Theatre review: Uncle Vanya

I can never quite decide which, of the plays so bleak even Chekhov didn't try to pass them off as comedies, is the most gut-wrenching: On the one hand Three Sisters spends its three hours relentlessly, unforgivingly tearing every last vestige of hope from its title characters; on the other there's Uncle Vanya, whose meditations on mediocrity and wasted lives get many a knowing, sad laugh of recognition out of its audiences. After a couple of high-profile outings for the former last year, it's the turn of the latter and Ian Rickson's production at the Pinter manages a lot more moments of dark comedy, while still packing a devastating punch. Vanya (Toby Jones) has spent his life managing the country estate that used to belong to his family, but was given away as his sister's dowry when she married a celebrated academic. The sister has long since died, and Vanya and Nana (Anna Calder-Marshall) have pretty much raised her daughter Sonya (Aimee Lou Wood) themselves.

Theatre review: Translations

With the high-profile flops it’s hosted over the last year the usual arguments have come up about how the Olivier’s size and shape make it hard to fit anything but the biggest epic on it, so Rae Smith’s design for Ian Rickson’s production of Translations comes along to comprehensively disprove them: Brian Friel’s play takes place almost entirely in a schoolroom, and that’s what Smith puts downstage, but she surrounds it with foggy moors that suggest the country whose future is being discussed inside it, in ways whose significance is more far-reaching than it may first appear. This is a “hedge school” – a small private school teaching basic literacy and numeracy – in 1833 County Donegal, where a weekly class teaches those of the town’s adults who want to improve their skills. For Sarah (Michelle Fox,) who is almost mute, this can be as basic as building up the confidence to say her own name.

Theatre review: Girl From The North Country

If a Meat Loaf jukebox musical at the ENO seemed like the summer’s most eccentric bit of programming, how about a Bob Dylan jukebox musical at the Old Vic? Conor McPherson writes and directs Girl from the North Country, which I hadn’t initially planned to see but some very interesting casting convinced me otherwise. Cast mostly with actors-who-can-sing rather than predominantly musical theatre actors, I already knew the likes of Sheila Atim, Bronagh Gallagher, Jack Shalloo, Debbie Kurup, Michael Shaeffer and Karl Queensborough could sing, but there’s also a number of pleasant surprises in a show that, music aside, I didn’t quite know what to make of. Set in Depression-era Duluth, the story centres on a guest house run by Nick Laine (Ciarán Hinds,) whose wife Elizabeth (Shirley Henderson) has early-onset dementia, and whose main relief from the financial and personal pressures he faces is an affair with one of his guests, Mrs Neilsen (Kurup.)

Theatre review: Hamlet (Barbican Theatre)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The press haven't yet been invited to this. Not that they felt they needed an invitation as, notoriously, a few papers couldn't wait to get some of that Benadryl Cumulonimbus publicity, and printed reviews of the first preview. You know, like those evil unprofessional theatre bloggers sometimes do.

Actually I'm not even sure if this was originally meant to be a preview performance when I first booked my tickets, as I think the original press night was moved back. In any case, the ticket prices weren't discounted for previews, which is the traditional quid pro quo for an early audience seeing a show that's not been locked down yet. And a couple of weeks into the run Lyndsey Turner's production of Hamlet still doesn't feel locked down. Hamlet (Benelux Cenotaph) is the Prince of Denmark who, at the opening of the play, is dealing with a sense of general dissatisfaction that can't just be put down to his father's recent death. Instead of being crowned himself, he's had to stand back and watch his uncle Claudius (Ciarán Hinds) not only take the throne, but also marry Hamlet's mother Gertrude (Anastasia Hille.)

Theatre review: The Night Alive

Rounding off the latest invasion of Irish plays in London is Conor McPherson's newest work. The Night Alive follows the hit revival of his best-known play The Weir at the Donmar Warehouse, in a production directed by McPherson himself. Part character study, part grubby thriller, The Night Alive takes place in the back room of a house in Dublin, roughly kitted out into a filthy bedsit. He was once the owner of a reasonably successful company but it went down with the rest of the Irish economy, and now Tommy (Ciarán Hinds) scrapes a living as an odd-job man and dodgy wheeler-dealer. Estranged from his wife and children, Tommy lives in this flat in his uncle Maurice's (Jim Norton) house. His friend Doc (Michael McElhatton,) slow-witted but prone to the occasional profundity, sometimes works for him for peanuts, and frequently crashes at the flat when he has nowhere else to stay.