Theatre review: Between Riverside and Crazy

Most actors take a bit of a break after playing King Lear; Danny Sapani barely seems to have taken a breath between his run at the Almeida and another intense, deeply damaged leading man at Hampstead, in Stephen Adly Guirgis' 2014 play Between Riverside and Crazy. Eight years ago Walter "Pops" Washington (Sapani) had to retire from the NYPD after being shot six times by a rookie cop - not actually in the line of duty, although his former employers have more or less treated him as if he was. But Pops has turned down every compensation offer they've ever made, preferring to continue being a thorn in their side and an embarrassment to them, who's still convinced he can get a settlement worth millions. Now Pops' wife has died after a long illness, and he's filled his large rent-controlled apartment with a collection of ex-cons he's trying to help reform.

Theatre review: Captain Amazing

Captain Amazing dates from ten years ago, so it's just before playwright Alistair McDowell was a big enough name to get the budget for eldritch abominations, deep space mysteries and time-travelling mythical figures. But while it's a monologue dealing with very down-to-earth causes for joy and despair, it's still couched in terms of an SF world - in this case that of comic-book superheroes. Mark Weinman appears in jeans and a T-shirt, along with a long red cape as he takes us through a decade or so of the life of a man, also called Mark, who's been drunkenly pestering people in a club, insisting he's the titular hero. What led him to this point begins at his job in B&Q, helping a customer who will eventually become his wife. Sooner than they might have expected they become parents, and Mark is a devoted dad although not necessarily one who feels he knows what he's doing - especially once the marriage starts to break down.

Theatre review: Dugsi Dayz

Acting as a soft launch for his first season in charge of the Royal Court, David Byrne offers up a short run for a show that had previously played at his former venue, the New Diorama: Dugsi Dayz is Sabrina Ali's twist on The Breakfast Club, replacing a group of 20th century American High School archetypes with four 21st century teenage Somali-British girls who've been made to do an hour's Saturday detention at their mosque, as punishment for haram acts they're not actually obliged to tell each other about, thank you very much. The characters don't have exact parallels with the John Hughes film, so it would be labouring the point a bit to make them. But let's do that anyway. Munira (Ali) and Yasmin (Faduma Issa) are the Emilio Estevez / Molly Ringwald cool kids, friends who can't seem to do anything without the other filming it for TikTok.

Theatre review: Player Kings

A few years ago in his one-man show, Ian McKellen answered a question about Falstaff by saying that he'd always wanted to play the character until he saw Roger Allam play him at the Globe. Like many people he considered the performance definitive, and decided there was no point him tackling the role because there was nothing he could add to it. I wonder if the fact that he spent much of last year performing with Allam has anything to do with him changing his mind and, after years of turning it down, accepting Robert Icke's offer to join Player Kings, Icke's compressed version of both of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays. Falstaff is, at least as far as he's presented at the start of the show, something of an East End gangster, comparatively affable as far as crime bosses go but still involved with planning and, despite his advanced years and increasing waistline, carrying out robberies that can easily turn violent.

Theatre review: The Cherry Orchard

The Donald and Margot Warehouse is back in its occasional in-the-round configuration for Benedict Andrews' version of The Cherry Orchard, with Magda Willi covering the stage and walls in heavily-patterned orange carpet, signalling from the start a different aesthetic for Chekhov's final play, and the one widely interpreted as anticipating the Russian Revolution. The formerly wealthy family hurtling towards a doom they refuse to see coming have owned a large estate for generations, but are now seriously in debt: Gaev (Michael Gould) has been in charge of managing the estate, which he's done good-naturedly but ineptly; his sister Ranevskaya (Nina Hoss) on the other hand seems to actively haemorrhage money, whether through her attraction to dodgy men who invariably rip her off, or through genuinely seeming not to understand the value of the cash she spends or gives away.

Theatre review: Moby Dick

After a few years away, simple8 are returning with a new play later this year, but first they're reviving a former hit with a touring production of Moby Dick. I last saw Sebastian Armesto's adaptation of the book that set the template for the Great American Novel 11 years ago at the Arcola, but for the London leg this time it relocates to Wilton's Music Hall, a venue whose long history does include a connection to sailors and sea shanties, so seems a good match for a demented revenge drama that takes place mostly at sea. Ahab (Guy Rhys) captains a 19th century whaling ship, on a mission to hunt down sperm whales and use their blubber to power the world's lamps. But for him the mission he's actually being paid for is secondary, as on a past voyage he encountered a notoriously aggressive, unusually white whale nicknamed Moby Dick, that's been known to turn the tables on whalers and sink the ships.

Theatre review: The Ballad of Hattie and James

Leaving aside the fact that I've been unable to think of this as anything other than The Ballad of Hattie Jacques (and pretty much the first thing Jan said when he arrived at the theatre was that he's been exactly the same,) Samuel Adamson's The Ballad of Hattie and James comes with a good pedigree: The author returns to the Kiln having previously provided the venue with a mixed success in Wife, and the titular characters are played by Sophie Thompson and Charles Edwards. It's a moody, occasionally funny story of a friendship that goes very wrong but remains incredibly important throughout two people's lives, with all the makings of a really moving 90-minute play. The fact that it runs at an hour longer than that explains much about why the evening falls short of its potential.