Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream(Bridge Theatre)

About 25 years ago Adrian Noble’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of a string of RSC productions that first inspired my love of theatre in general and Shakespeare in particular, and Anthony Ward’s design – the enchanted forest made entirely of a mismatched collection of light bulbs, umbrellas and wooden doors – cemented the way I see magic being created out of the purely theatrical. A cack-handed attempt at a screen adaptation means it’s probably not that fondly remembered any more, but it inevitably holds a special place for me. As one of the most popular Shakespeare plays I’ve seen many – too many – productions since, so while it’s hard to say if Nicholas Hytner’s pansexual, Cirque du Soleil-style Dream is flat out the best one I’ve ever seen (and in among the bad and average ones there’s been a lot I’ve really loved,) I can say that in that quarter of a century it’s the first one to send me out of the building with the same excited buzz and reinvigorated love of theatre as the first time.

Theatre review: Shopping and Fucking

A few years ago Sean Holmes seemed to be initiating a tradition of reviving a famously dark and controversial play at the Lyric every autumn. We had Sarah Kane and Edward Bond's respective bouts of cruelty to babies, and now after a few years the nasty stuff returns for the 20th anniversary of another noted shocker - and one that did very well out of its reputation, getting a couple of West End runs out of it in the '90s - Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking. Young couple Robbie (Alex Arnold) and Lulu (Sophie Wu) live with the older Mark (Sam Spruell,) as his property - he bought them for £20 from a man he met in a supermarket. All three seem pretty happy with the arrangement until Mark has to leave for a few months to go to an addiction treatment clinic. Robbie and Lulu aren't used to fending for themselves, and in their search for work Lulu auditions for a TV shopping channel.

Theatre review: Violence and Son

Naturalism doesn't have to be a synonym for unadventurous; if a play is naturalistic in the way Gary Owen's Violence and Son is, it can play out in the way life, rather than dramatic convention does, leaving it incredibly unpredictable. Six months ago Liam's (David Moorst) mother died of cancer, and ever since the teenager has been living with his father in a remote part of Wales. But when he moved there that was the first time he ever met Rick (Jason Hughes,) who'd abandoned Liam's mother before his son was born. They're very different: Rick didn't get the nickname "Violence" for nothing, and claims to have last been completely sober when he was 14; Liam is clever, timid and a Doctor Who geek - when we first meet him he's just come back from a sci-fi convention dressed as the Eleventh Doctor (appropriately enough in the same theatre where Matt Smith first astonishingly coup'd his théâtre.) So the father/son relationship is spiky, but they're getting on with things.

Theatre review: Wonderland

Wonderland seems an unlikely description of life in a coal mine but Ashley Martin Davis' show-stealing set goes some way to making it seem plausible, in Ed Hall's premiere production of Beth Steel's play. 30 years on from the miners' strike, miner's daughter Steel tells its story without featuring the two faces that came to represent the opposing sides, Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill. Instead we're thrown into the lives of the people on (and in) the ground, and as with many stories of this kind we open with people just starting out: We first meet Jimmy (Ben-Ryan Davies) and Malcom (David Moorst) on their first day in a Nottinghamshire mine, shown the ropes by Colonel (Paul Brennen) and Bobbo (Nigel Betts) and taken under their wing by Spud (Gunnar Cauthery) and Fanny (Paul Rattray.) We see the dangers they face as well as the pride they take in their work, but there's also another story being told that puts their way of life into question.

Theatre review: The Kitchen Sink

Drama school showcases technically fall under the category of amateur performances, which isn't something I like to review. But given these are people who hope to be acting professionally after graduating, I'm going to take the view that they'd want to know how their efforts come across to the public.

So Tom Wells' ubiquity in 2014 continues, and even the drama schools are including him on the curriculum as LAMDA presents his 2011 play The Kitchen Sink as one of their public shows this year. The title is a statement of intent as Wells takes the bleak kitchen sink genre of people's fruitless struggles to hold on to work and find a path in life, and turns it into something distinctly his. The family living in Withernsea, a Yorkshire town slowly falling into the sea, is crumbling just as steadily but the impression given by the play is far from grim-up-North: The overriding impression is that there's always hope, in a typically funny collection of characters. The heart of the play is school dinnerlady Kath (Clio Davies,) sick of cooking chips at work every day so trying to inject a bit of variety into her meals at home (although I'm firmly on Martin's side where couscous is concerned.)