Theatre review: Till The Stars Come Down

Beth Steel's Till The Stars Come Down has been compared to Chekhov, and though it owes as much to Coronation Street it does centre on three sisters: In a Northern former coalmining town Hazel (Lucy Black) and Maggie (Aisling Loftus) are helping youngest sister Sylvia (Sinéad Matthews) get ready for her wedding. While Hazel lives down the road with her husband John (Adrian Bower) and teenage daughters Leanne (Ruby Thompson) and Sarah (Cadence Williams, alternating with Lillie Babb and Elodie Blomfield,) and Maggie rather abruptly moved away for work some months earlier, Sylvia has stayed at home ever since their mother's death, keeping their father Tony (Alan Williams) company. So her wedding represents both moving on from the past, and a day where she can be the focus of attention rather than the supportive one, but she's got a bad feeling something's going to go wrong.

Theatre review: Eyam

It's long been a truism that Shakespeare's Globe is a very hard place to write new plays for - Howard Brenton and Jessica Swale are the only playwrights to have succeeded there multiple times - but Michelle Terry started her tenure there well when Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's Emilia was a popular hit. Any hopes she might have helped the venue lift that curse for good are dashed by the final show in her debut season though: Matt Hartley's Plague drama Eyam suffers from many of the classic problems that afflict new writing here. In 1665, with England still feeling the aftereffects of the Civil War, shit vicar William Mompesson (Sam Crane) and his wife Katherine (Priyanga Burford) are sent to the Derbyshire village of Eyam, not being told that the reason they need a new minister is because the villagers lynched the last one. This is a place divided by the wealthy Phillip Sheldon's (Adrian Bower) attempts to claim the common land as his own OH GOD NOT A PLAY ABOUT THE LAND ENCLOSURES ACT, ABORT, ABORT!

Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare's Globe)

Time for the second “Emilia” play in the Globe’s summer season, although as the Emilia (Zora Bishop) in The Winter’s Tale is a lady-in-waiting with few lines it’s not the strongest argument for the name’s significance to Shakespeare. The story really revolves around Leontes (Will Keen,) the Sicilian king and slipper enthusiast who’s been best friends with Bohemian king Polixenes (Oliver Ryan) all his life. But a sudden bout of jealous insanity convinces him that Polixenes is having an affair with his wife Hermione (Priyanga Burford,) and nothing will shake him of that conviction. Courtier Camillo (Adrian Bower) manages to convince the visiting king that his friend is plotting to kill him, and they escape back to Bohemia, but the heavily pregnant Hermione isn’t so lucky: Publicly accused of cheating, she’s thrown into jail, put on show-trial and even the literal word of god (a judgement from the Delphic oracle) can’t convince her husband of her innocence.

Theatre review: The Herd

After Cush Jumbo, Rory Kinnear is the latest actor to make a playwrighting debut at the Bush. It's Andy's 21st birthday; severely mentally and physically disabled, he lives in a care home but as it's a special occasion his carer will be bringing him to his mother's house for a small party. Carol (Amanda Root) is a bag of nerves as she waits for her son to arrive, constantly on the phone to the carer or the care home manager she can't stand. When her daughter Claire (Louise Brealey) arrives she's also pretty distracted, as she'll be bringing boyfriend Mark (Adrian Bower) along to meet her family for the first time. Carol's parents are the only other expected guests at the party, but it wouldn't be a drama without an uninvited one, and that's Claire and Andy's estranged father Ian (Adrian Rawlins,) hoping to be allowed to see his son after five years' absence.