Theatre review: CARE

Alexander Zeldin's CARE takes place in a care home for the elderly, which Rosanna Vize's set design and James Farncombe's lighting bring to clinically realistic life, but with the odd flicker into something a bit eerier befitting a liminal space between life and death. Joan (Linda Bassett) arrives there after a fall damages her hip, believing that she'll be there for a few days at most until the physical injury recovers. But her daughter Lynn (Rosie Cavaliero) is already looking into making this a more permanent solution, as the accident was in part due to Joan's failing mental health, and the family can no longer trust that she won't be a danger to herself. As she spends her first few weeks in the home, an increasingly confused Joan does find some moments of joy as the residents share their life stories and highlights.

Theatre review: The Tempest (Shakespeare's Globe / Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank)

Hey, you know what's a great way to stop me from spending an entire review of The Tempest ranting about how awful Prospero is? Edit the text so you cut out... more or less everything he does. Yes, for a second year the Globe has added a public performance schedule to the Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank production - essentially a scaled-down version of a play on the curriculum, designed for school parties. Pleasingly, Diane Page's production follows the others I've seen both live and online, in that apart from cutting the script down to a little over 90 minutes, and some particularly shiny and gaudy designs from Moi Tran, this doesn't feel like a "kids'" version and doesn't patronise the audience for a second. The short running time also meant I could stand through it without hospitalising myself, and get to be in the thick of it as groundlings with my goddaughter Evie.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe / Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank)

A familiar annual feature at Shakespeare's Globe has been the Playing Shakespeare With Deutsche Bank production created specially for schools, which gives away thousands of free tickets to students. Its popularity has seen it become increasingly open to general audiences, and after a couple of past productions were made available online during lockdown, this year's has been given an additional few weeks' run after the school parties have seen it. The fact that the shows are heavily edited meant that for the first time ever I felt able to risk a standing ticket among the groundlings without too much fear of putting my back out, so after over a decade seeing most shows at the Globe I finally got to be right at the front of the action, where Rose Revitt's design has added a deep thrust into the yard. As these shows are tied to the school curriculum I don't remember it ever being anything other than Macbeth or Romeo & Juliet, and the fact that this thrust is a blasted heath is a clue as to whose turn it is.