Theatre review: The American Clock

London's improptu Arthur Miller festival continues with my second of his more obscure works in a week. The Old Vic will be featuring one of the more famous plays in a couple of months when All My Sons opens, but first The American Clock, which has another close link to The Price in that it's once again a story of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the resulting Depression. Except this is a much more on-the-nose approach, a sweeping review of the way people were affected throughout America, although it does have a single Jewish family at its heart, played in Rachel Chavkin's production by three sets of actors: We follow Moe Baum, initially played by James Garnon, his wife Rose (Clare Burt) and teenaged son Lee (Fred Haig - you know when you suddenly realise something like "oh he must be David Haig's son seeing as how they have the same last name and THE EXACT SAME FACE" and then feel stupid for not noticing it the first second you saw him? That.)

Theatre review: The Two Noble Kinsmen (Shakespeare's Globe)

A minor way in which Michelle Terry has already differed from her predecessors at the Globe is that this is the first summer season at the venue not to have an official overall theme - just how well past seasons ever really tied in to those themes is a different story. It's been no secret though that there's a very low-key connection between four of this year's shows, and that's "Emilia," a name that crops up in a number of Shakespeare's plays. The theme will culminate in a new play about the woman they may or may not have all been named after, but the first Emilia on stage this summer is the one who inadvertently puts a rift between The Two Noble Kinsmen. Fletcher and Shakespeare's last play together tells a story taken from Chaucer's Knight's Tale, a pretty thin story that's padded out in a way that leaves us with a messy, but in the right hands entertaining, few hours.

Theatre review: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare's Globe)

Lots of hey! but no nonnny nonny in the Globe's latest Much Ado About Nothing, as Matthew Dunster takes the play's opening, with soldiers returning triumphant from a battle, as his cue to set the action during the Mexican Revolution in 1914. A group of fighters take a break at the home of Leonato (Martin Marquez,) where young soldier Claudio (Marcello Cruz - Hispanic Daniel Radcliffe, amirite?) falls for Leonato's daughter Hero (Anya Chalotra.) As the soldiers wait for the wedding to be hastily arranged, they amuse themselves by tricking the battling exes Benedick (Matthew Needham) and Beatrice (Beatriz Romilly) into getting back together, by convincing each that the other is desperately in love with them.

Theatre review: 946

Although officially the new Globe regime won't see each cast double up over two plays, there's a lot of cast crossover between Emma Rice's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the family show she's brought with her from her previous company, Kneehigh, 946. Based on the novel The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, it's another in the writer's peculiar niche of children's stories about real war. War Cat 946 moves us from the First World War to the Second, and a coastal village in Devon where 12-year-old Lily (Katy Owen) argued with her father before he went off to join the war. Convincing herself she's not worried about his return, she puts all her concern into her cat Tips (puppeteered by Nandi Bhebhe,) who has a tendency to run away. The farming community gets further shaken up by the arrival of evacuees from London, including Lily's new friend Barry (Adam Sopp.)

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe)

I think I've done a good job of keeping an open mind about Emma Rice taking over the Globe; the former Kneehigh boss has been responsible for various shows I've really not liked in the past, and hasn't helped with comments in the papers about shaking up the text, and the rarely-performed Shakespeares staying rarely-performed under her watch. But people can surprise you* and there's been good buzz around her debut production - indeed the sole Shakespeare play she'll be directing herself in her first year - so I was cautiously optimistic about her take on the currently-ubiquitous A Midsummer Night's Dream. The setting is, sort-of, the Globe itself, where the rude mechanicals become a group of the venue's volunteer stewards, led by Rita Quince (Lucy Thackeray,) who opens the show with a funny but stern lecture on how to behave, before deciding to turn actors themselves with a show to celebrate the royal wedding.