Theatre review: Hamlet (National Theatre / Lyttelton)

The new Artistic Director has launched the season by reminding us of the National Theatre's close connection with Ancient Greek Tragedy, now her new deputy gets to do the same for Shakespeare: Robert Hastie's take on Hamlet stays on dry land, but if it's not overtly high concept it's still full of ideas, and little nods to past productions. Hiran Abeysekera's Hamlet is a stroppy prince, performatively wearing black clothes and nail polish at his mother's wedding in protest at how soon it's come after her first husband, Hamlet's father's, death. But if there's something of the attention-seeking, overgrown teenager to him, the front becomes reality when his father's ghost starts haunting the palace: The dead king's spirit (Ryan Ellsworth) tells him he was murdered by his brother Claudius (Alistair Petrie.)

Theatre review: Paper Cut

If theatre has a tendency for unintended themed programming, where a number of creatives simultaneously decide to tackle similar ideas, then young gay men with disabilities is shaping up to be one of the themes coming to prominence in 2023. It's fertile theatrical ground: Some of the best theatre showcases the experiences of people who belong to minorities, so those of people who belong to two or more will present unique insights. Never mind the fact that in the intersection of these particular two minorities you get a group that can become slaves to a very particular idea of physical perfection, with another living and even thriving with very different bodies. The Park Theatre seems to be the hub for these stories at the moment - not long after Animal in the main house, we get Paper Cut in the studio, and Andrew Rosendorf's play also takes in PTSD, and soldiers' place in the world after they can no longer serve.

Theatre review: Our Generation

While we don't currently have the mass cancellations we were seeing at the height of Omicron, some shows are still being more affected by Covid than others: The performance of Our Generation I'd originally booked for last month got cancelled - by this point it had become apparent it was nearly four hours long, so to be honest I didn't mind the opportunity to reschedule from a Tuesday night to a weekend - and tonight's almost went the same way, as two cast members had had positive test results and the Dorfman doesn't carry understudies. Fortunately two of their castmates were able to read in all their roles as well as playing their own, so Sarita Gabony covered Anna Burnett's part and Stephanie Street read in Debbie Chazen's tonight. And I'm glad they did, as despite its epic length it would have been a shame to miss Alecky Blythe's epic of five years in the lives of teenagers, her most significant and affecting work since London Road.

Theatre review: Shaw Shorts

If you don't count a couple of false starts in autumn 2020, there's a nice symmetry to my first theatre trip after the third lockdown being to the Orange Tree, where I also saw my last show before the first lockdown. Let's hope it's a good omen for this reopening being the one that sticks and marks the start of things going back to normal. It is just a start though, and for now most venues are taking baby steps: For Paul Miller that means a return to one of his theatre's signature playwrights, Bernard Shaw, in intimate mode - Miller directs a double bill of short one-act comedies about marriage, extra-marital affairs and the adherence to social expectations that stops couples from making the choices that might actually mean happy lives for them. They can be booked separately but they really are very brief, and since they're very close thematically it makes sense to see them in the double bill they're calling Shaw Shorts (I mean "Shawts" was right there but I guess after the last 14 months everyone's too tired for shenanigans.)