Theatre review: Dear Octopus

An obscure rediscovery seems to have been a hit at the Lyttelton as Emily Burns directs Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus, a sprawling family drama set over the weekend of Dora (Lindsay Duncan) and Charles Randolph's (Malcolm Sinclair) golden anniversary. The sort of family who describe themselves as ordinary because they don't have a coat of arms, they assemble at the large country house built by Charles' grandfather. Over the weekend we see four generations of the family who've been raised in this house - three of them by the same nanny. Of the couple's six children four survive - the eldest son died in the First World War, while one daughter died of undisclosed causes. The others juggle various successes and neuroses: Margery (Amy Morgan) is trying to control her warring children, Hilda (Jo Herbert) manages to balance a successful job as an estate agent with her OCD, and Cynthia (Bethan Cullinane) works for a Paris fashion house, although rumour has it she's been in France for so long because she's concealing a scandal in her personal life.

Theatre review: Scarlett

Scarlett (Kate Ashfield) is, or at least was until recently, a successful businesswoman with her own home furnishings shop. For reasons unknown, modern life becomes too much for her and she flees London, disappearing for a week before her mother Bette (Joanna Bacon) and daughter Lydia (Bethan Cullinane) track her down to a remote part of Wales. She plans to sell her shop, buy a chapel on a farm and do it up as her new home. One week in the country has made Scarlett a lot happier in herself, and after a bumpy start she's become close to the farm's owner Eira (Lynn Hunter) and her granddaughter Billy (Gaby French.) But Bette and Lydia are horrified with her decision, and are worried she needs to be hospitalised immediately for the sake of her mental health.

Theatre review: Cymbeline (RSC / RST & Barbican)

Shakespeare's fevered crack dream of Roman Britain, Cymbeline has come back into vogue lately; the programme notes for the RSC's latest take suggest it's because the context of England in an uncomfortable co-dependent relationship with mainland Europe strikes a chord in the year of the EU referendum. And so director Melly Still and designer Anna Fleischle conjure up a dystopian near-future in which, left to its own devices, Britain has used up its natural resources, the only remaining hint of nature in Cymbeline's court the trunk of a chopped-down tree encased in glass (now a 2016 theatrical meme, what with the similar idea in Elegy.) Innogen (Bethan Cullinane,) daughter of Queen Cymbeline (Gillian Bevan) has secretly married childhood sweetheart Posthumus (Hiran Abeysekera,) a match that enrages her mother, who promptly banishes her new son-in-law.

Theatre review: Hamlet (RSC / RST)

A few duff Hamlets in recent years haven't quite shaken my belief that Shakespeare's best-loved play deserves its reputation if only because of how infinitely adaptable it can be; but it always helps to have a great production come along and justify my faith in what is probably the play I've seen more times than any other. The latest RSC Hamlet is a particularly stark contrast to their last one three years ago: Where David Farr's production was intellectual, clinical, relentlessly bleak and ultimately dull, Simon Godwin's new take is playful, emotional and colourful - literally so in Paul Wills' design, as Paapa Essiedu's Hamlet expresses his "antic disposition" with furious, expressive and very messy painting.

Re-review: King Lear (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

When I saw the Globe's small-scale touring King Lear last year, the American teenagers sitting behind me were beyond thrilled to be seeing Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as the King. So it's apt that this year's tour will take in a number of US venues, as Joseph Marcell returns to Bill Buckhurst's production, and hopefully more teenagers will find a love of Shakespeare through a beloved figure from their childhood TV. I rarely return to a production unless it's outstanding, but the Globe feels like such a major part of my summer it tends to get a free pass, and although not perfect this Lear was good enough for another look. I did economise on the high prices by trying out the slightly cheaper, restricted view Gentlemen's Room seats; it was a good choice and I'll probably repeat it next year, as I avoided getting a seat too far round so didn't spend the whole time looking at the backs of the actors' heads.

Theatre review: King Lear (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

King Lear divides his kingdom between the two of his daughters who flatter him the most, banishing the third for her refusal to play the courtly game. But words turn out to mean little when all your power's gone, and when Goneril and Regan refuse him the honours he still expects, Lear is cast out to the elements. Storms, war and madness bring the former king down to man at his most basic level, and in the process he learns what it means to be human. Following Hamlet and As You Like It in past years, King Lear is the latest play to get the patented Shakespeare's Globe stripped-down treatment, in a touring production that this week pitches up on home ground. Eight actors plus two musicians, 1940s costumes and a lot of doubling are used to tell one of Shakespeare's best-known stories.

Theatre review: The Rest Is Silence

The latest radical reworking of a familiar text as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, dreamthinkspeak's The Rest Is Silence is a "meditation on Hamlet" (I know, but achingly pretentious publicity doesn't always mean an achingly pretentious show; just most of the time.) A promenade production, it puts the audience in the middle of a room surrounded by glass screens, like an aquarium. The tanks behind the screens light up in turn to reveal an Elsinore conceived as a gleaming modern luxury apartment. (There's also a persistent smell of rotting rubbish, but I don't think that's part of the design, just that Riverside Studios has the audience enter via an alley by the bins.)