Theatre review: The Fair Maid of the West

My first Stratford-upon-Avon trip in six months not to get cancelled due to rail strikes is also my last show of 2023 overall, and what a warm-hearted way to wrap up the year it is. Writer/director Isobel McArthur's The Fair Maid of the West is a (very) loose rewrite of Thomas Heywood's 1631 play, set in the latter days of Elizabeth I's reign when anti-Spanish sentiment was at its peak - you can see what might have attracted McArthur to revisit a time when shifty European types were being blamed for all of England's problems at home. Plymouth barmaid Liz (Amber James) gets framed for murder, and has to accept the help of an over-enthusiastic suitor: The wealthy Spencer's (Philip Labey) family owns a number of taverns, including an abandoned pub in Cornwall she can hide in until he clears her name.

Theatre review: Cymbeline (RSC / RST)

What better way to mark the Coronation than with Shakespeare's late romance about a forgettable king with a dead first wife and a panto villain second wife? The last time the RSC staged Cymbeline they gender-swapped the King and Queen to avoid the cliché of the wicked stepmother. For Gregory Doran's final show as Artistic Director things stay very much as written, because that particular cliché - and the play's extended collection of weird bad guys in general - feed into the production's feel of a dark fairytale. Peter De Jersey plays Cymbeline, the King of Britain who gets all but written out of his own play when he starts to fall ill, suspiciously soon after the new Queen starts brewing him a mysterious health tonic. Alexandra Gilbreath goes full Cruella as the Queen who also advises that the princess Imogen marry her son Cloten (Conor Glean,) so he can inherit the throne should the King suddenly die for some reason.

Theatre review: Snowflake

Mike Bartlett's already on his second Brexit play (third, if you count Love, Love, Love as foreshadowing, which next year's revival will almost certainly feel like.) Like Albion (also returning in 2020) his latest puts the UK's breaking up into factions in microcosm, and Snowflake manages both to create a metaphor and play it literally as a widower longs to reunite with his estranged daughter at Christmas. The play's first act is a monologue until its closing moments, and Bartlett plays with the concept of the unreliable narrator: In an empty church hall on Christmas Eve, Andy (Elliot Levey) rehearses for how he wants to greet his daughter Maya (Ellen Robertson) when he sees her for the first time in three years. Their relationship went sour after her mother died suddenly, and one argument in particular saw her walk out and break off all contact. She's now back in Oxford and Andy's hired out this hall as a neutral space for them to try and restart their relationship.

Theatre review: Vassa

Of course, Vassa isn’t the original title. The full title is Vassa Matter You? (Hey!) Gotta No Respec’?

The last time Mike Bartlett wrote for the Almeida he did it in the style of Chekhov, and he’s back with the Russians now, although this time it’s a direct adaptation. Maxim Gorky’s Vassa Zheleznova turns out to be a play I’ve seen before, although either that adaptation or this one (or both) must be pretty loose, as the stories appear to have some massive differences. Bartlett’s is a claustrophobic family drama: Vassa (Siobhán Redmond) is the matriarch of a wealthy industrial family who rules with an iron fist and absolutely no velvet glove – the tone she’s established for the household is one of undisguised cruelty and personal attacks. It’s not just their business fortunes that are built on blackmail and corruption: Every relationship in the family seems to have come about because Vassa or her henchman Mikhail (Cyril Nri) has dirt on someone, right down to the servants they despise, but who they keep on because they have leverage that means they can treat them like shit.

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream(Regent's Park Open Air Theatre)

After a valiant effort by Richard II at the start of the year, A Midsummer Night's Dream has well and truly come along to replace last year's Macbethorama as 2019's most ubiquitous Shakespeare. The Bridge, Open Air Theatre and Globe are all showing off their Bottoms, and it's the second leg's turn for me as director Dominic Hill is brought in from Glasgow to Regent's Park for a new take on the play that must surely be the venue's most-performed. It's the story of Oberon, King of the Fairies (Kieran Hill) and his plan to humiliate his Queen Titania (Amber James) into giving him a changeling child of hers, with a plot involving a love potion; and the mortals who get caught up in the middle of the chaos when they wander into the woods, including a troupe of amateur actors and a quartet of starcrossed lovers.

Theatre review: Troilus and Cressida (RSC / RST)

The thing about committing to doing the entire works of Shakespeare with no repetition is that at some point you have to knuckle down and do Troilus and Cressida. If you're the RSC you've also got the added pressure of hoping it doesn't get overshadowed by the memory of the last time you attempted it. Artistic Director Gregory Doran has taken the job on himself with a bombastic production that plays a few weeks in the middle of the "T" season, the high concept being that designer Niki Turner has taken inspiration from Mad Max (presumably the Tom Hardy rather than Mel Gibson version, as Agamemnon doesn't take time out to blame the Jews for the Trojan War) and composers Evelyn Glennie and Dave Price have created a cacophonous, percussion-heavy soundtrack that's meant to evoke the noise of a war dragging on indefinitely in the background. It's a clanging, crashing noise that Troilus (Gavin Fowler) is not so much haunted as irritated by after seven years of siege.

Theatre review: Dido, Queen of Carthage

No good deed goes unpunished for Dido, Queen of Carthage in the latest Christopher Marlowe play to get an RSC revival in the Swan. After the fall of Troy, Aeneas (Sandy Grierson) leads the only surviving Trojan warriors on an expedition to create a new colony in Italy. On the way they're shipwrecked on the coast of Libya but Aeneas has friends in high places - his mother is the goddess Venus (Ellie Beaven,) who ensures everyone survives, even if their ships don't. There's more good luck because Libya was an ally of Troy's, and Queen Dido (Chipo Chung) greets the men as honoured guests, offering them lives of honour and luxury in Carthage. This still isn't enough for Venus, though, who wants Dido to give her son her own fleet to replace the one he lost. Being the goddess of love she knows just the way to do it, making Dido fall in love with Aeneas and pledge him her entire navy. The catch is she wants him to stay and be her king.

Theatre review: Antony and Cleopatra (RSC / RST)

The bonkers Titus Andronicus aside, the Roman plays aren't among my favourite Shakespeares, but they're hard to avoid this year: The RSC is basing its entire summer season around them, and only a week after seeing Ivo van Hove's Roman Tragedies I'm in Stratford-upon-Avon for a full take on the play that provided that epic with its climax: Antony and Cleopatra starts with Mark Antony (Antony Byrne,) who was among the victors at the end of Julius Caesar (which I'll be catching, out of order, in a few weeks' time,) as part of a Triumvirate sharing power over the Roman Empire. Lepidus (Patrick Drury) is older and a voice of reason, but the younger Octavius Caesar (Ben Allen) is more unpredictable, and could make a play for sole power if he thinks Antony's no longer up to the task of maintaining an empire.

Theatre review: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and tour)

The "tiny" touring actor-musician Shakespeare productions haven't quite become a casualty of the Globe's new regime as Nick Bagnall returns to direct The Two Gentlemen of Verona, although the home lap of the tour now has a different venue, being squeezed into the Swanamaker rather than the main house. The candlelit Jacobean playhouse is a bit of an odd fit for Katie Sykes' mini-stage and a 1960s-themed take on Proteus (Dharmesh Patel,) who's sworn undying love to Julia (Leah Brotherhead,) but first has to make a trip to Milan to visit his friend Valentine (Guy Hughes,) who's been serving the Duke there. Valentine is in love with the Duke's daughter Sylvia (Aruhan Galieva,) a match he's not considered good enough for, and so the two have planned to elope, a plan he's shared with Proteus.