Theatre review: Flowering Cherry

According to the Finborough's publicity, when Flowering Cherry premiered in 1957 it was called a British Death of a Salesman, and there are certainly parallels to be drawn. Robert Bolt's Willy Loman figure is Jim Cherry (Liam McKenna,) at one time a travelling insurance salesman who, despite his dislike for the job and actual undisguised contempt for the customers, was good enough at it to be promoted to management. This office job hasn't been as much of a success though, and between frustration and fear of being sacked, he starts to claim he's resigned. Always a compulsive liar and a fantasist, he retreats into a long-held dream of selling up and returning to his native Somerset to start an apple orchard. It's left to his long-suffering wife Bel (Catherine Kanter) and their children to try and find the truth in what he tells them, and figure out what kind of future they actually have.

Theatre review: Donkey Heart

The Old Red Lion has supplied the West End with a surprising amount of content in recent years, and their latest premiere sees the West End give back with a few big-name creatives going to the room above an Islington pub. The lighting is by recent Olivier nominee Peter Mumford, some of the cast have recently been in hit commercial shows, and the director is Nina Raine. The latter's involvement isn't that surprising though, as the playwright is her younger brother Moses Raine, and Donkey Heart touches on their family's Russian ancestry. The setting is a flat in modern-day Moscow where Ivan (Paul Wyett) and Zhenya (Wendy Nottingham) live with Ivan's father Alexander (Patrick Godfrey) and their children Sasha (Lisa Diveney,) Petya (James Musgrave) and Kolya (Albie Marber tonight, alternating with Pierre Atri.) Communism may be gone but the family live in what they describe as a collective hangover from it: They aren't (to the best of their knowledge) under constant surveillance, but the habit of keeping their thoughts and emotions to themselves is a hard one to break.

Theatre review: The Duck House

In May 2009, a story broke about the biggest Parliamentary scandal in... well, in about a week, realistically. They're not exactly thin on the ground, Parliamentary scandals. The one we're looking at here is the expenses scandal, that saw Members of Parliament abusing their right to claim business expenses from taxpayers' money. Eventually the news would settle on the biggest issue, of MPs from all parties using their need for two residences (one in their constituency and one near Westminster) as a pure money-spinner. But initially all the attention was on the irrelevant receipts being charged to public funds, from the petty - 1p for a phone call - to the surreal - a moat, and a glittering toilet seat. The most notorious item an MP attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to claim for was The Duck House.

Re-review: Jumpy

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The second press night for Jumpy is next week.

Almost all of the original Royal Court cast of Jumpy from last year have returned for this, the second transfer to take up residence at the Duke of York's Theatre. Still, Nina Raine's production may take a couple of days to settle into its new home, and seemed to me to be starting a bit sluggishly tonight. I'm sure it'll have found its feet again by the end of the week and in any case once it hit its stride April De Angelis' occasionally dark comedy of a mother and daughter sparks into the entertaining show I remembered enjoying so much the first time. Hilary (Tamsin Greig) is 50 and feeling as if she's about to lose everything. Her job's in danger, her marriage to Mark (Ewan Stewart) is stagnant and, in the play's central relationship, her teenage daughter Tilly (Bel Powley) seems to hate her guts.