Theatre review: Romeo and Juliet(Shakespeare's Globe)

After Hamlet on the Titanic and Much Ado About WAGs, this spring's trio of super-high concept Shakespeare productions concludes with Romeo and Juliet: The Western. Although out of these three, Sean Holmes' production at the Globe is the one that engages the least with its high concept, right from the start when it becomes apparent that the cast will be using their own accents instead of going all-in to match the Wild West imagery. Paul Wills' design does fill the stage with cowboys and cowgirls, against a backdrop of swinging saloon doors - though apart from one ominous splash of blood it does all look rather new and clean in the town of Verona, where two families' feud has been a headache for the Sheriff (Dharmesh Patel) for many years. He finally concedes that he can't stop them attacking each other in private, but doing so in public will be on pain of death.

Theatre review: Richard II (Bridge Theatre)

Never mind his global fanbase post-Bridgerton and Wicked, those of us who frequent London theatre have wanted to see Jonathan Bailey's Dick for years. Bailey returns to Shakespeare and to director Nicholas Hytner for the Bridge's in-the-round Richard II, in which a capricious king who has never doubted his divine right to rule has tanked England's finances, raising money for wars that never happen, then spending it on himself while the country's military reputation becomes an embarrassment. The Lords might put up with this to avoid upending centuries of tradition, but Richard makes the mistake of making things personal: Intervening in a dispute between Henry Bullingbrook (Royce Pierreson) and Thomas Mowbray (Phoenix Di Sebastiani,) he banishes both - essentially for disrespecting him. He later adds injury to insult when Henry's father John of Gaunt (Nick Sampson) dies, and Richard commandeers his inheritance to finance one of his doomed expeditions.

Theatre review: Reykjavik

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I caught Reykjavik's final preview performance before they invite the press in.

Add Richard Bean to the ever-growing list of playwrights who really just want to write a ghost story: It's fair to say I've had mixed reactions to his plays, but while the writer's biggest hits have been with comedy, the mournful, haunted Reykjavik is probably the best of his plays that I've seen. Set in 1976, with the Cod Wars (Iceland demanding, and invariably getting, an increasingly large area of exclusivity for fishing its waters) nearing their end, the fishing industry that makes up a huge proportion of Hull's economy looks under serious threat. But for Donald Claxton (John Hollingworth,) whose company owns several boats, there's a more immediate problem: One of his trawlers has sunk in the freezing waters off Iceland, and all but four of the crew are dead. It's something all the trawlermen know is a possibility, and the city has traditions for dealing with it.

Theatre review: The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare's Globe)

Sean Holmes liked a touch of European avant garde theatre when he was running the Lyric Hammersmith, and since coming to Shakespeare's Globe he's been responsible for some of the more eye-catching high-concept productions there, but this year he gets the tights and codpieces of the more "heritage" shows for The Comedy of Errors. There's also a hint of Les Misérables as the show opens, with flag-waving and singing about how great Ephesus is, and how they've fought back against the injustices done to them by Syracuse, with a hostile environment (/automatic death sentence) for any Syracusians who wash up on their shores. This is bad news for a number of the characters, but particularly Egeus (Paul Rider,) who's the only one to get caught. Egeus was shipwrecked while searching for his long-lost identical twin sons, and their identical twin servants.

Theatre review: The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, or, The Beau Defeated

Restoration comedy has been having a moment lately, and after the efforts of Southwark Playhouse and the Donmar Warehouse comes the RSC to provide the element that's been missing so far: A production that actually works as a comedy. Mary Pix's The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, more commonly known as The Beau Defeated, has as daft and convoluted a plot as any in the genre but crucially, in Jo Davies' production at least, it's possible to actually follow. There's a few different plot strands, all revolving around people trying to find a partner and/or a fortune, but the two main ones follow two women looking for husbands based on very different criteria. Sophie Stanton plays the titular Mrs Rich, widow of a banker and, in a bit of character naming that's painfully on-the-nose even by Restoration comedy standards, she's very rich. But in 1700 as in 2018 banking isn't the most beloved of professions, so the way she got her money means the society ladies she wants to mingle with look down on her.

Theatre review: The Hypocrite

2017 is the year of Hull as UK city of culture, and although they're based in Warwickshire the RSC have got in on the act, co-producing a new commission with Hull Truck Theatre. The city is at the heart of The Hypocrite, which although being written in the style of a Restoration comedy takes its story from true events from well before the Restoration, indeed before there was any need for a Restoration, as the titular character, Sir John Hotham (Mark Addy,) was the Governor of Hull in 1642, just as the Civil War was about to break out. His story was a scandal that put the city at the centre of the action, so it's natural that Hull's best and funniest living playwright should be chosen to tell it. But he must have been busy so they just got Richard Bean in to recycle some of the more successful bits from One Man, Two Guvnors.

Theatre review: The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers

Best-remembered today as England's first female professional writer (although it turns out in the 19th Century her name was a euphemism for a reet dorty hoor, society having decided that "female professional writer" wasn't actually something they were ready for yet, thanks,) Aphra Behn's most famous play is The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers. The subtitle sets the action a couple of decades before the play's writing, during the exile of the prince who would eventually be Restored as Charles II. His followers, equally unwelcome in England during Cromwell's rule, had a mixed reputation, seen by some as accomplished soldiers, by others as thrill-seekers lacking morals. Behn gives us just such a mixed picture - veering towards the latter - in her quartet of Cavaliers who end up in an unnamed Spanish town during Carnival season, and intend to make the most of its spirit.

Dance review: Jekyll & Hyde

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This is only on for a week so I don't think the press have been in yet.

The only reason I knew the Old Vic has a history of presenting dance was that the upper circle is named after Lilian Baylis, who also has one of Sadler's Wells' dance stages named after her. It's a connection new Artistic Director Matthew Warchus said he wanted to bring back in his first season, and he does so by giving a platform to Drew McOnie, the choreographer behind the breathtaking moves of In The Heights, and his own company. It's a high profile that could, and on this evidence should, send McOnie on the road to being the next Matthew Bourne - his Jekyll & Hyde has the dangerous sexiness of Bourne's career-making Swan Lake. McOnie and composer Grant Olding adapt Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, and don't make the mistake of trying to stick to it too closely (the story's too famous for its own good; its whole structure builds to a huge twist that everyone already knows.)

Theatre review: Don Quixote

The RSC are of course marking the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's death on the 23rd of April 1616*, but they're also acknowledging that Miguel de Cervantes died on the same date¥, with his epic comic novel Don Quixote getting a new stage adaptation by James Fenton. Angus Jackson directs David Threlfall as the titular impoverished lord who's spent his life in his library, absorbed in tales of Mediaeval knights-errant. As he gets old and senile he starts to believe himself one of them, and sets off on a mission to have adventures and bring the age of chivalry back to Spain. He promises the local layabout Sancho Panza (Rufus Hound) an island of his own to rule if he'll be his loyal squire.