Theatre review: Arcadia

Scheduled at the Old Vic before his death but ending up serving as a tribute, Arcadia is probably Tom Stoppard's best-loved play - for me it's certainly the one that's most effective in its use of esoteric knowledge, as the way it muses on science and poetry makes the audience feel clever, as opposed to some of his works that make us feel sneered at. In a country house in 1809, precocious 13-year-old Thomasina (Isis Hainsworth) is being taught maths and classics by her tutor. Septimus (Seamus Dillane) is flirtatious with her mother Lady Croom (Fiona Button,) but is even more indiscreet elsewhere, getting caught in various locations and positions with the wife of Ezra Chater (Matthew Steer.) The house guest and notoriously bad poet issues various challenges to duels, but Septimus always seems able to convince Ezra he was doing him a favour by cuckolding him.

Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest

Dominic Dromgoole’s Classic Spring company was set up to present late 19th and early 20th century classics in the West End proscenium arch theatres they were written for, the suggestion being that’s something of a unique opportunity. While that might have been the case with some of the more obscure plays that opened the Oscar Wilde season, the concluding part is The Importance of Being Earnest, whose last West End revival wasn’t only three years ago, but in the same theatre, the Vaudeville. At the time I said the twenty-year gap I’d left since last seeing the play was probably about right given its ubiquity and familiarity, and I hadn’t been planning to return for this version. But the combination of Michael Fentiman directing and Sophie Thompson reclaiming the role of Lady Bracknell for actual female actors was tempting, and with a quiet August week on the horizon I decided to fill a spare evening seeing if some well-worn bon mots could feel fresh.

Theatre review: They Drink It In The Congo

In among various classics that the Almeida is staging over the next year or so are a pair of premieres, starting with Adam Brace's look at white guilt and a country often called the most dangerous place in the world - but in the UK still probably best remembered as a soft drink jingle - They Drink It In The Congo. Stef (Fiona Button) works for a government-sponsored charity organising a festival of Congolese culture to raise awareness of the country and its various horrors. Together with the Congo-born Anne-Marie (Anna-Maria Nabirye) she leads the steering committee that is trying to agree on the acts, as well as ensuring there's an authentically Congolese voice in the decision-making. But even the seemingly simple elements prove impossible to reconcile, and that's before the organisers start receiving death threats.

Theatre review: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

I'm reading A Game of Thrones at the moment, so blond siblings shagging each other is something of a theme as I get to the Swanamaker, whose first full winter season opens with 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. John Ford's tragedy sees a number of suitors wooing the wealthy and beautiful Annabella (Fiona Button,) who has little time for any of them. That's because her interests lie elsewhere, with her own brother Giovanni (Max Bennett.) When he admits he feels the same way, the two start a torrid and, of course, secret affair. Annabella continues to turn away her suitors, until she discovers she's carrying her brother's baby, and quickly consents to marry Soranzo (Stefano Braschi.) The deceit can't last long though, and with Soranzo having a few skeletons in his own closet, a traditional Jacobean bloodbath can't be far off.

Theatre review: Wendy and Peter Pan

Peter Pan gets a feminist makeover from Ella Hickson in the latest RSC family show, but there's also a definite hint of Philip Pullman being thrown in with the J.M. Barrie in Wendy and Peter Pan. And before we even get to these new underlying themes there's a new look to the Darling family right from the start: As well as Wendy, John and Michael, there's a fourth child, Tom (Colin Ryan.) But even as he plays with his sister and brothers he has a nasty case of Period Drama Cough that soon sees Tom dead, and the Darling family plunged into melancholy. A year later, a flying boy enters the children's bedroom and invites them to Neverland. Hearing that that's where the Lost Boys live, Wendy agrees to join Peter Pan on his adventures, believing she'll be able to find their own lost boy there too.