Cheek by Jowl make a welcome return to touring and to the Barbican, and add yet another international company to the ever-growing collection - in fairness the Russian ensemble probably aren't feeling welcome in too many places at the moment. Instead we have the first Spanish-language show from the company, and a Spanish Golden Age classic in Pedro Calderón de la Barca's
Life is a Dream. We're in Poland (you can tell it's authentically Poland from the way all the characters have Spanish names,) for a kind of aggressively evil fairytale crossed with
The Man in the Iron Mask: King Basilio's (Ernesto Arias) wife died in childbirth; rather than put that down to a tragic but common occurence in the 17th century, he labeled the baby a murderer, and consulting his horoscopes decided that his son Segismundo was going to grow up angry, violent and unpredictable.
