Theatre review: Something in the Air

Veteran playwright Peter Gill's latest play could be said to join the ranks of the new generation of AIDS stories most prominently including It's A Sin and Cruise, although its focus is slightly different: Part of the theme of those stories has been the generation of queer elders who barely exist because of the pandemic of the 1980s and '90s wiping them out, but Something in the Air brings us a pair of men who've survived into old age and, with the rest of their community long-gone, have found some comfort in each other. Colin (Ian Gelder) and Alex (Christopher Godwin) live in the same retirement home where they've become friends and, to the consternation of Alex's son Andrew (Andrew Woodall,) have started holding hands while they sit in their armchairs. Colin's niece Clare (Claire Price) is more sanguine about it, and in fact has some news for Andrew: The pair have asked to be moved into the same room, but as they're not always lucid, it needs to be run by their families.

Theatre review: The Treatment

The latest Almeida season opens with Martin Crimp's 1993 play The Treatment - "treatment" as in the summary of a movie pitch, as well as the way people treat each other. Anne (Aisling Loftus) is describing a difficult life, culminating in her marriage: Kept in a small apartment she never leaves, her husband would sometimes tie and gag her, not to abuse her physically but to give lengthy speeches, waxing lyrical about car parks and strip lights. She's telling her story to Jennifer (Indira Varma) and Andrew (Julian Ovenden,) married as well as being producing partners, and interested in developing her story. They bring in down-and-out playwright Clifford (Ian Gelder) to script it, and bombastic actor John (Gary Beadle) to play the husband, as well as to provide some star wattage that'll attract investors.

Theatre review: Human Animals

Playwright Stef Smith takes the metaphorical language of dangerous animals and swarms of insects that accompany right-wing scaremongering about immigration, and imagines it as something literal in her apocalyptic Human Animals, but somewhere along the way the dark absurdity turns tiresome: Nancy (Stella Gonet) is waiting for her daughter Alex (Natalie Dew) to come back from a gap year, but her return coincides with a mysterious, localised plague among animals and birds that sees hundreds of pigeons at a time fly into windows, and dead foxes piling up in every garden. Nancy's friend John (Ian Gelder) is befriended by an odd man in the pub - Si (Sargon Yelda) turns out to be in charge of the efforts to deal with the crisis, which largely consist of quarantining the whole neighbourhood and incinerating first the diseased animals, then whole buildings, just in case.

Theatre review: Gods and Monsters

The film industry's early days saw it take as laissez-faire an attitude to homosexuality as most creative arts, but as movies became more and more of a business, puritanical attitudes set in. James Whale (Ian Gelder) was one of the first star directors, making his name with Journey's End but becoming most famous for Frankenstein and its best-loved sequel, Bride of Frankenstein. But by the time we meet him in 1957 he's long since been spat out by the industry. Wealthy but isolated, he lives in a Hollywood mansion, tended by his maid Maria (Trinity Wells, newsreader of the Apocalypse Lachele Carl) and getting the occasional thrill when he's visited by handsome young fans, whom he likes to convince to strip for him. But following a stroke that's left him with regular blinding headaches, even this is now too much excitement for him.

Theatre review: Roots

"Everyone's so bored!" wails Jessica Raine, accurately. In Arnold Wesker's Roots at the Donmar Warehouse, Raine is Beatie, returning for a couple of weeks' visit to her family in Norfolk. We know it's Norfolk because everyone speaks in an accent that sounds vaguely Westcountry via Ireland with the occasional detour to Australia, and whenever actors sound like they're making the accent up as they go along it invariably turns out to be an attempt at Norfolk. And lo, Norwich and Diss get mentioned, so it seems I was right. Beatie now lives in London with her boyfriend Ronnie. Ian thought his name was actually Rani, but I put it down to that accent again, because if she was dating a rogue Time Lady it would probably have been mentioned. Then again, mentioning interesting things would probably go against the spirit of the play.

Theatre review: The Low Road

Bruce Norris provided Dominic Cooke with his first show as artistic director of the Royal Court, as well as the play that perhaps best summed up his tenure for me, Clybourne Park. So it's to Norris that Cooke turns again for his farewell production, and an epic, comic and sometimes downright bizarre parable in The Low Road. With the American War of Independence looming, a baby is left on the doorstep of a brothel, with a note promising whoever raises him will be rewarded when he turns 17. There will be money coming Jim Trumpett's way by the end of his teens, but it'll be of his own making, as the budding capitalist "reorganises" the brothel's finances, cheerfully ripping off the prostitutes who helped raise him in the process. Setting off on a ruthless moneymaking odyssey, Jim's first financial transaction is to buy a slave, and his subsequent business dealings don't get any nicer.