Theatre review: Grace Pervades

Playing in the West End at the same time as one of his earlier plays that's starting to show its age, David Hare's latest one consciously harks back to an even older tradition of performance than Teeth'N'Smiles: Grace Pervades centres on the most celebrated actress of the Victorian theatre, Ellen Terry (Miranda Raison) and her longstanding professional and personal relationship with actor-manager Henry Irving (Rafe "Ralph" Fiennes.) The latter chose her as his leading lady when he was setting up his own theatre company, convincing her to come out of retirement after she'd decided she would never be as good an actress as her sister. But once they start working together it's Terry who has the bigger impact on him, helping an actor who was admired for his intensity but criticised for his stiffness, to find a style with more connection to castmates and audiences alike.

Theatre review: Richard II (Bridge Theatre)

Never mind his global fanbase post-Bridgerton and Wicked, those of us who frequent London theatre have wanted to see Jonathan Bailey's Dick for years. Bailey returns to Shakespeare and to director Nicholas Hytner for the Bridge's in-the-round Richard II, in which a capricious king who has never doubted his divine right to rule has tanked England's finances, raising money for wars that never happen, then spending it on himself while the country's military reputation becomes an embarrassment. The Lords might put up with this to avoid upending centuries of tradition, but Richard makes the mistake of making things personal: Intervening in a dispute between Henry Bullingbrook (Royce Pierreson) and Thomas Mowbray (Phoenix Di Sebastiani,) he banishes both - essentially for disrespecting him. He later adds injury to insult when Henry's father John of Gaunt (Nick Sampson) dies, and Richard commandeers his inheritance to finance one of his doomed expeditions.

Theatre review: Giant

I know I say it all the time but here comes another play set in the past that feels alarmingly relevant to the present: No, not a beloved children's author turning out to be a bit fash, but Israeli attacks on Palestine and Lebanon that draw out arguments on both sides, and the question of how to criticise the actions of a state created for a specific religion, without criticising the religion itself. Not that this was a particular concern for Roald Dahl: Mark Rosenblatt's Giant is set in 1983, when the author was under fire for publishing a review of a book about Middle Eastern politics, in which his criticism of Israel's actions came couched in much broader Antisemitic sentiment. We meet Dahl (John Lithgow) in cranky mood, where it seems his biggest concerns are the noisy remodelling of his house, and his suspicion that illustrator Quentin Blake is getting a larger share of his royalties than he deems fair.

Theatre review: Straight Line Crazy

Playwright David Hare, actor Ralph Fiennes and director Nicholas Hytner reunite at the Bridge Theatre where they last collaborated on Beat the Devil; that one was a monologue, and while Straight Line Crazy surrounds Fiennes with a large cast, it can sometimes feel just as much of a one-man show. Certainly the true story it tells, of a man whose influence changed the face of America's cities in the twentieth century, seems a fascinating one: Robert Moses (Fiennes) was an urban planner, although he hated the term because it implied a lot of theory, not action, and he was determined to get things done regardless of whether the people they impacted wanted them or not. In the first act we meet him in the 1920s, pushing through his plans for Long Island: A playground for the rich, he intends to open up its parks and beaches to the public of New York by building roads, giving them a break in the leisure time the workers are now starting to see as a right.

Stage-to-screen review: Phèdre

A new year starts much as the old one ended, in lockdown and with theatres trying their best to remain not only above water financially, but alive in the public's minds. Most high-profile has been the National Theatre, which late last year launched a major new international streaming platform, NTatHome. Of their initial selection of shows available, I've already seen everything except their kids' offering I Want My Hat Back, but if I was going to revisit one I'd already seen and reviewed, Nicholas Hytner's Helen Mirren-starring production of Phèdre would seem the obvious choice: It dates from 2009, making it the oldest recording currently on the service, which means that with over a decade since seeing this live I can treat it more or less with fresh eyes (all I really remembered was that Dominic Cooper's attempt to give "Phèdre" the correct French pronunciation ended up with him repeatedly calling the leading lady "veg.")

Theatre review: Mary Poppins

Disney© seem to have well and truly moved into the Prince Edward Theatre, as no sooner has Aladdin ended its run than Mary Poppins is back at the same theatre where this version of P L Travers' stories debuted in 2004. This is the Julian Fellowes adaptation which uses familiar songs from the film by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, rearranged by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe who also provide a few new numbers of their own. Zizi Strallen (part of the Z-series of Strallens that also includes Zeppo, Zumba and Zermajesty) takes over the iconic title role of the magical nanny who flies in out of nowhere one day to take care of Jane (Ellie Kit Jones, alternating with Adelaide Barham, Imogen Bourn, Charlotte Breen and Nuala Peberdy) and Michael (Edward Walton, alternating with Joseph Duffy, Samuel Newby, Gabriel Payne and Fred Wilcox) Banks.

Theatre review: Alys, Always

For Nicholas Hytner’s latest project at his own theatre he directs Alys, Always, Lucinda Coxon’s adaptation of Harriet Lane’s novel that plays out like a low-key (very low-key) Talented Mr Ripley - a book that’s name-checked in the play itself. In fact lots of books get name-checked as Frances (Joanne Froggatt) works at a Sunday broadsheet with a dwindling readership, a sub-editor on the book reviews section but, if she’s noticed at all, treated as a glorified gopher by the more dominant personalities on her team. Driving home at night after Christmas at her parents’, she witnesses a car accident and sits with the injured driver waiting for the ambulance. She ends up being with the driver, Alys, when she dies, and a few weeks later the family ask to meet Frances so she can tell them about her last moments in person. Frances doesn’t think it’s a good idea until she realises who the family are.

Theatre review: Allelujah!

A couple of things worth getting out of the way straight away: Alan Bennett's latest play is his best since The History Boys. Not necessarily the biggest compliment considering the reception to The Habit of Art and especially People, but if Allelujah! isn't the 84-year-old's best-ever work* it certainly doesn't disappoint. The second thing that needs saying is that underneath a hugely entertaining surface this is an unapologetically angry, political play. For all that AB has a reputation as a cosy, cuddly National Treasure who doesn't like being called a National Treasure, his work has always had this sharpness - the quintessential Englishness† of his work always tempered with anger and frustration at what he sees eroding his idea of what makes the country worth celebrating. In Allelujah! that anger is never not tangibly bubbling under the comedy and tragedy of his epic hospital story.

Theatre review: My Name is Lucy Barton

Ladies and gentlemen, LAURA MOTHERFUCKING LINNEY.

I’m still not sure any more review is actually necessary for My Name is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout’s short novel adapted into a stage monologue by Rona Munro and directed by Richard Eyre at the Bridge Theatre. Bob Crowley’s simple set is a hospital room, where writer Lucy spent nine weeks in the early eighties after an appendectomy went wrong. She looks back on that time now, specifically the day that her estranged mother suddenly appeared at the foot of her bed – Lucy’s husband had asked her to come and paid for the air fare, otherwise she wouldn’t have visited. It sends her on a disjointed recollection of her childhood in rural Illinois, where the family were so poor she would stay late at school because it was better-heated than their house. The effect of this extra study time was a scholarship to university, where she met her future husband and moved with him to New York.

Theatre review: The Inheritance

While the National's production of Angels in America has been sent back home to New York, London now gets in return a play that draws inevitable comparisons to it: Matthew Lopez is in effect following the next generation of New York gay men, in an epic play that also pushes at the seven-hour mark and is split into two parts. But The Inheritance has an unexpected way of avoiding the comparison with Tony Kushner's plays, as it also has a close connection to another famous work, being a surprisingly faithful adaptation of E.M. Forster's Howards End. Forster himself appears in the play, the story's framing device seeing his ghost (Paul Hilton) lead a creative writing class of young gay men looking for a way to tell their own stories, and settling on his novel as the framework. Eric Glass (Kyle Soller) is a gay man in his mid-thirties who befriends the older Walter (Hilton,) long-term partner to a billionaire property developer.

Theatre review: Pinocchio

Going by the last couple of offerings, Rufus Norris' vision for Christmas family shows at the National involves the most familiar stories being given unfamiliar stagings. If I wasn't really sold on a vision of Peter Pan as "quite looking forward to getting his bus pass," this year's interpretation of Pinocchio as "Joe Idris-Roberts with his nips out" is perhaps a more likely fit to my interests. And the story itself, a pretty dark one at heart and much less frequently staged, is closer to my liking of the more gothic side of children's stories. Adaptor Dennis Kelly and director John Tiffany certainly seem to agree, with a disorientating production: This saw me return to the theatre after a few days of being too ill to go out and having to miss some shows I was really keen on, and perhaps there could be no better fit when I'm still feeling a bit wobbly, as Pinocchio has always had a touch of the fever-dream to it.

Theatre review: The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams' most overtly autobiographical play is probably my favourite, which is just as well as it's also the one I've seen most often - John Tiffany's production of The Glass Menagerie is my fourth, and comes to London after acclaimed runs in New York and Edinburgh. Tom (Michael Esper) is the narrator, unreliable by his own admission, of a memory from his youth in St Louis living with his mother and sister, his father having long sonce absconded. His sister Laura (Kate O'Flynn) has a slight limp, and in her teens was ill with pleurisy for a long time, and both have been magnified in her mind - she became shy to the point that it's now a crippling mental illness. At the play's opening, their mother Amanda (Cherry Jones) discovers that Laura has been lying about going to a typing course for the last few weeks - she had a panic attack after a couple of days and dropped out.

Theatre review: Disney's© Aladdin®

When the Lyric Hammersmith took the frankly bizarre step of not only announcing but also putting on sale their 2016 pantomime when their 2015 one had barely opened, I couldn't help wondering if they were getting in quick before Disney© came to town, in case they announced that Aladdin® would henceforth be theirs and theirs alone to stage. After their films of Beauty and the Beast™ and most successfully The Lion King™ became stage shows, I did wonder why the 1992 Aladdin® was taking so long to join them, as it always seemed very innately theatrical to me. It finally has and now comes over to the West End, with the cartoon's well-loved original songs by Alan Menken©, Tim Rice^DAME and the late Howard Ashman© joined by a few new numbers* from Menken with lyrics by Chad Beguelin™, who also provides the book. Although it's years since I saw the film it's one of my favourite Disney© cartoons so I've seen it a lot of times, and can tell this stage adaptation sticks pretty close to the script.

Theatre review: The Hard Problem

For Nicholas Hytner's final directing job as Artistic Director of the National, he gets one of the biggest-name writers alive to return to the stage after nine years' absence: Tom Stoppard returns to the ways academic theory interacts with people's real emotional landscapes, this time investigating the difference between the brain and the mind. We follow psychologist Hilary (Olivia Vinall) over a few years during which she keeps being troubled by the question of, if the brain is simply a collection of matter, what is consciousness, and how do we determine what has it? We first meet her as a student, and her tutor and on-off lover Spike (Big Favourite Round These Parts Damien Molony) has no doubt that the sense of self is one of many quirks of evolution, and is impatient at Hilary's more spiritual angle, that even takes in prayer. But when she gets a job with Leo (Jonathan Coy,) he encourages her interest in what is termed The Hard Problem.

Theatre review: Skylight

Two people whose lives are going in opposite directions met and, for a few years, were very important to each other. In David Hare's Skylight they meet again a few years later for a night dealing with unfinished business. From humble beginnings Tom (Bill Nighy) opened a restaurant that became a chain and a thriving business, and he uses his wealth ostentatiously: He's chauffeur-driven everywhere, has a luxurious new house and enjoys giving extravagant gifts to friends and family. Kyra (Carey Mulligan) is a young woman who works long hours teaching in a rough East London school, and lives in a grubby council flat a long bus commute from work. A few years back she worked in Tom's business, as well as having a long-standing affair with the older man. Although her relationship to his family, it turns out, was a bit more complex than that.

Theatre review: Once

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Press Night for Once is tomorrow night.

Has the latest Broadway musical import timed its arrival in the West End as well as it could have? A multiple Tony-winning hit in New York, where it's still running, Once may have it all to do to get noticed above the sound of The Book of Mormon. But perhaps the cult fanbase of John Carney's original movie will give Enda Walsh's adaptation a push - tonight's Monday preview was pretty packed (although of course I can't tell how many in the audience had paid full price.) John Tiffany brings to the stage an Irish Guy (Declan Bennett,) a vacuum cleaner repairman and busker who's recently had his heart broken and is ready to ditch his musical dreams when he meets a Girl (Zrinka Cvitešić.) A Czech whose husband returned home, leaving her in Dublin with her family and young daughter, the Girl falls for the Guy's music and convinces him to stick with it, helping him build up a band out of friends and relatives so he can record a demo CD.

Theatre review: The Dark Earth and the Light Sky

I'm all for giving people second chances, and at £8 for the Almeida's behind-a-pillar obstructed view seats, it's not as big a gamble as it might be. Because while the National's adaptation of Frankenstein was one of last year's biggest theatrical blockbusters, you'd be hard pushed to find someone who thought Nick Dear's script (o we are poor but happy and in love i do hope a monster doesn't suddenly turn up and kill us how tragically ironic that would be) was a factor in its success. Dear's new play has to make do without the bells and whistles of the Olivier's stage, star casting and direction. Instead The Dark Earth and the Light Sky rocks up at the Almeida with a pretty bare stage, Bob Crowley's design giving us an earth-covered playing area, conjuring up perhaps the native British soil in whose defence the early 20th century poet Edward Thomas enlisted in WWI, ultimately leading to his death.