Re-review: French Without Tears

French Without Tears made number 6 in my favourite plays of last year (you can read my original review here,) so it wasn't a hard choice to make another trip to Rattigan's early comedy of young men learning French in hopes of entering "The Diplomatic." Paul Miller's production has returned to the Orange Tree for a month prior to a national tour. Only two of the original cast members have returned - Joe Eyre as the smitten Kit and David Whitworth as the quietly grumpy teacher Monsieur Maingot - and the new actors bring slightly different characterisations to their roles, but the light feel and well-executed comedy are unaffected. Florence Roberts, for example, is a somewhat crueller Diana than Genevieve Gaunt was, taking obvious pleasure in breaking the hearts of the young boys while plotting to find the most suitable husband material among them.

Theatre review: Donkey Heart

The Old Red Lion has supplied the West End with a surprising amount of content in recent years, and their latest premiere sees the West End give back with a few big-name creatives going to the room above an Islington pub. The lighting is by recent Olivier nominee Peter Mumford, some of the cast have recently been in hit commercial shows, and the director is Nina Raine. The latter's involvement isn't that surprising though, as the playwright is her younger brother Moses Raine, and Donkey Heart touches on their family's Russian ancestry. The setting is a flat in modern-day Moscow where Ivan (Paul Wyett) and Zhenya (Wendy Nottingham) live with Ivan's father Alexander (Patrick Godfrey) and their children Sasha (Lisa Diveney,) Petya (James Musgrave) and Kolya (Albie Marber tonight, alternating with Pierre Atri.) Communism may be gone but the family live in what they describe as a collective hangover from it: They aren't (to the best of their knowledge) under constant surveillance, but the habit of keeping their thoughts and emotions to themselves is a hard one to break.

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Michael Grandage Company at the Noël Coward Theatre)

One of the big theatrical events of 2013, the Michael Grandage season at the Noël Coward is already nearing its end with the first of the two Shakespeare plays that conclude the residency.

The star casting for A Midsummer Night's Dream sees Sheridan Smith as Titania and David Walliams as Bottom, but the cast also includes a nice bit of continuity with the rest of the season so far, with one cast member returning from each of the previous productions: From The Cripple of Inishmaan, Pádraic Delaney plays Oberon; from Peter and Alice, Stefano Braschi plays Demetrius; and from Privates on Parade, Sam Swainsbury plays Lysander.