Theatre review: Jews. In Their Own Words.

When the Royal Court announced Jonathan Freedland's Jews. In Their Own Words. as the opener for its autumn season, my brain autocorrected the title to Jews. Please Don't Boycott Us. After last year's antisemitism fiasco it was pretty obvious that this was an attempt at a mea culpa from the venue, and while there's definitely something to be said for not dragging their feet about addressing the issue, ten months since that happened seems a very quick turnaround for a theatre where scripts can percolate for years. (For anyone not up to speed: Rare Earth Mettle was meant to feature a shifty billionaire called Hershel Fink. Having seen the play, I'd say playwright Al Smith was probably going for something with the vague cadences of "Elon Musk," but he actually landed on a hugely stereotypical Jewish name, paired with an equally stereotypical moneybags character. When the play opened in previews and caused offence, the name was changed, but further controversy came with reports that some people had highlighted the connotations and been ignored.)

Theatre review: Almost Near

Artist Louise (Kate Miles) is planning a comeback exhibition, its centrepiece a sculpture of four British soldiers, dead from horrific injuries in Afghanistan. She insists, though, that the war is not the piece's real subject, merely a backdrop. I suspect this is a clue of sorts from playwright Pamela Carter about the thinking behind Almost Near, which features many scenes in Helmand Province, but may really be most concerned with a troubled family somewhere back in suburban England. As she plans to relaunch herself into the art world after a decade raising her son, Louise's relationship with husband Ed (Michael Sheldon) falls apart. Their scenes are interspersed with the real-life version of her sculpture: Four soldiers wake up after being bombed in Helmand. As they wonder how they could have survived their terrible injuries, they start to realise that they didn't.