Theatre review: The Roundabout

Continuing my current theatrical theme of obscurities from big names, J.B. Priestley's third play The Roundabout is largely forgotten, but anything by the author of An Inspector Calls is usually worth taking a bet on. Actually, if the publicity had reminded me at the time I booked, as it does now, that Priestley was also the author of When We Are Married I might not have bothered, and we're very much in the realm of the latter play here, in a dusty comedy of manners. Fifteen years before An Inspector Calls, class inequalities are already a subject Priestley looks into, but Communism is more of a punchline than a matter for discussion here. Lord Kettlewell's (Brian Protheroe) finances are in freefall, but it hasn't stopped him from sticking to his usual routine of having guests - both invited and uninvited - at his country pile for the weekend. Among them is his mistress Hilda (Carol Starks,) as he's been separated from his wife for the last decade.

Theatre review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This is another show enjoying a Broadway-style long preview period.

I didn't grow up reading C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, and my exposure to the stories as an adult hasn't made me a fan - I find the Christian allegory thunderingly unsubtle and the characters unlikeable. But the creative team of director Rupert Goold, Michael Fentiman (then assistant director, now promoted to share director credit with Goold,) designer Tom Scutt (whose 13 set I sort of wanted to marry) and composer Adam Cork (also of London Road fame) somehow made me love one of my least favourite Shakespeares, Romeo and Juliet. So could they perform a similar feat with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? No. I was at least hoping some of the religious "sub"text might be toned down a bit but from the opening where Lucy (Rebecca Benson) stands alone on stage to ask the audience if they believe in life after death, this was clearly not to be.