Theatre review: Trelawny of the Wells

It doesn't seem like Joe Wright is a man to do things by halves. An award-winning film director, he has no previous stage directing credits but has jumped straight in at the deep end, planning two consecutive theatre productions. First up is Arthur Wing Pinero's "love letter to the theatre," Trelawny of the Wells, opening Josie Rourke's second full year at the Donmar Warehouse. The comedy sees Rose Trelawny (Amy Morgan) as part of two different kinds of family: As Trelawny of the Wells she's a popular leading lady in a repertory company, but she's leaving the theatre to marry the well-off Arthur (Joshua Silver.) But before she's allowed to do so she must pass the test of living with his grandfather Sir William (Ron Cook) and great-aunt Trafalgar (Maggie Steed,) and her casual, actressy behaviour doesn't make fans of them.

Theatre review: The Magistrate

Things haven't gone smoothly this year for the National's annual Christmas extravaganza: After taking the unusual, for them, step of putting tickets for The Count of Monte Cristo on sale nearly six months in advance, they then had to refund them when they decided the adaptation wasn't ready. Instead Timothy Sheader, who had been down to direct that show, was put in charge of a starry production of Arthur Wing Pinero's Victorian farce The Magistrate. When widow Agatha (Nancy Carroll) met the amiable magistrate Posket (John Lithgow) on holiday, she knocked five years off her age to seem more marriageable. Now they're married and back in London, Agatha's spotted a flaw in her plan: Her son Cis (Joshua McGuire,) whose fondness for port, cigarettes and groping his piano teacher (Sarah Ovens) seems a bit mature for a 14-year-old. That's because to make her lie work, his mother also knocked five years of Cis' age, and he's really 19.