Theatre review: Black Comedy

1960s British farces rarely get revived these days, generally because they're built on attitudes and situations that haven't exactly aged well (with the exception of What The Butler Saw, which gets away with it because how horrible those attitudes and situations are is basically the whole point.) But back when I was in school our drama club did a scene from Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy so - about as long after that performance as it was from the play's 1965 debut - I gave the Orange Tree's revival a chance in what I had originally planned to be a weekend of Shaffer, pairing it with his more famous Equus. This is a much less violent affair, other than in the slapstick sense: The high concept is that the play begins in what the audience sees as complete darkness, but in which the characters can see perfectly well.

Theatre review: Three Sisters

Last winter season saw the Swanamaker take a successful first crack at Ibsen; this year, and in the annual onstage appearance by the Artistic Director, Shakespeare's Globe adds Chekhov to the repertory. In a remote part of Russia the titular Three Sisters live in the house their father bought when he was appointed commander of the resident military garrison. A year after his death, his children are still there, talking about moving back to Moscow but tied to the area by a few circumstances. Over the next five years, instead of freeing themselves from them, they'll end up with ever more reasons they can't escape the depressing small town they only ever thought was a stopgap. Olga is the eldest, the schoolteacher who has little love for the job and certainly doesn't see it as a career she'll progress in.

Theatre review: We Want You To Watch

Rashdash and Alice Birch don't want you to watch, actually. Porn, that is, although a warning against this show might have been more helpful all round. Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland play two women on a mission, and as soon as they figure out exactly what that mission is I'm sure they'll let us know, but the main thing is they really don't like porn. It's violent pornography in particular they have an issue with, but just to be safe they'd like to get rid of all types, and possibly all of society, and replace it with ??????? We Want You To Watch opens at least with something resembling logic, albeit a spurious kind: The pair are interviewing a man (Lloyd Everitt) with a porn addiction and a particular preference for violent rape fantasies. He's suspected of murdering and mutilating a young woman in ways that mirror his favourite videos. There's no proof though, and the women's initially confident case falls apart.

Theatre review: The Broken Heart

I'd struggle to explain the plot of The Broken Heart; then again I suspect John Ford would have trouble getting his head round it as well, and he wrote it. The final installment in this year's main Swanamaker season (the Young Players show is still to come,) it sees Orgilus (Brian Ferguson) and Penthea (Amy Morgan) contracted to be married, but when her father dies Penthea's brother Ithocles (Luke Thompson) forces her to marry the much older Bassanes (Owen Teale) instead. Penthea eventually forgives her brother for denying her her true love, but Orgilus never does, and even as they get caught up in numerous other intrigues around the court, nurses a grudge that will end in bloody revenge. Bassanes instantly becomes paranoid about his young bride's faithfulness, and his main fear is that she'll have an incestuous affair with her own brother, because presumably he knows he's in a John Ford play but isn't sure which one.

Theatre review: Unusual Unions

Yet another collection of short plays to include a contribution from the ubiquitous Tom Wells, this is a one-day event playing a total of two performances only, and commissioned by the Royal Court as one of a number of companion pieces to their main-house show The Mistress Contract. Inspired by that piece's unorthodox relationship, five writers have been asked to come up with something on the theme of Unusual Unions, and each one of them has contributed, in my opinion, something far superior to the main event. The way this promenade show works is actually very similar to I Do: The audience is colour-coded into "teams," who are led round the building to various areas, so the order anyone saw the plays in is fairly arbitrary and varies from group to group. So, as part of the green team Phill, Andy and I started by being taken to an unused Downstairs dressing room, for Rebecca Lenkiewicz's Anhedonia, directed by Simon Godwin. We meet a girl (Rona Morison) wearing a hijab, although not for the reasons we might expect. A violent incident has left her in a very dark place and interestingly, in contrast to the dramatic cliche, her encounter with the friendly foreman (Nathan Osgood) of a building site she's walked into doesn't leave her in a good place exactly, but it does make her that one step closer to coping. The subtle use of changing pronouns is a clever way of showing how the story develops in Lenkiewicz's powerful little piece.

Theatre review: Talk Show

After last week's all-female show, an all-male cast rounds off the Royal Court's weekly rep season, although a couple of absent women do loom large in Alistair McDowall's Talk Show, which Caroline Steinbeis directs. Three generations of unemployed men share a small house in an unnamed town that's been badly hit by the recession. Bill (Ferdy Roberts) has moved into the living room to let his ageing father Ron (Alan Williams) have his bedroom, while the basement is occupied by Bill's 26-year-old son Sam (Ryan Sampson.) With little else to do, Sam hosts a YouTube talk show every night, interviewing locals for the benefit of eight viewers (on a good night.) After one of these shows has wrapped up, a filthy, half-naked man (Jonjo O'Neill) crawls in through the basement window: It's his uncle Jonah, who's been missing for five years, and now wants Sam to hide him there for a while.

Theatre review: Mint

Director Clare Lizzimore tries her hand at playwrighting (and immediately makes it into my good books by not attempting to pull double duty and direct it herself.) Instead Caroline Steinbeis directs Mint, this week's offering from the Royal Court's rep season. Mint is the name of the colour of paint in Alan's jail cell, and he chose it himself - one of the few times during his lengthy incarceration that he had any small measure of control. The exact nature of Alan's crime is revealed later on, but we know from the off that it's something pretty serious - he's behind bars for several years and he starts off in a maximum security prison, although good behaviour sees him moved elsewhere down the line. Sam Troughton may never have been more intense than as the man whose supposed rehabilitation we follow from the end of the last millennium into the start of this one.

Theatre review: A Time to Reap

The Royal Court's having another of its international seasons, which this year takes us to Poland, and Anna Wakulik's A Time to Reap, which looks at the influence of the Catholic Church via a love triangle that keeps things in the family. Jan (Owen Teale) is a gynaecologist whose business suddenly thrives when Poland passes an anti-abortion law, and he makes a fortune performing them secretly after hours. One patient is 17-year-old Marysia (Sinéad Matthews,) a girl from the small rural town where he used to take his son on holiday. After terminating a pregnancy that was the result of Marysia's fling with a priest at Catholic camp, Jan takes her on as his assistant and, soon enough, lover. Eight years later, when Jan's son Piotr (Max Bennett) resurfaces, he invites Marysia to London with him, and soon she has need of his father's services again.