Theatre review: [BLANK]

The Donald and Margot Warehouse’s association with women’s prisons continues into Michael Longhurst’s regime as Clean Break, the company that works with women who’ve been through the Criminal Justice System in some capacity, celebrates its 40th anniversary with a kind of kaleidoscope of their experiences. Alice Birch’s [BLANK] is described as a “theatrical provocation” which, as written, is too long to be staged – the idea is that a director is challenged to choose from 100 scenes with unnamed characters, to construct a performance from it and in many cases decide on the characters’ genders and relationships. Maria Aberg is the director given the task, and she opts for an all-female cast, giving all the characters the first name (and in some cases last name) of their actor, and weaving a story consisting of several short, sometimes connected scenes, with one much longer one as the centrepiece.

Theatre review: Othello (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

With its black title character Othello is, unsurprisingly, most often used as a way of looking at racism, but for the last of this year's Swanamaker season Ellen McDougall has a different approach in mind. After all, the only overt racism in the play comes from Othello's enemies, but with help from a little tinkering with the text McDougall exposes how the misogyny in the play's world is even more deep-rooted. General Othello (Kurt Egyiawan) has made Michelle Cassio (Joanna Horton) his new lieutenant, to the fury of his ensign Iago (Sam Spruell,) who'd been expecting the promotion. Using his reputation as the most trusted of the officers, Iago decides to take revenge in a slow, insidious way.

Theatre review: All's Well That Ends Well (RSC / RST & TR Newcastle)

The final play in the RSC's main house season this summer is a bona fide Problem Play - although just how problematic can vary from production to production of All's Well That Ends Well. Helena (Joanna Horton) is the daughter of a famous doctor, and when the King of France has an apparently incurable fistula she uses her late father's techniques to cure him. In return the King (Greg Hicks) promises her the hand of whichever man she wants. She chooses the man she's loved since childhood, the Count Bertram (Alex Waldmann.) But not only does the object of her affection see her as his social inferior, he doesn't even remotely find her attractive. Forced into a marriage, he refuses to consummate it and runs away to war, telling her he'll only consider them truly married if she can get from him the ring he never removes, and bear his child despite his refusal to have sex with her. Not the kind of girl to take a hint the size of an anvil, Helena interprets this as a challenge, and hatches a new plan that'll see her follow him to the battlefield.

Theatre review: As You Like It (RSC / RST & TR Newcastle)

From a Shakespeare play that's new to me to one I'm very familiar with, As You Like It having been the first Shakespeare comedy I saw on stage in 1989, and the one that made me realise their humour can still work today. Accordingly it's also a play I can be very particular about, and have been known to get stroppy if I think it's been poorly served by the production. This year's RSC offering though comes with a promising pedigree: Maria Aberg directed my favourite Shakespeare of 2012, King John, and here she reunites with its leads, Pippa Nixon and Alex Waldmann, to take on Rosalind and Orlando. Rosalind's father, the Duke Senior, has been deposed and exiled by his younger brother Frederick. When she spots the mistreated young nobleman Orlando de Boys winning a wrestling match, he and Rosalind fall in love. Shortly afterwards they're banished, separately, to the forest, and by the time they meet again Rosalind is disguised as a boy - a subterfuge she now uses to test and toy with her lover.