Theatre review: Harvey

"There's a bit of Harvey in all of us!" says the poster tagline, which is patently untrue because not everybody eats rabbit. Mary Chase's play won the Pulitzer Prize, proving that at one time you could do so with a play that wasn't about racism in suburbia - admittedly that time was 1944, and it's hard not to go into the Theatre Royal Haymarket for Harvey with a sense of trepidation. Especially since one of the press quotes chosen to sell the show essentially says Peter McKintosh's set looks quite expensive. The play has unquestionably dated, but it's hard to entirely dislike: Veta (Maureen Lipman) is hoping to marry off her daughter Myrtle May (Ingrid Oliver,) but she's worried suitors will be put off by the family eccentric, who controls all the money: Elwood (James Dreyfus) is friendly and generous, but he's also accompanied most of the time by a pooka, a Celtic mischief spirit who takes the form of a six-foot white rabbit called Harvey, whom only Elwood can see. Veta has finally had enough of her brother's delusion, and tries to get him sectioned in Dr Chumley's (David Bamber) asylum.

Theatre review: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore

Last year Cheek By Jowl provided me with one of my favourite shows of 2011 with their Russian Tempest. And the last time I saw 'Tis Pity She's A Whore it starred Eve Best and Jude Law as the siblings who think incest makes the heart grow fonder. So on a couple of different levels this was a show that had a lot to live up to for me. John Ford's play is one of few Jacobean tragedies to have held on to much of its shock value thanks to its incestuous theme, but Declan Donnellan doesn't sit back and let this do all the work for him. Nick Ormerod's blood-red set is Annabella's bedroom, the bed where the dirty deed is done is the centrepiece, and among the posters on her wall True Blood takes pride of place, a clue maybe that subtlety isn't going to be the key note. Annabella (Lydia Wilson) is a much sought-after beauty and heiress with a number of dedicated suitors, chief among them Soranzo (Jack Hawkins.) But she only has eyes for her brother Giovanni (Jack Gordon) and when he confesses similar feelings towards her the scene is set for sex, violence and synchronised dance sequences.