Theatre review: Alterations

When Indhu Rubasingham took over what was then the Tricycle, her first step was to ask audiences what they did and didn't like about the theatre, and responded with the practical changes people asked for. She'll be officially taking over at the National soon, so if she wants any early suggestions for the new gig might I recommend some new padding for the seats in the two main houses? Or if they can't afford that just yet, maybe no more 2hr+ shows without interval until they can? I genuinely don't know to what extent I felt lukewarm about Alterations, and to what extent I just spent half of it in pain from a seat that doesn't seem to have been reupholstered since Michael Abbensetts' play was brand-new. That would be 1978, and the story plays out over 48 hours in a Carnaby Street tailor's shop in September of the previous year (going by the prop newpaper announcing the death of Marc Bolan.)

Theatre review: Pass Over

Over the years I've come to trust Indhu Rubasingham's judgement, which is the only reason I would book for a play whose blurb compares it to Waiting for Godot - especially so soon after putting myself through some actual Beckett again. Antoinette Nwandu's play about the ongoing epidemic of black Americans being shot by police turns the pair of tramps into homeless African-Americans living under a railway bridge, their inability to move from the spot not down to abstract existential dread but the very specific knowledge that anyone who tries to get away gets gunned down. Paapa Essiedu plays Moses, whose name, like the play's title Pass Over, references the other overt influence on Nwandu's play, the biblical book of Exodus, and while Moses himself often despairs, his friend Kitch (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr) has faith that he can lead his people to a Promised Land.

Theatre review: Small Island

This time last year Rufus Norris strayed out of his comfort zone for his big Olivier stage production with notoriously disastrous consequences, but he's back to much more familiar territory now for a big emotional, political epic that spans years, continents and clashing cultures. Helen Edmundson adapts Andrea Levy's Small Island, whose story about the Windrush generation has become topical again in recent years. Its three narrators are initially separated by an ocean, but chance and the Second World War will throw them together in life-changing ways: First up we meet Hortense (Leah Harvey,) a teacher in a remote Jamaican village whose romantic feelings about her cousin Michael (CJ Beckford) are crushed so abruptly it leaves her cold, spiky and pragmatic to the point of calculating; while she stays in Jamaica, Michael goes to England to join the war effort.

Theatre review: Pinocchio

Going by the last couple of offerings, Rufus Norris' vision for Christmas family shows at the National involves the most familiar stories being given unfamiliar stagings. If I wasn't really sold on a vision of Peter Pan as "quite looking forward to getting his bus pass," this year's interpretation of Pinocchio as "Joe Idris-Roberts with his nips out" is perhaps a more likely fit to my interests. And the story itself, a pretty dark one at heart and much less frequently staged, is closer to my liking of the more gothic side of children's stories. Adaptor Dennis Kelly and director John Tiffany certainly seem to agree, with a disorientating production: This saw me return to the theatre after a few days of being too ill to go out and having to miss some shows I was really keen on, and perhaps there could be no better fit when I'm still feeling a bit wobbly, as Pinocchio has always had a touch of the fever-dream to it.

theatre review: a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun)

debbie tucker green is one of the few playwrights who seems to get away with directing the premiere productions of her own work. this may be because, despite a poetic quality they all share, each of her plays has a very distinct feel, and the way they're staged is often integral to that. take her latest, a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun), which marks itself out as doing things differently as soon as you walk into the royal court upstairs: merle hensel's set design is like an inverted thrust staging, with the five actors on a raised stage that runs around three of the walls, while the audience sits in the middle on stools, turning to watch the action. sometimes the actors perform together, others they stand across the room from each other, delivering their lives over the audience's heads. and that's a very on-theme metaphor for a play about the way love can alternately attract and repel people.

Theatre review: The Royale

Inspired by the real story of Jack Johnson, Marco Ramirez' The Royale is a fictionalised version of the early days of black boxers entering the mainstream in a still-segregated America. It's 1905, and Jay "The Sport" Jackson (Nicholas Pinnock) has been rising through the ranks to become Negro Heavyweight Champion and is hugely popular, selling out larger and larger venues. The real goal, though, is to be Champion, not of the Black World or the White World, but of the World; and for that he needs the white, reigning heavyweight champion to come out of retirement. It's a challenge nobody expects him to accept but Jay's promoter Max (Ewan Stewart) manages to arrange the match. So we follow Jay as he trains for his historic fight, but to let him concentrate Max and his trainer Wynton (Clint Dyer) are shielding him from some of the consequences his challenge is having in the world outside the ring.