Theatre review: Either

Do the box office at Hampstead Theatre keep a nightly record of how people pronounce Either when collecting their tickets, and take bets on which pronunciation will win every night? And if not, WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT OF ANYTHING?

Two consecutive trips to Hampstead Theatre wasn't exactly planned but it's not always easy to space things out in my diary, especially when a season is announced at late as this one was. Still, it makes for an interesting way to judge a new Artistic Director's mission statement to make a kind of double bill of the launch shows in both the main and studio spaces, and Either certainly suggests Roxana Silbert won't want to be left behind when theatre starts experimenting with changing ways of looking at the world. Specifically, in this instance, the changing understanding of what gender is and how it affects people's interactions: Ruby Thomas' play is about a couple, but is explicitly genderless - a stage direction projected onto Bethany Wells' set at the start insists that the two characters can and should be played by any and all genders.

Theatre review: Trust

My first visit to the Gate since Ellen McDougall took over as artistic director, and as soon as you get into the building you can tell she’s kept one of her predecessor’s innovations and taken it to the next level: Christopher Haydon introduced the idea of commissioning artists to decorate the staircase and front-of-house with artworks that reflected the current production, and Jude Christian’s production of Trust, designed by Bethany Wells, is in its entirety an art installation. Wells has turned FOH into a building site, the future home of some luxury development, while sound designer Ben Ringham has installed a recording of a Spanish language lesson in the toilets. Christian’s own installation is, essentially, the director herself – she’s set up a bedroom at the edge of the auditorium and has moved into it for the duration of the play’s run, and also appears in the show as one of the performers alongside Pia Laborde Noguez and Zephryn Taitte.

Theatre review: Correspondence

In Lucinda Burnett’s Correspondence it's 2011, and 16-year-old Ben's (Joe Attewell) parents have recently divorced. His time is spent between the two houses, but one constant in his life is the amount of time he spends playing X-Box Live. A wannabe journalist who edits, writes, and is most likely the sole reader of his school paper, he's socially awkward with no friends in real life, but online he talks most nights with his friend Jibreel (Ali Ariaie) in Syria. A news junkie, Ben's heard of the unrest that's starting to brew there and uses his time playing Call of Duty to get the inside track from his online friend - ostensibly for an article, but probably more because he's started to feel personally invested in the conflict. So when Jibreel stops answering his calls just after there's news of teenagers disappearing, Ben panics.

Theatre review: My Eyes Went Dark

I don't know if it's the fact that there's multiple Oresteias in London at the moment, but I saw something of that tragedy in microcosm in Matthew Wilkinson's My Eyes Went Dark. Here, too, the death of a child - or children - sets off a cycle of blame and revenge that, in a more heightened theatrical style, would have meant generations of bloodshed. But here the initial tragic events are kicked off by accident rather than cold calculation, and the avenging Fury is a man who allows his grief to become his entire personality. Nikolai (Cal MacAninch) comes from a remote part of Russia, but is working abroad when his wife and children, en route to visit him, are killed in a plane crash. Within hours of the accident, he's seeking someone to blame for his loss, and when it turns out an overworked air traffic controller made a mistake, Nikolai develops an obsession with him.

Theatre review: The Immortal Hour

How important is it to create atmosphere before a show starts? The Immortal Hour takes place in a spooky enchanted wood, and as the audience enters the Finborough is lit by very low green-and-blue lights. It certainly creates atmosphere, although it's mainly one of confusion, as people struggled to find an empty seat in the near-darkness¹, and one lady tried to sit down in the aisle next to me, falling over and needing me and one of the musicians to help her back to her feet. Still, the forest in Rutland Boughton and Fiona Macleod's operetta is a dangerous one, and how better to establish that than by crippling the audience? Macleod was, in fact, a man called William Sharp, and Fiona seems to have been a fully-fledged alter-ego rather than just a pen-name. The bio notes are a bit vague on whether Sharp actually left the house dressed as Fiona, but he seems to have convinced W.B. Yeats among others that he was two different people. Part of Fiona's persona was as an expert on Celtic mythology, which is what she brings to this libretto.

Theatre review: 17

It got two shows into my Top Ten last year, but it has to be said lately the Finborough's productions haven't really been grabbing my attention. Getting a short run after a reading at last year's Vibrant festival, Dameon Garnett's 17 sees teenager Scott (Ryan Blackburn) moving in with his birth mother Lisa (Catherine Harvey) and her family after his adopted mother dies. Desperate to get Scott to instantly fit in to their routine, Lisa becomes over-eager, getting him to share a bedroom with her younger son Leo (Greg Fossard) and trying to get him straight back into school. But as the fact that he's stolen his adopted mother's ashes and is hiding them will attest to, Scott isn't ready to move on yet, and while the two half-brothers gradually start to become friends, Lisa and her husband Daniel (Paul Regan) start to feel the strain.