Theatre review: The Double Dealer

The Orange Tree tends to be quite traditional about having something light and frothy for Christmas, and this year it's Restoration comedy that's on the menu. It's a genre that earlier this year was proven to need fairly broad strokes to make it work, and fortunately Selina Cadell has experience directing these kinds of plays. Whether the efforts of Cadell and her cast are actually enough to make William Congreve's The Double Dealer look like a neglected classic is another story altogether. Mellefont (Lloyd Everitt) is engaged to Cynthia (Zoë Waites) but their upcoming marriage may be derailed if his aunt has her way: Lady Touchwood (also Waites) is angry at him for rejecting her own advances, and wants to sabotage the union, getting her hands on Mellefont's inheritance in the process.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

This year is the centenary of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising, the setting Caroline Byrne has chosen for her production of The Taming of the Shrew; it's the only reason I can see for a season with a "Wonder" theme to include a play that's short of that quality on pretty much every front. Byrne's all-Irish cast are led by Aoife Duffin as Katherine, the eldest daughter of wealthy Padua merchant Baptista Minola (Gary Lilburn,) notorious for her violent temper. Her younger sister Bianca (Genevieve Hulme-Beaman,) on the other hand, is famed for both beauty and a pleasant personality and has numerous suitors, but they'll all have to wait as Baptista has decided that a husband has to be found for the elder daughter first. The suitors need someone to take that bullet and Petruchio (Edward MacLiam) sees her hefty dowry as reason enough to take her on.

Theatre review: Deluge

Moi Tran's set for Fiona Doyle's Deluge has certainly taken the play's title literally: The traverse stage is flooded, with a raised central platform forming a kitchen area on which most of the action takes place. The front rows have been given towels because there's a lot of splashing about - I found that sitting on the left-hand audience bank from the entrance, and draping the towel over my legs and bag were enough to keep me dry, although when a chair gets chucked into the water it's every man for himself. All the water is because the play has an apocalyptic feel, with biblical levels of flooding - Ireland, where the story is set, has it pretty bad, but from what we hear America has it much worse. As more clouds gather overhead, farmer Kitty (Elaine Cassidy) is behind bars.