Theatre review: Pressure

The British obsession with the weather is a long-standing joke that gets referenced a couple of times in David Haig’s play Pressure; attempting to make a thriller out of the weather forecast – and succeeding – must be a new a twist though. Early June 1944 in a secret military base is a good setting to pull it off though: The Allied forces have been planning D-Day for 18 months, and it absolutely has to take place on Monday the 5th of June. To the best of their knowledge they’ve managed to keep the time and location of the landings a secret, but the more time passes the harder it becomes to contain leaks, and everything is set to go on General Eisenhower’s (Malcolm Sinclair) command. Everything except the weather, the one thing they can’t control, and after several weeks of summer they’re hopeful that the Channel will still be clear by Monday. But they need to get the approval of both American and British meteorologists, and the two don’t agree.

Theatre review: Lawrence After Arabia

Howard Brenton’s latest trip into history looks at the man best known as Lawrence of Arabia - although as the title Lawrence After Arabia suggests, it doesn't look at T.E. Lawrence's most famous deeds except in flashback. In fact most of the action takes place in the home of George Bernard Shaw, where Lawrence (Jack Laskey) liked to hide away from the press, despite the fact that his friend's own fame meant reporters were rarely far away. Jeff Rawle plays Shaw, or possibly Captain Birdseye, and Geraldine James his wife Charlotte, who takes on the job of editing Lawrence's autobiography Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and discovers more in it than she'd expected. John Dove, who's directed Brenton's work at the Globe before, now moves to the playwright's other regular haunt on Hampstead's main stage, and a story that opens with Lawrence a national hero after his victories in the Middle East during World War I.

Theatre review: The Heresy of Love

In addition to its classics and new commissions, Shakespeare's Globe now revives a more recent play with Helen Edmundson's verse drama The Heresy of Love, which makes for a good fit with the theatre's current "Justice & Mercy" season: Its story of a strict regime reinforcing lapsed rules and clashing with a nun resonates with Measure for Measure, while the Catholic Church using the threat of damnation to pull rank on secular powers has echoes in King John. The cast, meanwhile, is largely that of the current As You Like It, although they've gone to one of the Globe's past Rosalinds for the lead: Edmundson's play is inspired by the true story of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Naomi Frederick,) a 17th Century Mexican nun, also a much-loved poet and playwright, who became a close friend of the Spanish Viceroy's wife (Ellie Piercy,) and was commissioned to write plays for court occasions.

Theatre review: Farinelli and the King

Amiably bonkers kings traditionally make for good theatre, so for Farinelli and the King, the first new play to be written for the Swanamaker, Claire van Kampen - better known as a composer - turns to 18th century Madrid and Philippe V, a grandson of Louis XVI of France installed, possibly to his own surprise, as King of Spain. He turns out to be a good monarch, but much of his business is war, which takes a mental toll on him. A bout of depression and paranoia sees him withdraw from human company and his duties, becoming obsessed with the passing of time. When we first meet Philippe (Mark Rylance) he's been awake all night fishing in a goldfish bowl, and berating the clocks for all showing slightly different times. For De la Cuadra (Edward Peel) this is an opportunity to have the king quietly shipped away and rule in his stead, but his doctor (Huss Garbiya) has one last ditch-plan.

Theatre review: Doctor Scroggy's War

In among the patchy track record of new writing at Shakespeare's Globe, there's a few writers who get it just right. Howard Brenton has a better hit rate than most, returning for a third premiere at the venue after the huge success of his Anne Boleyn. The bloody theme of this summer's season is inspired by the centenary of World War I, and Brenton's Doctor Scroggy's War is the only play to deal with it directly. It follows Jack Twigg (Will Featherstone,) a London lad who's the first of his family to go to Oxford, where he makes aristocratic friends like Lord Ralph Dulwich (Joe Jameson.) The two become officers together, but Jack's knowledge of military history and tactical mind see him quickly promoted above his upper-class friend; although what seems like him having ideas above him station gets him into trouble with Field-Marshall French (Paul Rider.)

Theatre review: Blue Stockings

An accomplished director, Jessica Swale's clearly been learning a thing or two in the rehearsal room about what makes plays tick, because her debut as a playwright is an assured one. Having worked at Shakespeare's Globe before, this becomes the venue for the premiere of Blue Stockings, and having championed the work of trailblazing women in her choice of plays to direct, she finds another group of them in Cambridge at the end of the 19th century. For a few decades, women had been allowed to study there at colleges like Girton, but any achievements they made had to go unrecognised: At the time we join the bluestockings (Swale takes her play's title from the sneery nicknmae given to female students) they are trying to secure a historic vote that would allow them to graduate.