Theatre review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Former Deputy Artistic Director of the National Theatre Clint Dyer moves down the road to the Old Vic to direct a somewhat reimagined look at One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dale Wasserman's play based on Ken Kesey's novel about order versus anarchy - where order comes across very much as the bad guy. In a 1960s New Orleans mental asylum, the patients appear to be steadily and quietly getting on with their treatment under Dr Spivey (Matthew Steer) and Nurse Ratched (Future Dame Olivia Williams.) But when R.P. McMurphy (Aaron Pierre) arrives on the ward, having accepted a diagnosis of psychopathy and committal instead of a five-month prison sentence, his rebellious attitude quickly reveals the real power dynamic in the asylum. He makes it his mission to bring some fun and unpredictability to the inmates, but has no idea the lengths Ratched is willing to go to to stop him.

Theatre review: King Hedley II

Part of Nadia Fall's mission statement for her inaugural season at Theatre Royal Stratford East was to put the venue back on the theatrical map, and on the one hand a powerful play by a respected American playwright starring a much-loved British actor is a great way to do that, and the theatre seemed nearly full tonight. On the other hand keeping the start time at 7:30 for a three-and-a-half hour play does make it a pretty off-putting prospect for anyone who doesn't live locally, and faces a long journey home at 11pm. King Hedley II turns out to be worth the hassle, just about, but it's a heavy-going evening. This takes me up to 4 plays in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, the second I've seen to star Sir Leonard of Henry, and is the 1980s entry in his ten-play sequence about black life in America in every decade of the 20th Century.

Theatre review: Othello (Shakespeare's Globe)

For the final major Shakespeare production of Michelle Terry’s first summer season the last actor to serve as Artistic Director of the Globe returns, with a characteristically idiosyncratic take on a classic villain. Director/composer Claire van Kampen has said she wanted her production of Othello to return the play’s focus to its title character; I’m not entirely sure how she thought she’d manage that with her husband, noted scenivore Mark Rylance, as Super Mario Iago. Venetian Ensign Super Mario Iago has a rather vague grudge against his general, Othello (André Holland) and, aided by Roderigo (Steffan Donnelly,) a man with more money than sense and a crush on Othello’s wife, hatches a convoluted plot not to destroy the general, but to make him destroy himself. Central to his scheming is Othello’s new wife Desdemona (Jessica Warbeck,) a younger woman whose father objected to her marrying a black man, no matter how well-regarded a soldier he might be.