Theatre review: Julius Caesar (Bridge Theatre)

Nicholas Hytner’s Bridge Theatre is intended to predominantly showcase new writing, but in only his second production there Hytner can’t resist going back to Shakespeare. This is in part because the opening season is also meant to show off the flexibility of the auditorium, and Julius Caesar is a play that lends itself to promenade staging, or in this case in-the-round staging with a section of the audience in promenade (of sorts.) Making the audience part of the action fills in the play’s reliance on crowds – whether as baying mobs, horrified onlookers, armies or, most crucially, the general populace of Rome in whose name the central characters act. Hytner’s production is modern dress, and David Calder’s Julius Caesar certainly has a visual nod to one current political figure as he shuffles onto the stage wearing a red baseball cap and revelling in the attention as much as anything.

Theatre review: The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Tony Kushner's 2009 play - set two years before that - The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures gets its UK premiere at Hampstead, who've appended the alternate title iHo (you can't really tweet the whole thing, I guess.) But the full title is probably worth sticking to as the wordiness and sheer unnecessary length give a better indicator of what the play itself is like, as opposed to iHo, because it isn't actually about what would happen if Apple made prostitutes. Instead it's something of a family saga, though playing out over just a few days, set mainly in a Brooklyn brownstone that's in need of fairly regular repair but has still skyrocketed in value as the property boom gets going. Tom Piper's design puts the bare white shell of the four-story building on a revolve.

Theatre review: The Doctor's Dilemma

While a lot has been written about the topicality of a play being revived in the Olivier (Timon of Athens, which I won't be seeing until next week,) the National's middle stage is also playing host to a classic play with a lot of current relevance. The Doctor's Dilemma, which has just opened at the Lyttelton, is Bernard Shaw's look at the medical profession, and in particular the dangers that private medicine (which we seem to be steadily being pushed back towards) can hold. The title does what it says on the tin: Sir Colenso Ridgeon is a Harley Street doctor with a cure for tuberculosis that's still in the trial stages but which he thinks will guarantee success. Limited funds mean he can only treat ten patients, and he has to decide who gets the last available place: Selfless, generous but unremarkable Dr Blenkinsop (Derek Hutchinson,) who's treated the poor for years while his own health fails; or Louis Dubedat, a talented artist with an appalling personality.