Theatre review: Communicating Doors

Ever since we saw the Old Vic's production of The Norman Conquests in 2008, Vanessa has been an Alan Ayckbourn fan, and as you can pretty much put money on there being at least one production of his plays a year, it's ended up reliably being my birthday present to her. But while she's continued to love the plays, for me there's been seriously diminishing returns. So maybe my expectations were low, but it turns out Communicating Doors is the Ayckbourn I've enjoyed the most since that first trip. Perhaps it's the fact that, while still recognisably Ayckbourn in many ways, the play has quite a different feel to it to the domestic comedies I've been used to in the last few years. It's a very English take on a time travel adventure as, in the year 2020, dominatrix Phoebe (Rachel Tucker) travels through a riot-torn London, past where Big Ben used to be, to meet a wealthy old client in a five-star hotel.

Theatre review: Harvey

"There's a bit of Harvey in all of us!" says the poster tagline, which is patently untrue because not everybody eats rabbit. Mary Chase's play won the Pulitzer Prize, proving that at one time you could do so with a play that wasn't about racism in suburbia - admittedly that time was 1944, and it's hard not to go into the Theatre Royal Haymarket for Harvey with a sense of trepidation. Especially since one of the press quotes chosen to sell the show essentially says Peter McKintosh's set looks quite expensive. The play has unquestionably dated, but it's hard to entirely dislike: Veta (Maureen Lipman) is hoping to marry off her daughter Myrtle May (Ingrid Oliver,) but she's worried suitors will be put off by the family eccentric, who controls all the money: Elwood (James Dreyfus) is friendly and generous, but he's also accompanied most of the time by a pooka, a Celtic mischief spirit who takes the form of a six-foot white rabbit called Harvey, whom only Elwood can see. Veta has finally had enough of her brother's delusion, and tries to get him sectioned in Dr Chumley's (David Bamber) asylum.

Theatre review: Travels With My Aunt

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Travels With My Aunt invites the critics in on Wednesday.

It may continue to be a hit factory, but sometimes the Menier Chocolate Factory makes some very odd programming choices. After last year's aunt-related nostalgia trip we now get another in Graham Greene's Travels With My Aunt, in Giles Havergal's 1989 adaptation, revived here by Christopher Luscombe. Henry Pulling is a retired bank manager who's played things safe all his life. At his mother's funeral he meets her estranged sister, his Aunt Augusta, for the first time, and is sucked into a more bohemian world: Augusta's life has been one of torrid affairs (with an unfortunate preference for war criminals,) smuggling and the worldwide travel that comes with it. In an attempt to finally connect with her nephew, Augusta brings Henry along on her latest series of adventures across Europe, and eventually across the Atlantic to end up in Paraguay - but not before she reveals a few shocking truths about his family history.

Theatre review: Sweet Smell of Success

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The official critics are being invited to this on Wednesday.

There's quite a selection of musicals to choose from on the fringe at the moment, and the next to throw his hat in the ring is the Arcola's Mehmet Ergen, who directs a musical adaptation of 1957 film Sweet Smell of Success. With celebrity gossip seeming to be all that's keeping the print media in business, a look back at its earlier days suggests it was a dirty business even then. Based on the real-life journalist Walter Winchell, who first popularised the gossip column with his overheard conversations of Broadway and Hollywood stars, JJ Hunsecker (David Bamber) is the man everyone needs to impress if they're going to make it big in showbiz. Sidney Falcone (Adrian der Gregorian) is a floundering agent who can't get his clients into the paper for love nor money, until a chance encounter with JJ, who thinks Sidney is a friend of his sister's. JJ has a somewhat creepily overprotective relationship with his much younger sister Susan (Caroline Keiff,) and wants Sindey to spy on her and particularly her romantic life - in exchange he'll take him under his wing.

Stage-to-screen review: Henry IV Part 2 (BBC Hollow Crown)

"Previously on Henry IV" - heh, I did quite enjoy the fact that Richard Eyre took the opportunity to do a classic TV recap at the top of his Hollow Crown film of Henry IV Part 2. Handy way to get the credits out of the way without putting them over the action, too. Although both are highly regarded, the second of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays seems to be considered marginally the lesser of the two, and if the production's not good enough it can sometimes come across as a poor retread of Part 1. Done well though it can shine in its own right (it does contain a lot of the sequence's iconic scenes and lines) and in my opinion this is the better of the two BBC adaptations. With Henry IV (Jeremy Irons) ailing, a second rebellion threatens to rise up out of Hotspur's failed attempt - but this one will be dealt with a lot more strategically and with less bloodshed. Hal (Tom Hiddleston) knows the time is approaching for him to take over as king, and starts to plan how he'll get rid of his group of hangers-on, led by Falstaff.