Theatre review: Ink

The more I think about Ink, the more overtly it seems like a take on Doctor Faustus. James Graham’s latest play – his first of three premieres over the next five months – is an origin story for the The Sun, Britain’s bestselling and most politically influential newspaper. The paper had already been running for a few years when we join the story in 1969, as an unloved stablemate of the bestselling Daily Mirror, with tiny sales figures and considered a bit of a Fleet Street joke, a job there even less in-demand than one in a local paper. Having already bought the Sunday paper News of the World, Australian businessman Rupert Murdoch (Bertie Carvel) doesn’t want his printing presses to go unused the rest of the week, and buys The Sun with a plan to turn it into a rival for The Mirror, and eventually overtake it. He courts Larry Lamb (not that one) (Richard Coyle) to be the first editor, responsible for finding that elusive mass appeal.

Theatre review: Old Money

Hampstead Theatre ends its current main house season of new plays with Sarah Wooley's Old Money, about a 60-something widow's second lease of life. Following the death of her husband, Joyce (Maureen Lipman) gets hold of the house and all the money, and slowly realises she can enjoy it. After making the 30-minute train journey to London, seen all her life as some kind of impossible distance, she gradually gets bolder - going to the opera, chatting to men, and eventually striking up a friendship with stripper Candy (Nadia Clifford.) But back in Surrey, Joyce's family are unable to see that anything's changed: Her elderly mother Pearl (Helen Ryan) has been a controlling presence all her life and expects this to continue. And her daughter Fiona (Tracy-Ann Oberman,) married to the rarely-employed Graham (Timothy Watson) and pregnant for the third time, sees her mother largely as a childcare opportunity, also good for regular loans when they have trouble paying the mortgage.