Stage-to-screen review: Jane Clegg

It's one of my own personal clichés that the Finborough Theatre approaches programming as if it's the fringe's answer to the National, with the ambition if not the budget to match. It proves true too during lockdown, with the room above an Earl's Court pub matching some of the country's biggest venues, by offering up archive recordings on YouTube for people missing their theatrical fix. Jane Clegg falls into the venue's remit that 50% of its shows be revivals of forgotten classics, as the play was a hit when it debuted in 1913, and its original star Sybil Thorndike kept returning to the title role throughout her career, but the play hadn't been seen in London since 1944 until David Gilmore's revival last year. St John Ervine's play was written with the Suffragettes in the news, and it reflects a new reality where a man might still legally be the king of his castle, but can no longer necessarily rule unquestioned.

Theatre review: A Day by the Sea

Southwark Playhouse’s publicity is keen to label rediscovered 1950s playwright N C Hunter as “the English Chekhov,” and if A Day by the Sea is a fair representation of his work it’s a comparison he would have been actively seeking. There’s a family and extended group of hangers-on, reuniting at a home in the country; wistful hopes that generations in the future will have eradicated the problems that plague its characters daily; the characters moping around long after the story’s come to a natural end; and even the requisite alcoholic doctor. As a child, Frances Farrar was taken in by the Anson family in Dorset when she was orphaned, but while she remembers her time there happily she more or less lost touch for twenty years after she moved out. Now, widowed from her first husband in World War II and divorced from her second – who then attempted suicide – Frances (Alix Dunmore) is invited back there with her own children for the school holidays, to sit out the scandal.

Non-review: The Fifth Column

Ernest Hemingway wasn't really known as a playwright; for much the same reason, it turns out, as Eric Pickles isn't really known as a rhythmic gymnast. His only play, The Fifth Column, takes place where it was written, in the only two rooms of the Hotel Florida to be sheltered from bombing, in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Preston (Michael Shelford) and Dorothy (Alix Dunmore) are American war reporters but Rawlings (Simon Darwen) is only posing as one - he's actually a spy working for the International Brigades, and has dangerous suspects locked away in various other rooms of the hotel, although a sleepy soldier (James El-Sharawy) keeps letting them escape, at which point they invariably try to kill Rawlings. Despite this the play very quickly lost my interest; I can't call this a review as I only saw the first act.

Theatre review: Ben Hur

With West End long-runner The 39 Steps finally shutting up shop this year, it could be that the people behind it are hoping to replace it with another iconic film turned into a frantic four-actor comedy. Whether it'll be making a trip to the Criterion is anyone's guess, but for the time being Ben Hur is providing a lot of laughs at the Tricycle, with surely the silliest Christmas show outside of panto. This time Patrick Barlow's script has a touch of The Play That Goes Wrong about it, as we meet Daniel Veil (John Hopkins,) the self-styled theatrical impresario who's written, directed and produced his stage adaptation of General Lewis "Lew" Wallace's biblical novel, and will of course also be taking on the title role. Alix Dunmore, Richard Durden and Ben Jones join him to play everyone else, and to try and keep the constant set and costume changes running smoothly.

Theatre review: London Wall

John Van Druten's London Wall is an ensemble comedy-drama set in a solicitor's office, casting a particular eye on what working life was like for women in the 1930s. Office manager Mr Brewer (Alex Robertson) has tried his luck with most of the typists - currently he's got his eye on newcomer Pat (Maia Alexander,) who doesn't heed the warnings of Miss Janus (Alix Dunmore.) 35 and engaged for 7 years to a foreign diplomat who seems to have lost interest, Miss Janus herself is afraid of becoming an old maid and being stuck in this low-paying job all her life. Meanwhile Miss Hooper (Emily Bowker) is seeing a man who swears he'll leave his wife for her, and Miss Bufton (Cara Theobold) doesn't mind being seen on a different man's arm every night. The personal crises that intrude on office life give a picture of women who may be more independent that the generation before them, but still have to rely on the hope of marriage as an escape from poverty.