Theatre review: Arcadia

Scheduled at the Old Vic before his death but ending up serving as a tribute, Arcadia is probably Tom Stoppard's best-loved play - for me it's certainly the one that's most effective in its use of esoteric knowledge, as the way it muses on science and poetry makes the audience feel clever, as opposed to some of his works that make us feel sneered at. In a country house in 1809, precocious 13-year-old Thomasina (Isis Hainsworth) is being taught maths and classics by her tutor. Septimus (Seamus Dillane) is flirtatious with her mother Lady Croom (Fiona Button,) but is even more indiscreet elsewhere, getting caught in various locations and positions with the wife of Ezra Chater (Matthew Steer.) The house guest and notoriously bad poet issues various challenges to duels, but Septimus always seems able to convince Ezra he was doing him a favour by cuckolding him.

Theatre review: Macbeth (ETT / Lyric Hammersmith)

Déjà vu at the Lyric Hammersmith, which hasn't seen such a burst of European Director's Theatre-style expressionism since the Sean Holmes years, but makes up for it with English Touring Theatre's take on Macbeth: Richard Twyman throws everything except the nudity and the food-fighting (I'd say the kitchen sink but there is one of those) at the story of Scotland emerging from war only for the king to be assassinated and his successor to throw the country into tyranny and chaos. In a production the projections tell us is divided into three parts, Home, Kingdom and Nation, we begin with a very domestic Macbeth in which Lady Macbeth (Lois Chimimba) opens the show in a luxurious but clinical modern apartment, listening to a voice note from her husband.

Theatre review: King Lear (Shakespeare's Globe)

Female King Lears have become a bit more common in recent years, but Kathryn Hunter's 1997 performance of the role is generally referred to as the first-ever professional production with a woman in the lead. Presumably it was also remarkable for her age, as she would have been younger then than I am now, and much as I grumble about getting on a bit I'm not quite at the point of identifying with the dementia-stricken monarch just yet. This was long before I'd ever even heard of Hunter, now one of my favourite actors, so I was excited to have a chance to finally see her in the role, 25 years closer to the character's supposed age, at Shakespeare's Globe. But it's turned out to be a troubled production: Hunter was meant to reunite onstage for the second time this year with her husband Marcello Magni, but he had to drop out so we get a much younger Kent, with an appealing amount of swagger, in Gabriel Akuwudike.

Theatre review: Either

Do the box office at Hampstead Theatre keep a nightly record of how people pronounce Either when collecting their tickets, and take bets on which pronunciation will win every night? And if not, WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT OF ANYTHING?

Two consecutive trips to Hampstead Theatre wasn't exactly planned but it's not always easy to space things out in my diary, especially when a season is announced at late as this one was. Still, it makes for an interesting way to judge a new Artistic Director's mission statement to make a kind of double bill of the launch shows in both the main and studio spaces, and Either certainly suggests Roxana Silbert won't want to be left behind when theatre starts experimenting with changing ways of looking at the world. Specifically, in this instance, the changing understanding of what gender is and how it affects people's interactions: Ruby Thomas' play is about a couple, but is explicitly genderless - a stage direction projected onto Bethany Wells' set at the start insists that the two characters can and should be played by any and all genders.

Theatre review: Time is Love/Tiempo es Amor

It’s got to be something of a coup for a 50-seat theatre to land a recent Olivier winner – in a supporting role no less – but there’s a couple of reasons Sheila Atim might be happy to lend a bit of star power to the fringe: Not only has she worked with writer/director Chè Walker before, she’s also composed the original music for his latest play, Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor. Walker’s Been So Long, recently reinvented as a Netflix film, had a strong flavour of London but the playwright subsequently moved to Los Angeles, and that’s the location, and the atmosphere he tries to capture here. This is partly through a film noir-ish feel to the story of Blaz (Gabriel Akuwudike,) who spends three years in prison after a robbery goes wrong. His friend Karl (Benjamin Cawley) was the one who talked him into it, but managed to get away; but apart from missing his friend he doesn’t seem to have much regret for what he got him into, if anything acting like he’s the wronged party.