Theatre review: John

Annie Baker's playwrighting style can be at times understated to the point of eccentricity, but 2016's production of The Flick obviously found an audience at the National as her latest, John - even the title now understated and cryptic - also comes to the Dorfman, and to me at least feels like something a bit more special even than the lauded last play. Elias (Tom Mothersdale) was an American Civil War geek as a child, so when a road trip home after Thanksgiving takes them near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he persuades his girlfriend Jenny (Anneika Rose) that they should stop off there for a couple of days so he can visit the historic battlefields. Already much less enthusiastic about trekking through freezing cornfields than her boyfriend is, when Jenny gets a particularly painful period she ends up letting him go out alone, staying behind at the bed and breakfast with its colourful owner.

Theatre review: Richard II (Shakespeare's Globe)

Back to the Globe for the second night in a row, and right back to the beginning of the octet that ends with Richard III. In fact I can now say I've seen all of Shakespeare's Histories at this venue, now that Richard II has been added to the list. Charles Edwards plays King Richard, who was crowned as a child - in fact Simon Godwin's production opens with the additional scene of the young Richard's (Thomas Ashdown or Frederick Neilson) coronation. On a golden throne on a golden stage, he's showered with golden confetti that'll probably be stuck in the theatre's nooks and crannies for years to come (I know from groundlings that it's been stuck in their nooks and crannies for a while.) All this bling is in honour of a king who's grown up with the certain knowledge that his power is god-given, and who behaves accordingly. But when he banishes and disinherits his cousin Bolingbroke (David Sturzaker,) he finds that he's pushed the wrong man around.

Theatre review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is Rufus Norris' final directing job at the National before he takes over as its artistic director, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's typical of what's to come from a director who's always had a very global perspective. The part of the world we're taken to by David Hare's play, based on the non-fiction book by Katherine Boo, is the Annawadi slum outside Mumbai, near its ever-expanding airport. On the other side are a number of luxury hotels, their guests shielded from the poverty by advertising billboards offering, among other things, "a beautiful forever." While India's economy booms, the residents of Annawadi are at the bottom of the food chain: The neighbourhood's chief industry is collecting and sorting litter, so it can be sold on for recycling. And even in this business rivalries cause a lot of animosity, as the Husain family's fast turnaround is leaving less work for others.

Theatre review: The Empress

When did the House of Commons get its first Indian-born MP? I suspect most people wouldn't guess 1892, when Dadabhai Naoroji was elected MP for Finsbury Central, serving for 3 years. (Of course we'd already had a Jewish Prime Minister by then so perhaps a bit of diversity in the Victorian Houses of Parliament isn't that surprising.) Naoroji shows up as a supporting character in Tanika Gupta's The Empress, which shows South Asian people being a familiar sight in London long before the 1950s' wave of immigration. It opens with a ship arriving from India, two of whose passengers we'll be following: Abdul Karim (Tony Jayawardena) has been sent as a gift to Queen Victoria, a manservant to serve her breakfast. His air of superiority antagonises much of the royal family and household staff, but the Queen (Beatie Edney) is charmed by Karim, promoting him to be her "Munshi" or teacher, to teach her Hindi and about the country she's Empress of but has never visited.