Radio review: The Merchant of Venice

Despite the theatres gradually reopening this will still end up being a very Shakespeare-light year for me, so it's as good a time as any to catch up on a few more of the recent audio adaptations from Radio 3, which remain available on BBC Sounds under the Shakespeare Sessions strand. It's not a particular favourite of mine but it's been a few years since my last Merchant of Venice and the casting for Emma Harding's 2018 production is intriguing, notably that of Andrew Scott as Shylock. Harding has set the story in the City of London during the 2008 financial crash, and to open with a sidebar, I was once interviewed for a theatre job by someone who supposedly specialised in "authentic" Shakespeare, who grumbled a lot about a modern-dress RSC production of this play, saying it was impossible to set it post-Holocaust. Unless you base your interpretation entirely on the fact that the play's antisemitism is openly state-sanctioned (and I've talked elsewhere about my feelings on defining an entire production by one line or scene,) that seems either a naïvely sunny view of modern tolerance, or more likely a restrictively literal-minded approach to theatre: In the years leading up to that particular crash Jews might not have been the bogeyman of choice, but the post-9/11 world wasn't exactly shy about demonising one group of people.

Theatre review: The Inn at Lydda

Although the initial description didn't instantly grab me, I eventually booked for The Inn at Lydda based on the cast - not only a strong cast but one largely made up of faces familiar to the Globe, suggesting that the new regime doesn't entirely want to burn bridges with the old one (something tricky to do anyway in the Swanamaker, where Dominic Dromgoole's face is part of the decor.) John Wolfson's play, getting a short run in the indoor playhouse, imagines a meeting in ancient Judea: The Emperor Tiberius Caesar (Stephen Boxer) is sick and dying, but has heard of a miracle worker in a distant part of his empire, who he's sure can cure him. Unfortunately by the time he and his entourage make it to Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth has been crucified by Rome's own representatives. But unlike the last version of the story we saw on a London stage, this one is based on Christian apocrypha, so the story doesn't end there.

Theatre review: P’yongyang

How do you solve a problem like Korea?

Hot on the heels of You For Me For You, which looked at the more surreal elements of the North Korean dictatorship through a fantasy lens, In-Sook Chappell's subject is the restrictions on free expression and the country's rigid class system, through the medium of an old-fashioned star-crossed love story. Spanning three decades, P’yongyang introduces Chi Soo (Chris Lew Kum Hoi) and Eun Mi (Anna Leong Brophy) as teenagers, when he's the handsome and popular jock and she's mousy and reserved, but both share the same ambition: To be accepted into the performing arts high school, and eventually write or star in the propaganda-filled films shown in their local cinema. But their situations are quickly reversed when the school does a background check and Chi Soo discovers what his parents (Daniel York and Lourdes Faberes) have been keeping from him: His father was originally from South Korea, which makes him and the next three generations of his family part of the "hostile class," not to be trusted. While "core class" Eun Mi gets a new life in P’yongyang, Chi Soo's only option is down the coal mines with his father.

Theatre review: The World of Extreme Happiness

Given its ever-increasing position on the world stage, it's not surprising if China has been a popular theme on the London stage lately. An American play getting its UK debut at The Shed, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness looks at life for workers in the factories that make over 75% of the world's consumables, but also reveals a two-tier class system that's not so familiar in the West. The distinction is between those born in the city and those still known as peasants, from the country. Sunny (Katie Leung) is a country girl who's been denied an education by her father, as it's too expensive to be wasted on a girl. She moves to a city where she cleans toilets in a toy factory and, spurred on by a culture of self-help slogans, is determined to better herself - so much so that the factory owners see her as the perfect spokesperson for how far their peasant workers progress.

Theatre review: A Life of Galileo

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The RSC isn't inviting the Press to this until Tuesday.

To round off the RSC's "A World Elsewhere" season, looking at what else was going on in the world during Shakespeare's lifetime, we have a 20th century classic that deals with one of Shakespeare's exact contemporaries, Brecht's A Life of Galileo. Always strapped for cash, Galileo Galilei passes off the Dutch invention, the telescope, as one of his own. He gets found out but not before the new tool gives him a new look at the heavens, and he realises he's found proof of Copernicus' theory that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The fact that the theory is considered heretical by the Catholic Church doesn't dim his enthusiasm or deter him from sharing his knowledge with the people. But the Church won't let mere evidence get in the way of centuries of teaching, and soon the Inquisition has taken an interest, demanding that Galileo betray his science and abjure his theory.

Theatre review: The Orphan of Zhao

Next up in the "A World Elsewhere" season is the first Chinese play ever to be staged at the RSC, The Orphan of Zhao. Although its provenance is slightly less straightforward than that - the story has been retold on stage in China for centuries, with the best-known version being Ji Junxiang's 14th century telling, with 17th century amendments by Zang Maoxun. What we have here is a new adaptation by James Fenton, taken from a variety of original Chinese sources (and adding a new ending to tidy up a nagging plot hole.) Gregory Doran directs, making this either his final production as Chief Associate, or his first as Artistic Director, or neither, or both. The publicity has been keen to call the play the "Chinese Hamlet" although the main similarity is in this being a bloody revenge tragedy - The Orphan of Zhao is a much more epically sprawling affair, and at times a gripping one.