Theatre review: Fat Ham

After Hamlet on the Titanic and a musical version set to Radiohead* the RSC has its third go at the story this year: I've not got the best history with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, having found a number of past winners underwhelming at best, but in general it still seems to be a respected award, so James Ijames' 2022 winner must have made for one of the few times actors have actively wanted to be called Fat Ham. Fat Ham, I hear it and I know, Fat Ham, Fat Ham, I know you wanna take me home, Fat Ham, and get to know me close, Fat Ham, Fat Ham, when your heart goes Fat Ham is a self-aware, modern-day adaptation of Hamlet that takes the "ham" part of the title (and, I guess, the Danish part of the story) and turns the royal family into one that's made a living out of pork products, raising pigs, butchering them and cooking them in their restaurant.

Theatre review: Juniper Blood

Mike Bartlett's latest play sees him return to a Chekhovian setting and theme of a rural location consumed by possible ecological disaster, although without quite the formal use of Chekhov's structure of Albion: Juniper Blood features a much smaller cast and three acts rather than four, but it does still feel in many ways a successor to his earlier work. It starts almost as a comedy of disparate groups of farmers and urbanites forming an awkward blended family: Lip (Sam Troughton) is the monosyllabic heir to a farm that's been in his family for generations; quite how he ended up in a relationship with the well-off, earnest Ruth (Hattie Morahan) isn't entirely clear, but shortly before his father's death he agreed to take over the business, with his partner buying into it and investing in repairs and changes to turn it into a more sustainable, organic concern.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night or What You Will

Despite its wintery title the season Twelfth Night is most commonly associated with is Autumn, usually accompanied by some variation of the dreaded phrase "Shakespeare's melancholy farewell to comedy" in the blurb. Well there's certainly something autumnal about Robin Belfield's production at the Globe, but it's more pagan harvest festival than sad falling leaves. Under a gold wooden sun and featuring a wicker man, Jean Chan's design is all brashly colourful carnival outfits. It's a mood that's infected almost everyone in Illyria, including its Duke who's often seen opening the play lounging moodily on cushions. Instead Solomon Israel's Orsino is definitely up for the party, and is just a bit annoyed that the girl he fancies isn't joining in, or returning his interest - and all because she's still in mourning for all the men in her family dropping dead over the course of a couple of months, honestly some people, such drama queens.

Theatre review: Brigadoon

Brigadoon! Aha! Take it now or leave it, now is all we get, nothing promised no regrets!

About 18 months after Drew McOnie was announced as Artistic Director of the Regents Park Open Air Theatre we get his first directing gig in the post, the sort of thing that gets seen as a statement of intent for his tenure. And what we get is Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe's (music) Brigadoon, which is certainly... a statement. On the 1st of May 1944, American airmen Tommy (Louis Gaunt) and Jeff (Cavan Clarke) crash in a part of Scotland so remote there's nothing on the map. But on this one day the place is far from desolate, as they encounter the bustling, suspiciously old-fashioned town of Brigadoon, where the people are mainly occupied with moving milk, beer and tartan cloth backwards and forwards, while preparing for a wedding that night. While Jeff gets pursued by the local maneater Meg (Nic Myers,) Tommy finds a more serious romantic interest.

Theatre review: A Man for All Seasons

Robert Bolt's 1960 play A Man for All Seasons is considered something of a modern classic, and one that seems to attract actors to revisit its lead over the years - Martin Shaw previously played Thomas More in 2006, and returns nearly two decades later for this touring production finishing its run at the Pinter. Covering the familiar ground of Henry VIII's spilt both from his first wife and the Catholic Church, it does so from the point of view of More, the Lord Chancellor whose refusal to undermine the Pope's authority and subsequent fall from grace saw him posthumously considered a martyr and saint by the Church. When we first meet him he's managing to hold on to his power and influence, but as soon as it becomes impossible to accept Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon without also endorsing the idea that the Church ruled wrongly on the issue, he quietly resigns his position.

Theatre review: Good Night, Oscar

Documenting perhaps the first, definitely not the last, nervous breakdown on live TV, Doug Wright's Good Night, Oscar goes behind the scenes of an episode of The Tonight Show from 1958. Moving from its usual New York home to Hollywood for a week, the show is hoping for a ratings smash, and host Jack Paar (Ben Rappaport) wants to open with one of his own favourite regular guests, who always gets a big audience reaction: Actor and musician Oscar Levant (Sean Hayes,) who's become as well known for his near-the-knuckle witticisms and acerbic comments as he has for his virtuoso piano-playing, where he specialises in the works of his old friend George Gershwin. Oscar is often fashionably late, but with this episode coming from the headquarters Jack has the network head himself, Bob Sarnoff (Richard Katz) pressuring him to find a last-minute replacement.

Theatre review: Saving Mozart

The Other Palace's latest attempt to come up with the next big historical pop musical to rival SIX takes us to 18th century Austria for Charli Eglinton's (book, music and lyrics) Saving Mozart. Eglinton's idea is that it was the women in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (Jack Chambers) life who did the saving (of his memory, at least; given he died penniless aged 35 they didn't do the best job of saving Mozart himself.) With their father Leopold (Douglas Hansell) essentially seeing them as a way to money and influence, young Wolfgang (Carla Lopez Corpas, alternating with Izzie Monk) and his older sister Nannerl (Aimie Atkinson) are toured around the Royal courts of Europe as musical prodigies. But Leopold's treatment of Nannerl is even more cynical than it first appears: Once she's served her purpose in pushing Wolfgang to greatness, she's to be ditched from the act and married off.

Theatre review: Inter Alia

Playwright Suzie Miller and director Justin Martin's next collaboration after Prima Facie has a lot to live up to after the earlier play's international success; but in fairness the publicity for Inter Alia has leaned heavily on that connection, and this is another story told by a powerful woman in the legal system, with a Latin legal term as its title, so it's not like the comparisons aren't being enthusiastically invited. This time the narrator is a judge: Jessica (Rosamund Pike) has been in the position for a couple of years now and is settled into a role that, as she often tells us, requires a lot less talking and a lot more listening than her previous job as a barrister. She enjoys the wider perspective she now has as well as the fresh approach she feels she brings to the bench, even if she has to contend with barristers who show her less respect than her male colleagues.

Theatre review: Till The Stars Come Down

Beth Steel's Till The Stars Come Down has been compared to Chekhov, and though it owes as much to Coronation Street it does centre on three sisters: In a Northern former coalmining town Hazel (Lucy Black) and Maggie (Aisling Loftus) are helping youngest sister Sylvia (Sinéad Matthews) get ready for her wedding. While Hazel lives down the road with her husband John (Adrian Bower) and teenage daughters Leanne (Ruby Thompson) and Sarah (Cadence Williams, alternating with Lillie Babb and Elodie Blomfield,) and Maggie rather abruptly moved away for work some months earlier, Sylvia has stayed at home ever since their mother's death, keeping their father Tony (Alan Williams) company. So her wedding represents both moving on from the past, and a day where she can be the focus of attention rather than the supportive one, but she's got a bad feeling something's going to go wrong.

Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (RSC/RST)

Having clawed her way off my list of creatives I avoid like the plague with a decent Macbeth and a very good King Lear, Yaël Farber now makes her RSC debut by continuing her successful recent strategy of tackling Shakespeare plays where not having a sense of humour is not really an obstacle. Yes, I know The Winter's Tale is officially classed as a comedy, but you know as well as I do that having one scene where a con-man (Trevor Fox) pickpockets a hot young shepherd (Ryan Duval) doesn't make it a laugh riot, any more than having a scene where a porter does a dozen puns about equivocation doesn't make Macbeth a knockabout farce. The story of two kings who violently turn on members of their own family, Sicilia's Leontes (Transphobia Inc Employee Bertie Carvel) has been best friends with his Bohemian counterpart Polixenes (John Light) since childhood.