Theatre review: King James

After being very disappointing in 2023, Hampstead Theatre has been getting back into my good books this year, and a strong autumn season continues with King James. Hot on the heels of the Guards at the Taj revival, Rajiv Joseph gives us another two-hander about a platonic male friendship, although while this one also reaches a crisis it's a mercifully bloodless one. We also get to see the relationship right from its inception, as it begins in the Cleveland wine bar where Matt (Sam Mitchell) works. His wages there certainly don't cover the amount of debt he's in, because he's having to sell the remaining games on his season ticket for the local basketball team, the Cavaliers, seats he and his father have sat in all his life. What makes it particularly heartbreaking is that this is the 2003-4 season, in which after decades without any silverware the team has signed teenager LeBron James, a player who went on to become so famous even a British audience is likely to have heard of him, even if we couldn't tell you his full history with the "Cavs."

Theatre review: The Haystack

Roxana Silbert finally directs her first show since taking over Hampstead Theatre with the last production of her opening season, Al Blyth's debut full-length play The Haystack. The people searching for needles in it are GCHQ computer coders Neil (Big Favourite Round These Parts Oliver Johnstone) and Zef (Enyi Okoronkwo,) on secondment to the counter-terrorism division when they impress the Deputy Director, Hannah (Sarah Woodward) so much she keeps them in her team permanently. They do wonder exactly what their first assignment actually has to do with terrorism: Junior Guardian journalist Cora (Rona Morison) has discovered a possible connection between Saudi Arabian money and a number of British MPs, and the pair are set to task finding her source. After some time monitoring Cora they're suddenly taken off the case, only for her source, a Saudi princess (a pre-recorded Sirine Saba) to die in mysterious circumstances.

Theatre review: Noises Off

The Old Vic's 2012 production of Noises Off was only the second show I reviewed on this particular blog, so given Michael Frayn's play is regularly described as the greatest farce (and one of the greatest comedies in general) ever written it's probably not that surprising if someone thought it was time for it to return to London. The Lyric Hammersmith is where it premiered in 1982, and as it's currently in a bit of a limbo state between artistic directors Jeremy Herrin has grabbed the opportunity to bring the play back to where it all began. It's a farce within a farce within a farce, as director Lloyd (Lloyd Owen) attempts to preside over the technical rehearsal of Nothing On, a creaky and convoluted farce about to embark on a national tour after nowhere near enough rehearsal. The cast barely know their lines let alone their blocking, but that's not going to cause as many problems as the company's personal lives.

Theatre review: Tartuffe, the Imposter

Molière’s religious con-man Tartuffe has been around a lot in the past year, but for various reasons (having bronchitis when I was meant to be seeing it in Stratford-upon-Avon; avoiding the Theatre Royal Haymarket like the plague) the National’s is the first of the current crop I’ve caught. And certainly as adapted by John Donnelly and directed by Blanche McIntyre the play shows why so many people have chosen it at this particular moment. Robert Jones’ set is a garishly opulent living room that nods to the play’s origins at Versailles, but the action’s been relocated to Highgate where Orgon (Kevin Doyle,) who made his fortune in unspecified dubious ways, lives with his mother Pernelle (Susan Engel,) daughter Mariane (Kitty Archer,) son Damis (Enyi Okoronkwo,) second wife Elmire (Future Dame Olivia Williams) and her brother Cleante (Hari Dhillon.) All except Pernelle are currently horrified at the puritanical turn the household has taken.

Theatre review: wonder.land

It's the clichés you always hear about musicals - that they're not written, they're rewritten; that every "effortless" hit has spent years in development - that come to mind during wonder.land, the National's much-maligned big winter spectacular. Perhaps going into it with low expectations helped, but it seems that under what is, undoubtedly, something of a mess, a pretty good show is struggling to get out and, given time, might well have done. As the title suggests, Moira Buffini (book and lyrics) and Damon Albarn's (music) musical takes Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland stories and transposes them to the digital age. Following her parents' breakup, Aly (Lois Chimimba) has moved to a new school where she immediately becomes a target of the resident mean girls, who bully her in real life and online.

Theatre review: Arthur's World

In the Bush Theatre's Attic space, playwright Helena Thompson wears Philip Ridley's influence on her sleeve as a group of damaged characters clash in a small London flat, while apocalyptic violence rages just outside the window. In Arthur's World, alcoholic pensioner Arthur (Paul Greenwood) seems to have kept himself to himself most of his life, but in the last couple of years he's pretty much become a recluse. This is in part because that's how long it is since a popular mobile phone game somehow exploded into reality, players no longer hiding behind their avatars but seeking out their opponents in reality, resulting in the ongoing, bloody riots known as The Fights. The other reason is that in the early days of The Fights Mikey, the son Arthur raised alone, went missing. Never having quite given up on his son returning alive, Arthur has stayed in the flat despite the violence raging just outside. On Mikey's 20th birthday, he's even baked him a cake, just in case.