Theatre review: Hamlet (National Theatre / Lyttelton)

The new Artistic Director has launched the season by reminding us of the National Theatre's close connection with Ancient Greek Tragedy, now her new deputy gets to do the same for Shakespeare: Robert Hastie's take on Hamlet stays on dry land, but if it's not overtly high concept it's still full of ideas, and little nods to past productions. Hiran Abeysekera's Hamlet is a stroppy prince, performatively wearing black clothes and nail polish at his mother's wedding in protest at how soon it's come after her first husband, Hamlet's father's, death. But if there's something of the attention-seeking, overgrown teenager to him, the front becomes reality when his father's ghost starts haunting the palace: The dead king's spirit (Ryan Ellsworth) tells him he was murdered by his brother Claudius (Alistair Petrie.)

Theatre review: The Duchess of Malfi

This blog is now so old (and I'm so old) that theatres are celebrating milestones that I've previously reviewed here. The Swanamaker is marking its tenth anniversary with a new production of The Duchess of Malfi, the play that launched the venue. John Webster's infamous love of all things gory, twisted and morbid makes for a play I largely enjoy for how its extremes tip it into (possibly unintentional but honestly who knows) comic hysteria by the second half, but Rachel Bagshaw's production actually manages to find a genuine character piece in there as well. The Duchess (Francesca Mills) has been widowed very young and left with a life of luxury ruling her court: She promises her brothers she has no intention of ever marrying again. But this is a distraction technique to stop anyone trying to find a suitable second husband for her.

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

Previously at Shakespeare's Globe... the theatre was the target of hate, protests and threats when they staged a play about how celebrity cross-dresser Joan of Arc might, and brace yourself for this one, not have been entirely a girly girl. Continuing to stake her claim as the most casually badass Artistic Director out there at the moment, Michelle Terry has launched her latest summer season with A Midsummer Night's Dream - a reliable crowd-pleaser at a time when they need bums on seats, but with a cast guaranteed to piss off exactly the right people. Outside of being cast almost entirely with female, trans and non-binary actors, Elle While's production isn't a particularly high-concept one, but it's a lot of fun. With at least three separate storylines vying for attention, and some of the plots disappearing from the stage for long periods, I often come out of the play thinking one element has dominated.

Theatre review: All of Us

All of Us opens with a neat little reverse: Two women sit opposite each other, Jess (Francesca Martinez) needing some help to get to her chair because she has Cerebral Palsy, Rita (Lucy Briers) apologising for being late and taking out a pad to take notes on the session. But Jess isn't the patient, she's the therapist, who's making slow but steady progress with Rita's OCD. Martinez is probably most recognisable as a comedian but here doubles as writer and star of a tragicomic play tearing into the last 12 years of austerity cuts to vital benefits, particularly to people with disabilities. Jess is busy, productive and independent in everything except her own body, whose "wobbly" nature means she needs help from flatmate Lottie (Crystal Condie) and care assistant Nadia (Wanda Opalinska) to dress herself and cook.

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: Pity

After the comparative triumph of writing the Olivier’s least-worst new play of 2017, Rory Mullarkey returns to the Royal Court where his somewhat disjointed style of playwriting goes up a notch to fully embrace Absurdism. Pity opens on a generic town square – it used to be the Market Square but there isn’t a market any more – where an ice cream stall has been set up, and Francesca Mills runs a tombola before the show starts. A man named only as Person (Abraham Popoola) starts to narrate his day – unemployed, he people-watches as it’s the only way to spend his time that doesn’t cost anything – and meets a Professor (Paul Bentall) who’s in the middle of a reactionary rant to his daughter when he’s struck by lightning and killed instantly. Person responds by proposing to Daughter (Sophia Di Martino) and the two marry without getting round to learning each other’s names.

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: See How They Run

Someone's had the idea of touring a farce cast entirely with dwarves. Fortunately the person who thought of it was Warwick Davis, which I think makes it OK and not frighteningly inappropriate. Davis has set up his Reduced Height Theatre Company to produce plays for shorter actors to play roles not usually written for them; slightly scaled-down sets are used to make their size less of an issue. Their opening production is Philip King's wartime farce See How They Run, which is probably many people's idea of what a farce looks like: Rather a lot of vicars running round trying to avoid a bishop while a severe spinster of the parish looks on disapprovingly. Being set right in the middle of World War II, this one also features an escaped Nazi prisoner of war. Also dressed as a vicar.