Theatre review: Right Now

You'd expect French Canadians to basically be like regular Canadians with added baguettes, but if Québécois playwright Catherine-Anne Toupin's Right Now is anything to go by, just speaking the language seems to inspire the kind of theatrical mindfuck favoured by French writers like Florian Zeller. Alice (Lindsey Campbell) and Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) are a young couple who've been living in their flat for about six months; they seem settled enough but there's an underlying awkwardness, and the occasional sound of a crying baby that only Alice can hear is a pretty big clue to the cause of the tension. The sense of walking on eggshells is smashed when the neighbours across the hall decide to introduce themselves - Juliette (Maureen Beattie,) her husband Gilles (Guy Williams) and son François (Dyfan Dwyfor) are soon inviting themselves round and making themselves more than comfortable.

Theatre review: The Harvest

Michael Boyd never did get round to completing that Russian season he kept announcing when he was running the RSC, and he doesn't seem to have got it out of his system now he's back to freelance directing: The Harvest is by Pavel Pryazhko, originally from Belarus and apparently the current darling of Russian theatre. Boyd also brings with him a familiar face from the Ensemble^TM to keep him company: Dyfan Dwyfor plays Valerii, the informal leader - because he's done the job before - of a quartet making a bit of cash picking apples in a large orchard. Valerii instructs the others on how best to store the apples, while competing with Egor (Dafydd Llyr Thomas) for the attentions of Ira (Beth Park) and Lyuba (Lindsey Campbell.) This particular kind of apple is meant to be left to ripen for some months after picking, so a single bruised fruit in a crate is not to be allowed.

Theatre review: Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare's Globe)

This time last year I'd yet to see a production of Titus Andronicus, but the popularity of Shakespeare plays really does seem to go in cycles, and now I've notched up my third. Lucy Bailey's production at the Globe is in fact a revival of a hit version from 2006, and sees William Houston take on the titular role of the Roman general whose deeds in battle are so impressive, he's tasked with choosing the next Emperor out of a pair of rival brothers. He gives the laurel wreath to Saturninus (Matthew Needham) but the Andronicus family's favour with the ruler is short-lived: Titus' daughter Lavinia (Flora Spencer-Longhurst) rejects Saturninus' proposal in favour of his brother, and instead the new Emperor marries Tamora, Queen of the Goths (Indira Varma,) whose eldest son Titus just sacrificed. Suddenly Titus' greatest enemy is the most powerful woman in Rome.

Theatre review: Fortune's Fool

I wonder what kind of play Fortune's Fool, currently playing at the Old Vic, is? That's not a rhetorical question, I've just sat through the damn thing and I'm none the wiser. Tragicomedy is obviously what's being aimed for, but what's actually landed on the Old Vic's stage is anybody's guess. After 7 years in St Petersburg, Olga ( Lucy Briggs-Owen) is returning to the country estate she's sole inheritor of. She's bringing her new husband Pavel (Alexander Vlahos) and, this being late Tsarist Russia, the new man of the house will have the final say in all domestic matters. This could be bad news for Vasilly Kuzovkin (Iain Glen,) an impoverished gentleman whose own estates have been tied up in legal wrangles for decades. Vasilly has lived as a guest of the family for 20 years, but Pavel would be within his rights to turf him out. When a bullying neighbour gets him drunk for his own amusement, Vasilly reveals a family secret that makes his welcome wear out all the sooner.