Theatre review: Life is a Dream (La Vida es Sueño)

Cheek by Jowl make a welcome return to touring and to the Barbican, and add yet another international company to the ever-growing collection - in fairness the Russian ensemble probably aren't feeling welcome in too many places at the moment. Instead we have the first Spanish-language show from the company, and a Spanish Golden Age classic in Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life is a Dream. We're in Poland (you can tell it's authentically Poland from the way all the characters have Spanish names,) for a kind of aggressively evil fairytale crossed with The Man in the Iron Mask: King Basilio's (Ernesto Arias) wife died in childbirth; rather than put that down to a tragic but common occurence in the 17th century, he labeled the baby a murderer, and consulting his horoscopes decided that his son Segismundo was going to grow up angry, violent and unpredictable.

Theatre review: Périclès, Prince de Tyr (Cheek by Jowl)

Co-written with a pimp he met down the pub, and only surviving in a reconstructed version from text fragments, Pericles is not exactly one of Shakespeare's best-known plays, and in fact after tonight's performance I've now seen it as many times translated into other languages as I have in the original. The play's hero begins his journey by attempting to get a royal bride by answering a riddle; when the solution gives up a terrible secret he flees, realising that what he's learnt has put his life n danger. After a couple of shipwrecks he ends up finding then losing first a new bride and then a daughter, being betrayed by many of those he considers friends, and finding that the dead have risen. In one of my favourite endearingly batshit insane scenes in all of Shakespeare, having dug themselves into a plot hole he and Wilkins resolve it by having some pirates turn up out of nowhere to abduct the leading lady.

Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (Cheek by Jowl)

After a couple of years away Cheek by Jowl finally return to London, and with their English-speaking company, with a rather odd production of a Shakespeare play I rarely like. Director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod go pretty basic for The Winter's Tale, on an almost-bare stage, with music only playing occasionally, and a monochrome Sicilia where King Leontes' (Orlando James) story opens with a dumbshow that gives us an idea of his relationship with the three most important people in his life, his lifelong best friend Polixenes (Edward Sayer,) King of Bohemia, wife Hermione (Natalie Radmall-Quirke,) and their son Mamillius (Tom Cawte.) The happy tableaux of the opening belie the fact that Leontes will soon lose all three of them due to a violent fit of jealousy that's completely unprovoked and makes little sense.

Theatre review: Measure for Measure (Cheek by Jowl)

It's a couple of years since Cheek by Jowl brought a new production to London, and four since their Russian company - whose Tempest made my Top 10 shows of 2011 and remains memorable - were here. This time they're showing the first of this year's competing Measure for Measures, and it's one that the upcoming productions will surely find it hard to beat. Vienna is governed by strict morality laws, but having allowed them to lapse during two decades in charge, the Duke (Alexander Arsentyev) doesn't think he can enforce them himself, so pretends to leave the city, actually disguising himself as a friar. He leaves the running of the city to Angelo (Andrei Kuzichev,) who does indeed crack down immediately on vice. But in his very first high-profile case Angelo's moral highground is compromised.

Theatre review: Ubu Roi

Alfred Jarry's 1896 play Ubu Roi is seen as the forerunner to absurdist theatre, a bloodthirsty and scatological satire on greed and tyranny, with a central character who's a cross between Macbeth and Mister Punch. Ubu originated in Jarry's schooldays as a caricature of his teachers, and this informs the way Declan Donnellan frames his production with Cheek By Jowl's French company: Nick Ormerod's set is a pristine, modern Paris apartment, where a dull dinner party is taking place. The story of Ubu becomes the fantasy of a 14-year-old boy who starts by seeking out his home's grubby underside with a video camera (projections on the back wall show us what he finds,) then proceeds to cast himself, his parents and their guests as malevolent puppets. Père Ubu (Christophe Grégoire) has squandered all his money, and his wife (Camille Cayol) convinces him to solve his financial woes by killing King Wenceslas (Vincent de Bouard) and taking the throne of Poland for himself.

Theatre review: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore

Last year Cheek By Jowl provided me with one of my favourite shows of 2011 with their Russian Tempest. And the last time I saw 'Tis Pity She's A Whore it starred Eve Best and Jude Law as the siblings who think incest makes the heart grow fonder. So on a couple of different levels this was a show that had a lot to live up to for me. John Ford's play is one of few Jacobean tragedies to have held on to much of its shock value thanks to its incestuous theme, but Declan Donnellan doesn't sit back and let this do all the work for him. Nick Ormerod's blood-red set is Annabella's bedroom, the bed where the dirty deed is done is the centrepiece, and among the posters on her wall True Blood takes pride of place, a clue maybe that subtlety isn't going to be the key note. Annabella (Lydia Wilson) is a much sought-after beauty and heiress with a number of dedicated suitors, chief among them Soranzo (Jack Hawkins.) But she only has eyes for her brother Giovanni (Jack Gordon) and when he confesses similar feelings towards her the scene is set for sex, violence and synchronised dance sequences.