Theatre review: Princess Essex

Like most years the Globe ends its summer season with a new play, usually one that looks at historical events filtered through very modern concerns. Anne Odeke's Princess Essex doesn't buck that trend: Filling in the gaps in a true story many of whose details remain unknown, the play is inspired by a woman calling herself Princess Dinubolu of Senegal, the first black woman to compete in an English beauty pageant. So the play at times takes unflinching looks at issues of racial discrimination, particularly standards of perceived beauty, colonialism and racial fetishisation; but it does so mostly in the context of a pretty broad and bright comedy, which Robin Belfield's production approaches with energy and tongue in cheek. Odeke plays Joanna, a mixed-race housekeeper who knows nothing about her parents or early life, except that she ended up in the entertainment capital of the world: Southend-on-Sea.

Theatre review: Romeo and Julie

It's 2023 but shows that I originally had tickets to see in 2020 are still making their belated returns. Callum Scott Howells had already been slated to appear in Gary Owen's Romeo and Julie then, but in the intervening time his appearance in It's A Sin and subsequent status as The Gay Internet's Official Fantasy Boyfriend of 2021 means he brings some added star power now the show finally premieres. It was worth the wait to get the show on with Howells in place: He plays Romeo (pronounced Romeo, but usually referred to as Romy,) an 18-year-old single dad who can't even rely on his alcoholic mum Barb (Catrin Aaron) for help babysitting his daughter. Like Owen's previous plays this takes place in the impoverished Cardiff suburb of Splott, but presumably on its edges: Julie (Rosie Sheehy) only lives a couple of streets away, but has led a much easier life so far.

Theatre review: The Boy With Two Hearts

Phil Porter's The Boy With Two Hearts transfers to the Dorfman after originating last year at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff - appropriately enough, as that's the city where Hamed & Hessam Amiri, authors of the memoir Porter's play adapts, and their family made their home. But not before a rough journey: Beginning in 2000 in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are at their strongest, Hamed (Farshid Rokey) and Hessam's (Shamail Ali) mother Fariba (Houda Echouafni) speaks out publicly against the regime's treatment of women. She expects repercussions but doesn't realise they'll be so quick or so brutal: Within hours the local Taliban has sentenced her to death, and when husband Mohammed (Dana Haqjoo) refuses to give up her whereabouts he's lucky to escape with his life after getting "disappeared" for a while. The family manage to escape Herat for Moscow, but it's only the beginning of their journey.