Theatre review: The School for Scandal

Continuing the new RSC artistic team's unpredictable approach to an opening season we have a rare main stage outing for Restoration Comedy, that genre made up of such a tangle of mini-plots it always defeats my attempts to provide anything like a coherent synopsis. But it's probably accurate enough to say the main focus of all the shenanigans in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal is a pair of brothers, young adults but still theoretically being kept an eye on by family friend Sir Peter Teazle (Geoffrey Streatfeild) since their father's death: Charles Surface (John Leader) is the party-animal youngest, who's already got through his share of the inheritance and has sold off half the contents of his house. But a lot of his financial mismanagement comes from his generosity to friends and strangers alike, and he's essentially kind-hearted - something his public image doesn't really reflect.

Theatre review: A New Play for the General Election

Often when a new play is announced before its contents are finalised - such as the work of Mike Leigh and Anthony Neilson who write their scripts during rehearsal - it remains untitled until just before it opens. They do tend to get a title eventually though, but A New Play for the General Election at the Finborough has remained simply a new play,* which makes me think they're not that concerned that anyone might ever want to revive it. In addition, it was originally announced as being written by Chris Dunkley, but somewhere along the way director Chris New also got bumped up to deviser and author of the piece. So all the signs point to this not being as smooth a creative process as might have been hoped, but great things can come from adversity so no need to dismiss it out of hand. I don't know if they had too much adversity or not enough, but great things have not materialised.