Theatre review: Ghosts

Ghosts is probably my favourite Ibsen play and one of the most frequently-produced; both things may or may not be connected to it being comparatively short. In fact while watching Kwame Owusu's production at Jermyn Street I did think maybe I could do with a break from it for a while as I'm a bit too familiar with every beat of the story to be surprised by any of it, although as with Shakespeare there's always the chance to see what particular angle each production will take. In this case the overwhelming feeling is one of sickness, of an atmosphere as steeped in disease as a Southern Rail service at rush hour. And not just because this is The Congenital Syphilis Play. Oswald (Joe Pitts) has returned from art school in Paris to his family's remote Norwegian home for the tenth anniversary of his father's death, to be marked with the opening of an orphanage in his honour.

Theatre review: All's Well That Ends Well (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Caroline Byrne would appear to be the director the Globe turns to when they've got a problem play that needs solving; she previously had to deal with the alleged comedy of The Taming of the Shrew, and now comes indooors to the Swanamaker for a play that belies its title of All's Well That Ends Well. Byrne's production includes the unusual credit of Ben Ormerod as "candle consultant," and perhaps the consultation was over how few candles they could get away with in the playhouse - only two of the chandeliers get lit, and then only for a single scene, with a few small candelabras and handheld candles doing all the work of lighting the action. Fortunately things aren't so murky that it becomes difficult to see what's going on, but they are murky enough to take us into the slightly nightmarish world the play's two leads find themselves in.