Theatre review: Infamous

For a small studio theatre, albeit a very central one, Jermyn Street Theatre gets to premiere new work by some well-known playwrights; although on recent form there does seem to be a reason these particular works don't find a more mainstream home. The latest is April De Angelis, whose Infamous is a weirdly unenthusiastic look at Georgian celebrity (and regular Blackadder punchline) Emma Hamilton. We first meet Emma (Rose Quentin) in 1798, the young wife of the septuagenarian ambassador to Naples. A former prostitute who climbed the social ladder as mistress to various powerful men, she's already achieved some notoriety as a close friend of the Neapolitan royals, whose influence makes her husband favour them over his own country's interests. But it's nothing compared to the infamy she's got planned.

Theatre review: Jack Absolute Flies Again

For many of us One Man, Two Guvnors is now remembered as the show that stopped us from ever trusting a theatrical ad-lib again, but there's no denying what a huge international hit Richard Bean's rewrite of Carlo Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters was. So it's not surprising if the National Theatre have tried to recreate the alchemy as Bean, now with one of the original Masters, Oliver Chris, on board as co-writer, takes another 18th century comedy and transposes it to more recent history. This time the source material is perhaps the most enduring Restoration Comedy, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, and while it remains to be seen if its financial success can match its predecessor, Jack Absolute Flies Again is certainly a hit in terms of providing laughs when they're most needed. From a flippant world of fops and wigs the scene moves to men and women in a higher-stakes setting, during the aerial Battle of Britain in 1940.

Non-review: The Provoked Wife

Not a review because I'm afraid the curse of Restoration Comedy as directed by anyone-who-isn't-Jessica-Swale strikes again. Under normal circumstances I sit through shows in Stratford-upon-Avon to the bitter end regardless, because I'd only have to wait for my train anyway if I ducked out at the interval, but with today's train schedules all over the place with engineering work I had the chance for an early escape from The Provoked Wife. John Vanbrugh's third play (according to the prologue, in which he apologises for writing so many) opens with the familiar grumbling of Sir John Brute (Jonathan Slinger) about how much he's tired of his wife after two years of marriage. As a result he treats her with such indifference and rudeness that Lady Brute (Alexandra Gilbreath,) who's keen to point out she's never cheated on her husband despite never liking him much, now feels provoked to pursue an affair with his friend Constant (Rufus Hound, mainly delivering his lines when other actors are trying to deliver theirs.)

Theatre review: The Hypocrite

2017 is the year of Hull as UK city of culture, and although they're based in Warwickshire the RSC have got in on the act, co-producing a new commission with Hull Truck Theatre. The city is at the heart of The Hypocrite, which although being written in the style of a Restoration comedy takes its story from true events from well before the Restoration, indeed before there was any need for a Restoration, as the titular character, Sir John Hotham (Mark Addy,) was the Governor of Hull in 1642, just as the Civil War was about to break out. His story was a scandal that put the city at the centre of the action, so it's natural that Hull's best and funniest living playwright should be chosen to tell it. But he must have been busy so they just got Richard Bean in to recycle some of the more successful bits from One Man, Two Guvnors.