Theatre review: Much Ado About Nothing (RSC / RST)

Theatrical 2025 looks set to be memorable in part for Shakespeare productions whose high concepts tip over from the eccentric to the downright daft, and following Hamlet on the Titanic onto the RSC's main stage is Much Ado About Nothing, with Michael Longhurst's debut for the company moving the play from the world of soldiers and orange groves to that of professional footballers and WAGs. FC Messina have just won a European championship and the celebrations will be held at the home of the team sponsor, Leonato (understudy Nick Cavaliere,) a media mogul whose sports channels show all their games, with his niece Beatrice (Freema Agyeman) as one of the post-match interviewers. This is how she knows one of the players, Benedick (Nick Blood,) and the two have a brief sexual history that makes their encounters spiky to this day.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night (RSC / RST)

The RSC's apparent reverse-Globe scheduling policy of rarer Shakespeare plays in the summer and the most famous ones in winter continues with Twelfth Night as the holiday show. Prasanna Puwanarajah's production even embraces the play's seasonal title with a few Christmas songs and decorations - all fairly subtle though, this story does after all feature a high-profile Puritan, and they were famously not big fans of Christmas. In fact I was meant to see this closer to the season itself but with the train service between That London and Stratford-upon-Avon being nonexistent for most of this month I had to reschedule to the final matinée: I'd rather not have to publish a review after the show's closed but needs must when Chiltern Railways exists. Opening not with the big storm but with Gwyneth Keyworth's Viola spluttering out of the water, the sense of understatement extends from the Christmas trimmings to many elements of the play.

Theatre review: God of Carnage

I hadn't initially booked for the Lyric Hammersmith's revival of God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza's follow-up to "Art" - I'd seen the original West End production of Christopher Hampton's translation, and remembered not being particularly fussed by it. A great cast made the difference when it was announced, and got me back to Reza's other story of insufferably upper-middle class people having a meltdown in a joylessly chic living room. Ladies and Gentlemen: The French. We're in Veronica (Freema Agyeman) and Michael Novak's (Martin Hutson) flat, where they're hosting Alan (Ariyon Bakare) and Annette Raleigh (Dinita Gohil) for the afternoon. The Raleighs' 11-year-old son Ferdinand has hit the Novaks' son Bruno with a bamboo cane in the school playground, knocking out two of his teeth.

Theatre review: Apologia

Add to the list of things I never realised I needed to see: Alicia Florrick’s mom, Martha Jones, Fit Dad and my first Malvolio, all on stage together. Plus the woman who woke Peter Hall up from his nap that time, although she’s got a bit better at the acting since then. Following The Pride a couple of years ago, Jamie Lloyd revives another Alexi Kaye Campbell play at Trafalgar 1, with Stockard Channing taking on the role of esteemed art historian and 1960s political activist Kristin in Apologia. The setup is the well-worn dinner-party-from-hell format, as Kristin hosts family and friends to celebrate both her birthday, and the publication of her latest book, also titled Apologia. This one’s marketed as a memoir of her life, which makes the fact that it doesn’t even mention the existence of her two sons (both played by Joseph Millson) an omission which seems to distill their relationship.