, intense evening out of its sweeping journey through the lives of six people who've arrived in London from Trinidad in the 1950s. At the centre of the group is Moses (Gamba Cole,) one of a trio of early arrivals who've developed a healthy cynicism after years of struggling to find and keep work, and experiencing casual and not-so-casual racism in a mother country they'd been told was desperately in need of their help. To his irritation, Moses has found himself in the position of fixer for the community, someone newcomers have heard about and go to for help. He tries to prepare wide-eyed newcomers for the reality of life as a black Londoner, and they don't come much more wide-eyed and optimistic than Galahad (Romario Simpson.)

Theatre review: Uncle Vanya

Mere months since Chekhov's Vanya last graced a London stage he's back, although this time he's brought the rest of the cast with him too. With Trevor Nunn both adapting and directing this version of Uncle Vanya it's not particularly surprising if it's a bit more traditional - Simon Daw's designs definitely take us to late 19th century rural Russia, and you bet there's a samovar in pride of place centre stage. But Nunn isn't just ticking another classic off his list or indulging in a bout of nostalgia, as the Orange Tree production has elements that give it its own personality. Not least of all in tone: One of Chekhov's bleaker plays, it wasn't even questionably billed as a comedy like many of them, but the blurb here calls it a tragicomedy, and that's something it pulls off. The setting is the country estate that once belonged to Vanya's sister, purchased as a dowry for when she married a St Petersburg academic.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Dock X & tour)

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Theatre review: Nachtland

Despite an incredibly irritating social media publicity campaign (who were those messages raving about the show months before it opened even meant to be from, anyway?) I've been looking forward to the Young Vic's Nachtland: Marius von Mayenburg's dark satire (translated here by Maja Zade) has a viciously clever premise, and Patrick Marber's production has a great cast. The resulting evening is an entertaining one, but a frustrating one as well. The audience enter to Anna Fleischle’s set absolutely covered in dusty old props, which the cast clear away before the action starts: Siblings Nicola (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Philipp (John Heffernan) are clearing out the house of their recently-deceased father, bickering about who looked after him when he was alive and whose story it is to tell even as they narrate it to the audience.

Theatre review: The Human Body

Plays can take a while to go through development and writing and get to production, often ending up with similar ideas making it to the stage at the same time. I wonder if it was the sound of people banging pots and pans every Thursday night four years ago that now gives us a batch of plays about the founding of the National Health Service? I didn't have any particular preconceptions about how Lucy Kirkwood would take on the subject, but it certainly wouldn’t have been something quite as camp as the Donald and Margot Warehouse's The Human Body turns out to be, filtering the birth of the NHS through Brief Encounter. It's 1948 and Dr Iris Elcock (Keeley Hawes) juggles being a GP with being a local Councillor, prospective MP in an upcoming by-election, and right hand woman to a Labour MP (Siobhán Redmond.) She's also a wife and mother, although despite her reassurances to the press that she's also the perfect housewife this is a role she's less of a natural in.

Theatre review: Shifters

Benedict Lombe's Shifters is one of those two-handers that follows a couple who seem perfect for each other but may or may not figure it out by the end of the show. And while it doesn't actually take place across the multiverse, there's musing about the choices we make and the different paths they could have led to, which makes it yet another show to give me flashbacks to Constellations, surely one of the most influential shows on British theatre so far this century. (I'm not knocking it, it's better than when it looked a couple of years ago like every young theatremaker was going to fill the stage with solemn, slo-mo Yaël Farber processions.) Part of Lombe's twist on the formula is that instead of starting as a rom-com and building to tragedy, Shifters' leads have tragedy built into their stories early on. Dre(am) (Tosin Cole) first notices Des(tiny)* (Heather Agyepong) as the only other black kid in his new school in Crewe.

Theatre review: Out of Season

Back to Hampstead and this week I'm Downstairs for its latest commission, Neil D'Souza's Out of Season and a midlife crisis comedy that gently takes in some themes you don't often see on stage. Thirty years ago, a trio of university friends went on a memorable holiday to Ibiza. Now, to celebrate his 50th birthday, Chris (Peter Bramhill) has asked that they recreate the trip - right down to the same room in the same hotel. Regardless of how many times he and Dev (D'Souza) say it's been done up since they were last there, the grubby walls and fading paint of Janet Bird's set suggest both the fact that they might have unrealistically romanticised their original holiday, and that they, like the room, have seen better days. Once in a band that came within sight of success only to miss their chance, manchild Chris still plays gigs in pubs, while Dev has become an academic and music historian, grumpily putting himself through a week he didn't really fancy for his old friend's sake.

Theatre review: Cable Street

The 1936 Battle of Cable Street in East London is known as the biggest anti-fascist protest on British soil. It's a piece of English history that can still be looked back on with pride at a time when most re-examinations of the past don't see it hold up too well, so it remains a popular subject. It also marks a significant moment of unity between the Jewish and Irish communities that until then might not have necessarily been on the same side, so there are bound to be many people in both those modern-day communities who have personal family stories about it. Which is all to say that when Southwark Playhouse put Tim Gilvin (music & lyrics) and Alex Kanefsky's (book) musical premiere Cable Street on sale it sold out the entire run before it had even opened, an impressive enough feat at the moment for an Off West End show with no star casting.

Theatre review: Dear Octopus

An obscure rediscovery seems to have been a hit at the Lyttelton as Emily Burns directs Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus, a sprawling family drama set over the weekend of Dora (Lindsay Duncan) and Charles Randolph's (Malcolm Sinclair) golden anniversary. The sort of family who describe themselves as ordinary because they don't have a coat of arms, they assemble at the large country house built by Charles' grandfather. Over the weekend we see four generations of the family who've been raised in this house - three of them by the same nanny. Of the couple's six children four survive - the eldest son died in the First World War, while one daughter died of undisclosed causes. The others juggle various successes and neuroses: Margery (Amy Morgan) is trying to control her warring children, Hilda (Jo Herbert) manages to balance a successful job as an estate agent with her OCD, and Cynthia (Bethan Cullinane) works for a Paris fashion house, although rumour has it she's been in France for so long because she's concealing a scandal in her personal life.

Theatre review: Just For One Day

I've got to say I found the idea of Just For One Day a bit baffling, and having now seen John O'Farrell's jukebox musical setting the story behind the scenes of Live Aid to songs from the setlist, I still feel a bit vague about what exactly's going on at the Old Vic at the moment. I want to say the framing device is a young woman in the present day, Jemma (Naomi Katiyo) wanting to know more about the event for, I guess, a history project, but the use of multiple narrators muddles this. She gets help from Suzanne (Retired Lesbian Jackie Clune,) who was at Wembley for the concert, as well as Bob Geldof (Craige Els) himself, who for some reason is available to give the inside scoop. So in 1984 Bob sees a news report about a famine in Ethiopia and is horrified - by the suffering, the general indifference and lack of aid from wealthier nations, and from the fact that while he knows others will be upset by the story as well, it'll soon be forgotten by most people when the news cycle moves on.

Theatre review: Double Feature

John Logan has written two major West End plays (plus wrangled the general madness of Moulin Rouge,) so a third is to be approached with a mix of excitement and trepidation, as I loved one of his previous plays and hated the other. Fortunately while his latest premiere isn't the instant classic that Red was, it also never threatens anything like the tedium of Peter and Alice. Logan is best-known as a screenwriter, and it's in the movies where he's found his inspiration for Double Feature. Particularly in the spiky relationships between actors and directors, as he gives us two pairings behind the scenes of famous movies: Anthony Ward's set is a dimly-lit Suffolk cottage, an authentically old building in the countryside that a studio has given young director Michael Reeves (Rowan Polonski) to stay in while he shoots the grisly 1967 horror movie Witchfinder General.

Theatre review: An Enemy of the People

Trigger Warning: This review contains references to an actor who doesn't really seem to understand what trigger warnings are for.

Paul Hilton has catapulted himself across the river and straight from one Ibsen play into another, as the corrupt mayor in Thomas Ostermeier, Florian Borchmeyer and Duncan Macmillan's adaptation of the overtly political An Enemy of the People. Matt Smith is the star turn in Ostermeier's production, playing Thomas Stockmann, the (medical) doctor who works at a spa known for its borderline miraculous water, and which is at the heart of a small town's economy. But an industrial complex that was built a few years earlier has been polluting the waters, and Thomas has just completed a study proving as much. He informs his brother Peter (Hilton,) the town's mayor, but doesn't get the enthusiastic spring into action he's rather naïvely expecting: Closing the springs to make repairs wouldn't make the shareholders too happy.

Theatre review: The Frogs

I've seen two previous shows from Spymonkey, the veteran physical comedy troupe who tend to be a lot more hit than miss. Even if I wasn't seeing it on a quiet Monday night their latest show would come across as a little less full-on than the others though, as it comes with an added element of melancholy as the established quartet is now a duo: Petra Massey has left the company and Stephan Kreiss died suddenly in 2021, so there's an added significance to the remaining pair of Toby Park and Aitor Basauri tackling Aristophanes' The Frogs, itself written in reaction to the death of a beloved theatrical figure. That figure is Euripides, the Greek tragedian who'd died a year before Aristophanes premiered this parody of a heroic quest. With him gone Dionysus, Olympian god of drama (Park) thinks theatre is doomed, and decides to get him back.

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream(RSC/RST)

When a theatre decides when to schedule A Midsummer Night's Dream they tend to do so with a fairly literal approach to the title; if it shows up out of season that usually means we're in for one of the "darker and edgier" takes that honestly believes it's the first production ever to notice the line "I wooed thee with my sword" and proceeds to apply it to every scene, Joe. So it's refreshing to see Eleanor Rhode's new RSC production - the last Shakespeare of Erica Whyman's interregnum period - open in a very different way: The lines about winning love with injury are still there, but their context feels a lot less personal. The Duke of Athens and Queen of the Amazons' wedding is definitely an arranged one made as part of a peace treaty, but both of them are pawns in this situation, and Bally Gill's sweetly awkward Theseus is clearly intimidated by Sirine Saba's businesslike Hippolyta.

Theatre review: Plaza Suite

Back at the theatre after another unscheduled, Covid-related break of a couple of weeks, and it's to one of the year's first London visits from big US names: Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are the real-life couple playing three different pairs in Neil Simon's Plaza Suite. Wonder if they'll explore the country while they're here? Probably best to steer clear of Liverpool, that's Cattrall country. And hopefully he won't be driving. Anyway, John Benjamin Hickey directs Simon's portmanteau of stories taking place at the end of the 1960s in the same suite of New York's Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park. For the first couple it's a significant location - if Parker's Karen has got the right room, that is: She and her husband Sam are staying there for the night while their house gets redecorated, but she's decided to surprise him for their anniversary by booking the same suite they stayed in on honeymoon.

Theatre review: Othello (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Interesting times to be visiting the Globe, the venue that can do everything except draft a press release that doesn't dig them into a deeper hole. Ola Ince is looking like one of those directors who can reinvent a Shakespeare play to fit a very specific modern-day issue, and actually follow through with the idea. After her 2021 Romeo & Juliet was filtered through the way Tory cuts would have caused every beat of the story, her Othello in the Swanamaker becomes about racism in the Metropolitan Police, and some of the language is modified to match this setting: Othello is no longer referred to as the General but the Guvnor, Desdemona is usually called Desi, one of the story's inciting incidents now involves Othello choosing an Eton old boy as his new Inspector rather than a more experienced cop, and instead of a military action from Venice to Cyprus, the characters from Scotland Yard are going on an undercover cartel bust in Docklands.

Theatre review: Cruel Intentions: The '90s Musical

My third show in a row to make liberal use of bisexual lighting, Roger Kumble, Lindsey Rosin and Jordan Ross' Cruel Intentions: The '90s Musical is based on Kumble's 1999 film, which is based on Stephen Frears' 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, which is based on Christopher Hampton's 1985 play Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which is based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel. But yeah, as the subtitle says, we're very much sticking with the 90s teens here, and the version that famously starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, and Ryan Phillippe's arse. Set in a New York private high school for the rich, bored and terminally horny, Sebastian Valmont (Daniel Bravo, whose parents Johnny and Juliet must be very proud,) is the resident fuckboi whose bad reputation precedes him. His step-sister Kathryn Merteuil (Rhianne-Louise McCaulsky) is the class president and golden girl.

Theatre review: Cowbois

Considering that attempting a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon amid rolling rail strikes is a bit of a coin-toss, I decided not to book for the RSC's Cowbois last year, fairly confident that we'd get a chance to see it transfer to London. Given the creative team I would have guessed the Globe, but instead the Royal Court gets Charlie Josephine's queer fantasy Western. Co-directed by Josephine and Sean Holmes, whose signature style of letting the actors use their own accents even in plays where you'd expect a very specific one means the Wild West is populated with voices from every corner of the UK and Ireland, the action takes place in a little town built on principles of acceptance and equality. Whether that's how it actually plays out when the men are around is a different story, but right now they're not: Most of the men left over a year ago to go prospecting for gold, and with no word from them and news of a cave-in, they're presumed dead.

Theatre review: Northanger Abbey

It's no great insight to say people in this country, and probably most of the world, love Jane Austen's stories in the original novels and the many stage and screen adaptations, but maybe we love metatextual Austen just as much: We've had Lost In Austen, The Watsons, and now Zoe Cooper's queered-up interpretation of the beloved author's swipe at the lurid gothic novels that were all the rage in her day: Northanger Abbey isn't the most famous of the books - it was one I never got round to reading, and I don't think I've even seen an adaptation before, given how unfamiliar the story was to me. Then again I'm sure some of the places Cooper takes her heroine would have been unfamiliar to the 18th century author herself, if not outright sent her straight to her fainting couch. Stripped down to a three-person show, Cooper puts Catherine Morland, aka Cath (Rebecca Banatvala) in charge of telling us her own story.

Theatre review: Afterglow

S. Asher Gelman's Afterglow was a big success for Southwark Playhouse a few years ago, so with theatres still needing a few bankable hits to keep them afloat, maybe it's not entirely surprising if a show about three attractive men who shower on stage a lot, and also some other stuff happens probably, is back in The Large for another run*. And if I'm sounding judgemental about the "sex sells" policy, regular readers of this blog will both know I am absolutely the target audience for this, or why else would I be back for a play whose actual merits I was always fairly ambivalent about in the first place? Broadway director Josh (Peter McPherson) and his husband Alex (Victor Hugo,) who is a Something Something Chemistry, have an open relationship which has always seemed to work well for them - their marriage is happy and stable, and they're about to have a baby with a surrogate.

Theatre review: Blood On Your Hands

Blood was nearly spilt before the show even started, as we got to ten minutes after the advertised start time and the twentieth repetition of the 60-second loop of funereal accordion music on the speakers. But officially the villain of Grace Joy Howarth's Blood On Your Hands is the meat industry, not The Araby Bazaar's sound design. Dan (Phillip John Jones) and Konstyantyn (Shannon Smith) are slaughterhouse workers who meet on their lunch break: The latter is a Ukrainian vet who's just arrived in Wales, taking on a grim minimum wage job until he can get himself settled and bring his family over. The former is a local who, after making some mistakes in his teens, has struggled to find anything better and has been in the job for five years. Most mornings they go into work to the sound of vegans protesting outside the abattoir.

Stage-to-screen review: Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic / BBC)

It's been a couple of years since I last saw a full production of Hamlet, and with a while yet before the next major one is due (now watch as another gets announced the second after I click Publish,) it seemed as good a time as any to check out the version the BBC offered up recently as part of their First Folio season. This was John Haidar's 2022 production at the Bristol Old Vic, one that had caught my eye for casting real-life husband and wife Finbar Lynch and Niamh Cusack as the king and queen of Denmark. Haidar didn't cast Calam Lynch in the lead to complete the family set, but instead Billy Howle plays Hamlet, the prince of Denmark who's moping quietly at the start of the play after his father's sudden death. Alex Eales' set is slickly black and I want to call Natalie Pryce's costumes modern-dress, except the characters' tech is very Nineties: Hamlet loves soliloquising into his dictaphone, and "The Mousetrap" is interrupted when Polonius' pager goes off.

Theatre review: Ķīn

Mixing outgoing National Theatre boss RuNo's intention of making it more of an international theatre, with an ambition to give different performance styles a chance in the main stages, physical theatre company Gecko's show Ķīn uses an international cast and dance-like style to tell stories of immigration over the last century. Although whether any actual stories end up getting told in the process might be a matter of opinion. Devising performer Amit Lahav's show takes as its inspiration the story of his real grandmother, who as a young girl in the 1930s fled Yemen for Palestine. We begin with a Jewish family fleeing persecution - they're chased away by officials painting yellow streaks onto their coats - before various encounters with malicious border guards and an eventual arrival in a modest home that offers safety for a while.

Theatre review: Kim's Convenience

The Park's main house kicks off the year with what looks like a surefire hit: Not only was tonight's performance pretty packed, but from the enthusiasm of the audience it didn't seem like anyone needed their arm twisted (in a dubious use of an obscure Korean martial art) to shop at Kim's Convenience. Ins Choi's 2011 play about a Korean-Canadian corner shop (a detailed design by Mona Camille) in Toronto gets its UK premiere after the success of its TV sitcom adaptation, with the playwright - who originated the role of prodigal son Jung - now returning to play his father. Appa (Choi) and Umma (Namju Go) moved from South Korea to Canada in hopes of a better life for their children; Appa's limited English meant he couldn't continue to work as a teacher, but he found his niche as a shopkeeper with an unfailing nose for shoplifters. Umma runs the shop with him, but her involvement with the church means she has more of a life outside it.

Theatre review: Ulster American

With a name like David Ireland, you can imagine that the playwright who specialises in controversy-courting stories about how the Troubles have left Northern Ireland with collective PTSD might attract a certain kind of American fan. If that is part of the inspiration for his latest play, it would seem to confirm suspicions that some vocal Irish-Americans care more about appearing to belong to a culture than they do about actually knowing the first thing about Irish history. Equally under the microscope and subject to ridicule is the left-leaning British theatre establishment that's championed his brutal form of comedy in recent years, as Ulster American throws together theatre people from America, England and Northern Ireland in a violent mix of hypocrisy and misunderstanding. Ruth (Louisa Harland) is a rising Northern Irish playwright whose latest play is getting a starry London premiere from director Leigh (Andy Serkis.)

Theatre review: Cold War

Well it was snowing as I made my way to the Almeida, and that fits one of the meanings of Conor McPherson (book) and Elvis Costello's (music) Cold War, whose characters are often to be found shivering in big coats. Another is the more familiar meaning of the term, as the doomed love story is adapted from Paweł Pawlikowski's film set over the first couple of decades of Russian-occupied Poland. Beginning in 1949, Wiktor (Luke Thallon) is a composer who's part of a team led by Kaczmarek (Elliot Levey,) who are going around Poland collecting traditional folk songs. Previously dismissed as insignificant peasant music, their connection to people working the land makes them ideal to be co-opted by the Communists as stirring anthems. Wiktor is there to help make new arrangements that fit the themes of industry and productivity, for a show that'll be toured around Poland and eventually the rest of the Eastern Bloc.

Theatre review: Unfortunate

Like Wicked with more clit jokes, Robyn Grant, Daniel Foxx (book & lyrics) and Tim Gilvin's (music) Unfortunate tells a famous fairy tale from the point of the view of the villain. But Ursula the Sea Witch is quite specific to one particular telling of The Little Mermaid, so it's important to clarify that this is a parody musical, for legal reasons. Sorry, you'll have to wait a few more decades for her to come into the public domain and get immediately cast as a slasher movie killer. In the meantime Ursula (Shawna Hamic) is here to tell us how she escaped her apparent death at the end of the movie: Quite easily as it turns out, it's not like it was the first boatload of seamen she ever took to the chest. Yes, that's the Carry On level we're at, but contrary to the title we're fortunate in that this is Southwark Playhouse once again staging the best kind of musical silliness.

Theatre review: This Much I Know

My theatrical 2024 kicks off in chaotic fashion, with me trying to find a last-minute replacement for my second show of the year after a friend had to drop out of the trip, and next week's shows looking unlikely for me to get to because of tube strikes. As for my first play of the year, I was doubting I'd actually get to see the whole thing after a technical issue at the interval made it unclear whether or not we'd actually get a second act - we did, with the show eventually running 20 minutes over the advertised 2 hours 20. On the other hand if this start is anything to go by quality-wise, I could end up having a much less disappointing time at Hampstead Theatre than I did in 2023. Jonathan Spector is the playwright behind the Old Vic's big, starry 2022 show Eureka Day, and while this three-hander in Hampstead's studio space is a more modest proposal in some ways, its storytelling is more ambitious and, to me, more consistently satisfying. Although it does also get laughs from projections of emojis.