Theatre review: All My Sons

Outside of Belgium and the Netherlands, it was A View From The Bridge that really announced Ivo van Hove as a big-name director, and more than a decade later he returns to Arthur Miller in a production that mirrors a lot of what made that show distinctive, without feeling like an outright copy. In fact visually this seems, if not a complete change of aesthetic, definitely freed from the very strict house style that has sometimes felt like a straitjacket in recent years. So An D'Huys' costumes are timeless rather than aggressively, anachronistically modern, and Jan Versweyveld's set, though still minimalist, has an almost Japanese spareness dominated by a large sun-like window, and a stage scattered with petals that could be cherry blossom: All My Sons opens with a tree crashing to the ground during a storm.

Theatre review: The Tempest (RSC / RST)

2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the First Folio's publication, and both the RSC and the Globe are using that as the theme for their seasons, predominantly programming plays that don't exist in quarto form, so wouldn't have survived if they hadn't been included in the OG collected works edition. This means there's going to be a bit of overlap between the two major Shakespeare venues, and Stratford-upon-Avon kicks off the year with one of those that's getting multiple productions, and the one that got the opening slot in the Folio itself: Elizabeth Freestone's production of The Tempest uses the titular bad weather as a prompt to theme the play around the climate crisis, and attempt a carbon-neutral, waste-free production - Tom Piper and Natasha Ward's designs reuse props and costumes from past productions, upcycle a lot of plastic rubbish, and rescue a huge distressed mirror from Indhu Rubasingham's bins.

Theatre review: Barrow Hill

After a couple of fairly intense plays in July, the Finborough Theatre has gone for a more low-key August, pairing Cornelius with a first play by Jane Wainwright in the Sunday-Tuesday slot. Barrow Hill is set in the titular Derbyshire village, outside a 19th-century Methodist chapel that's about to be converted into flats. Kath (Janet Henfrey) is 84 and, with her husband and most of her friends dead, the chapel is now the one place that holds her happiest memories. She decides to camp outside it and protest the conversion, but this conflict has a personal edge to it: The building company that's got the contract is owned by her son Graham (Charlie Roe.) Wainwright's short play keeps coming back to the idea of a legacy being left behind, and it not necessarily being the thing the parent wants to leave their child: Graham himself is having problems with daughter Alison, who doesn't seem as thrilled as he hoped at the prospect of inheriting the building firm.