Theatre review:Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White

Alice Childress' 1966 play about segregation Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White is set in South Carolina in 1918, and the fact that it's the final year of the First World War is a constant underlying theme: Black soldiers like Lula's (Diveen Henry) adopted son Nelson (Patrick Martins) and sailors like Mattie's (Bethan Mary-James) husband are fighting the same as white Americans and risking their lives the same, but in an upcoming celebration Nelson will, like the rest of the black troops, have to add himself to the end of the parade uninvited; and when the war ends, however much they try to convince themselves otherwise, they know their contribution won't be recognised by allowing them into the spaces they're currently forbidden from. But if Lula and Mattie think they've seen it all, their new neighbour will confront them with one more taboo.

Theatre review: Our Town

Occasionally I see productions of shows I was in at University, but tonight something a bit rarer - a play I was in at school. Of course it wouldn't be quite as rare in America - the cliché about Thornton Wilder's Our Town is that on any given day there's a production playing somewhere in the world, most likely in the US. Its simple staging conceit, decent-sized cast and homespun feel make it popular with local, amateur and school productions, but if it's notable for its simplicity it's definitely of the deceptive kind. In a production that originated in Chicago in 2008, David Cromer directs as well as playing the Stage Manager, the businesslike narrator who pieces the story together out of the barest theatrical techniques. It's the story of Grover's Corners, a small New Hampshire town, in the first decade or so of the 20th century; but the Stage Manager is looking at it from 1938 when the play debuted, so he knows from the start how everyone's story will end.