Theatre review: As You Like It (Shakespeare's Globe)

After a very dodgy start this summer's season at Shakespeare's Globe has significantly improved, and it ends with one of my favourite Shakespearean comedies - one of the least coherent plots, but a jumble of confusions and setpieces that can respond well to just embracing the chaos. So where I was a bit disappointed that last year's Western Romeo and Juliet didn't do anything with the high concept beyond the visuals, Sean Holmes, who this time co-directs with Charlie Josephine, gets better results with a loosely-applied setting for As You Like It. That setting is Regency, and Paul Wills' costumes provide some stunning visuals, some... interesting character choices as well as a few good gags of their own. Also coming over from last year's season is Lola Shalam, and Holmes' confidence in her to step up from Juliet to Shakespeare's biggest female lead is well-placed.

Theatre review: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare's Globe)

George Fouracres seems to be absolutely speeding his way through the big Shakespearean comic roles at the Globe, and has already got to Sir John Falstaff - the slightly alternate Merry Wives of Windsor version who tends to be portrayed as a bit fluffier than the manipulative old thief of the Henriad. Although maybe not so different in Sean Holmes' new take, which leans into the fact that, like many a later farce, this one also builds its embarrassments and misunderstandings on some pretty dark motivations. So Fouracres' Falstaff has to win the audience's sympathy through the humiliations he's put through - he's a bombastic bully who makes jokes about drowning puppies, and plots to seduce two married women less out of lust than malice: He'll enjoy humiliating their husbands by cuckolding them, and maybe burgle their houses as well while he's there.

Theatre review: The Whip

It's been a lacklustre Swan season so while its final production, Juliet Gilkes Romero's The Whip, isn't without flaws I still found it the strongest offering. The title comes from the nominal lead's position, as Alexander Boyd (Richard Clothier) is the Chief Whip for the ruling Whig party in the early 1830s, but as the issue that defines his time in Parliament is the abolition of slavery in British colonies the title inevitably has a much more sinister double meaning. Boyd's initial mission is actually the reform of child labour in British factories, but he's diverted onto the abolition bill that's been dragging through Parliament for years. Slavery might never have been legal in the UK itself but the Empire's wealth comes from allowing it to continue in its colonies, and the West Indies are its last bastion. Finalising a deal hasn't been easy because too many politicians have a personal interest: Boyd is chosen to champion the cause as one of the few MPs not to be a slaveowner himself.

Theatre review: King John (RSC / Swan)

In a theatrical landscape experimenting excitedly with gender-flipped, gender-blind and gender-neutral casting, it's good for a company to find its own niche, although the RSC's take seems to be an eccentric one: Casting women in male title roles, but largely going with the ones male actors weren't in any particular hurry to play in the first place. So a couple of years ago there was a female Cymbeline, and now the unloved - both in-universe and within the canon - King John, as Rosie Sheehy takes the nominal lead in Eleanor Rhode's production. John - the gender-flipped characters are largely given dresses in Max Johns' design but the pronouns stick to what Shakespeare wrote - has inherited the throne from his much more popular brother Richard the Lionheart, along with the usual convoluted politics with England and France fighting over claims to each other's kingdom.

Theatre review: Secret Theatre Show 4

After a break for panto the Lyric Hammersmith's Secret Theatre returns with one notable change: The secret is now revealed slightly earlier, the sheet with title, writer, cast and creative details being handed out before the show rather than after. But for the purposes of this review I'll be sticking to the same format as before: If you're planning to see Show 4 and don't want spoilers, stop reading now.

Theatre review: Secret Theatre Show 1

One bit of mystery Show 2 didn't keep that Show 1 remedies is to keep the safety curtain down as the audience enters. Yes, it's back to the Lyric Hammersmith for Secret Theatre's second show which, as they're numbered by the first preview rather than when they open, is actually called Show 1. As before, only read further if you want to know the play's identity.