Theatre review: The Antipodes

In what is becoming a regular occurrence Annie Baker's latest play gets its UK premiere in the Dorfman, where for The Antipodes her particular brand of hyperrealism tips that little bit further into surrealism. Baker herself co-directs with designer Chloe Lamford, whose deep thrust stage is a luxurious but personality-free conference room in which the characters will spend weeks or maybe months of their lives around the table - there's enough Perrier stacked up against the wall to get them though a siege. There is a real-life situation the scene evokes: The writers' room of an American TV show where stories are pitched and constructed. But exactly what kind of story Sandy (Conleth Hill) has gathered a team - some of whom have worked with him before, some of whom are new - to tell remains vague.

Theatre review: The Tell-Tale Heart

Celeste (Tamara Lawrance,) an actress-turned-writer, wins an award for her debut play but turns it down at the ceremony, in an attempt to make a political point that misfires and makes for a lot of bad publicity – even Judi Dench hates her. She tries to escape the attention by renting an attic room in Brighton to write her follow-up, but her writer’s block persists, and she ends up distracting herself by making friends with her landlady. Nora (Imogen Doel) has led a sheltered life, home-schooled and nervous about being seen in public without the half-mask that covers a facial deformity. Confident that she’s above discriminating against her friend because of her looks, Celeste convinces her to show her what she really looks like, but it turns out the enormous right eye hiding under the mask is too much for her to cope with. Disgusted and haunted by the eye, Celeste wants to get it out of her life in any way she can, even if that means murder.

Theatre review: All's Well That Ends Well (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Caroline Byrne would appear to be the director the Globe turns to when they've got a problem play that needs solving; she previously had to deal with the alleged comedy of The Taming of the Shrew, and now comes indooors to the Swanamaker for a play that belies its title of All's Well That Ends Well. Byrne's production includes the unusual credit of Ben Ormerod as "candle consultant," and perhaps the consultation was over how few candles they could get away with in the playhouse - only two of the chandeliers get lit, and then only for a single scene, with a few small candelabras and handheld candles doing all the work of lighting the action. Fortunately things aren't so murky that it becomes difficult to see what's going on, but they are murky enough to take us into the slightly nightmarish world the play's two leads find themselves in.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

This year is the centenary of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising, the setting Caroline Byrne has chosen for her production of The Taming of the Shrew; it's the only reason I can see for a season with a "Wonder" theme to include a play that's short of that quality on pretty much every front. Byrne's all-Irish cast are led by Aoife Duffin as Katherine, the eldest daughter of wealthy Padua merchant Baptista Minola (Gary Lilburn,) notorious for her violent temper. Her younger sister Bianca (Genevieve Hulme-Beaman,) on the other hand, is famed for both beauty and a pleasant personality and has numerous suitors, but they'll all have to wait as Baptista has decided that a husband has to be found for the elder daughter first. The suitors need someone to take that bullet and Petruchio (Edward MacLiam) sees her hefty dowry as reason enough to take her on.

Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest

Productions of The Importance of Being Earnest aren't exactly a rarity - in fact the last West End outing was only a year ago, and it didn't even do particularly good business. So it's a show I don't feel compelled to catch any given production of as the next one will be along soon enough. But I last saw it at the Old Vic, which a quick google reveals to have been twenty years ago, so I figured it was time to give it another go in Adrian Noble's production, which has settled into the Vaudeville for the summer. There's famously far too many roles available for older women - it's something like that, right? - so David Suchet has stepped in to ease the workload by taking on the role of Lady Bracknell, the archetypal formidable aunt. In another outrageous bit of casting, the show also stars Philip Cumbus, meaning not only is he missing a Globe summer season in an odd-numbered year for the first time since his first season in 2007, he's also missing his beard.

Theatre review: The Get Out

The Royal Court tends to have a bit of a siesta over August, but before it shuts up shop, three performances only of a sketch show that doesn't look anywhere near as hastily put-together as it actually is: Based on a project done as part of last year's Open Court, Anthony Neilson, who also directs, asked for submissions a few weeks ago for comic sketches, by anyone who'd ever worked at the Royal Court in any capacity. He and Robin French went through 50 submitted pieces and have compiled the best into The Get Out (unfortunately the cast-sheet doesn't list the writers who made the final cut.) Pippa Bennett-Warner, Imogen Doel, Nathaniel Martello-White, Jonjo O'Neill, Barnaby Power and Sophie Russell are the cast, and the framing device is an awards ceremony where some kind of disaster has reduced the venue to rubble, but everyone's still desperate to pick up a statuette.

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Missing Dates

SIMON GRAY: Hello my agent! Simon Gray here. I've written a play called Japes, it's about some obnoxious, drunk intellectuals fucking.
SIMON GRAY'S AGENT: Well, you're Simon Gray, so that's pretty much what I'd expect. Shall we go stage it in a theatre then?
SG: Sounds like a plan.

(some time passes)

SG: It's Simon Gray again! Remember that play Japes?
AGENT: Yes, we staged it, on a proper stage, with human actors and everything. It was OK.
SG: Well, I was wondering what would happen if I changed a couple of words in the first three scenes - would the story turn out differently?
AGENT: Oh, well that's a wacky thought to have. Bye then.
SG: No, I actually wrote it! It's called Japes Too, and 3/4 of it is indistinguishable from Japes.
AGENT: Hmmm, sounds like staging that within a decade of Japes would be utterly pointless. How about a rehearsed reading? If we're lucky it might rain, and some students might come see it to stay dry.
SG: That'll do!

(some more time passes)

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Japes

Simon Gray wrote Japes in 2001 as a stand-alone play; the other installments that make up the In the Vale of Health sequence were later additions to the story of its central characters, when he felt the work as performed didn't say everything he wanted to about them. So Japes should be a play I can easily look at in its own right, but the fact that I saw companion piece Michael last week turns out to make a huge difference to how I react to the original. Here we first join the love triangle in the early 1960s: Michael (Jamie Ballard) lives with his brother Japes (Gethin Anthony) in the house they inherited from their parents. He's starting to fall in love with Anita (Laura Rees) and approaches his brother to ask his advice on whether he should propose to her, even though Japes barely knows her.

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Michael

Hampstead Downstairs is staging a quartet of Simon Gray plays in an ambitious project that'd already borne fruit before it even opened: Having quickly sold out, the rep season will transfer to the main house after its run in the studio. Gray's In the Vale of Health project stems from his 2000 play Japes, about a love triangle featuring two brothers. After the play was produced he felt there were alternative avenues to be explored for those characters, and proceeded to write three companion pieces that saw what happened if things had turned out differently. Tamara Harvey's production brings the four plays together, in what is the premiere stage production of the companion pieces Michael, Japes Too and Missing Dates.

Theatre review: Gastronauts

Dinner and a show, although which is which isn't clear in the Royal Court's Gastronauts from writers April De Angelis and Nessah Muthy, and director Wils Wilson. In a "departure lounge" in the Jerwood Upstairs, the audience is encouraged to choose from fluorescent drinks in shot glasses - though if the one I chose was anything to go by they weren't alcoholic but fruit and vegetable juices, I couldn't put my finger on what mine was but it tasted familiar - before going into an area set up with restaurant tables. Andy Clark, Imogen Doel, Nathaniel Martello-White and Justine Mitchell are flight attendants serving us, with Alasdair Macrae as the captain providing music and narration. In between performing short scenes about food, the significance it takes in our lives and the price - not just financial - of it, the cast also encourage the audience to try out some interesting food samples, all with a story to tell.

Theatre review: Narrative

If Anthony Neilson writes a play called Narrative, one thing you can be fairly confident about going in is that there won't be a traditional narrative on offer. Although the action does coalesce into a story as the play goes on and the characters form relationships, what Neilson and his actors are interested in is the way life itself can be experienced as a story, and consequently rewritten in hindsight. A mother (Christine Entwisle) channels her grief over her son's death into a petition to ban the drug that killed him; when new information shines a different light on events, how does it also change what her life has become? A young woman (Zawe Ashton) goes through a series of failed relationships; she changes her backstory about how her mother's love made her who she is, but the outcome of her relationships is always the same. And an actor's (Big Favourite Round These Parts Oliver Rix) success sees his life become as fake as the character he's playing on screen.