Theatre review: The Playboy of the Western World

The Lyttelton goes festive, but instead of Christmas 2025 in London we're going to early 20th Century County Mayo and what looks like a harvest festival for Irish classic The Playboy of the Western World. Director Caitríona McLaughlin frames John Millington Synge's tragicomedy with pagan figures playing the fiddle as Christy Mahon (Éanna Hardwicke) arrives in a remote building that doubles as pub and general store for a farming community desperate, it turns out, for some excitement. Christy says he murdered his father, and has spent the last eleven days walking, hoping to escape the law. The store's owner Michael (Lorcan Cranitch) and his daughter Pegeen (Nicola Coughlan) let him stay the night, then give him the job of pot-boy so he can stay longer, and be safe as it appears news of his crime hasn't reached this part of the world.

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.