Theatre review: Testmatch

As football plays have proven on multiple occasions, I don't have to be interested in a sport to enjoy a piece of theatre about it. Still, you've got your work cut out for you if the sport in question is cricket, even if it's not remotely the real subject of the story being told, like in Kate Attwell's Testmatch, set during a one-day match between England and India at the women's cricket World Cup. India are the bookies' favourites and have briefly managed to make a good start before rain stopped play; three women from each team are waiting together to hear if, or more likely when, the match is going to be called off because of the flooded pitch. England 2 (Mia Turner,) recently dumped by the England men's captain, would like to talk about why rugby boys are much better shags than cricket boys anyway, and India 3 (Tanya Katyal) is just disappointed because she loves the game so much she hates to miss out.

Theatre review: The Tempest (Shakespeare's Globe / Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank)

Hey, you know what's a great way to stop me from spending an entire review of The Tempest ranting about how awful Prospero is? Edit the text so you cut out... more or less everything he does. Yes, for a second year the Globe has added a public performance schedule to the Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank production - essentially a scaled-down version of a play on the curriculum, designed for school parties. Pleasingly, Diane Page's production follows the others I've seen both live and online, in that apart from cutting the script down to a little over 90 minutes, and some particularly shiny and gaudy designs from Moi Tran, this doesn't feel like a "kids'" version and doesn't patronise the audience for a second. The short running time also meant I could stand through it without hospitalising myself, and get to be in the thick of it as groundlings with my goddaughter Evie.