Theatre review: The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC/RST)

Known for being particularly good with some of the lesser-loved Shakespeares, Blanche McIntyre returns to Stratford-upon-Avon for the new RSC regime's first season. And in the first half at least, The Merry Wives of Windsor justifies its place as very few people's favourite: While the popular myth of Elizabeth I demanding to see Falstaff in love seems very unlikely, it does feel probable that this Henry IV spin-off was written because of popular demand, and its mix of characters from a very different world with a whole bunch of new comic foils begins as a tangle of plots, tricks and misunderstandings. There's even a very tedious version of the Twelfth Night subplot about convincing two different types of idiot that the other wants to duel them to the death, which even the characters get openly and mercifully bored with and ditch after the first couple of acts.

Theatre review: Best of Enemies

Apart from the occasional exception, James Graham is overwhelmingly known as a political playwright, often one who uses the past to illuminate the present, but even within those bounds there's a wide variety of styles he employs. His latest play does bring one very specific precedent to mind though: It could almost be a sequel to Ink, which pinpointed a particular moment in British newspaper history that changed the way political discourse and media influence would work right up until the present day. This time, the very topical issue is the abrasive and polarised style of political debate that fosters an almost tribal allegiance to extremes, and rejection of compromise. Inspired by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's documentary of the same name, Best of Enemies seeks the origin in American television, and the 1968 party conventions that would choose the Republican and Democratic candidates for the next election.

Stage-to-screen review: Twelfth Night(RSC / RST & Marquee TV)

Christopher Luscombe's Shakespeare productions tend to have a touch of the Merchant/Ivory to them, and so it is with this 2017 production of Twelfth Night, one of the few productions of the RSC's current run through the complete works that I'd missed until now, when it's just been added to Marquee TV's roster. Simon Higlett's set and costume designs are of a sumptious, solid kind a thrust stage like the RST rarely seems to need or bother with, and Nigel Hess' music is used like a movie score, much like he and Luscombe experimented with a decade earlier in their Merry Wives of Windsor for the Globe. The period movie they're making here is a Victorian one, where Shakespeare's fictional Illyrian coast becomes London and the countryside, by now comparatively easily accessible by train.

Theatre review: Venice Preserved

I've seen Venice Preserved once before, but as that particular production was an incoherent car crash that was 50% sales presentation for a property development and 50% people desperately shouting "immersive!" at you while asking for money for four hours, it's probably easiest all round to just treat Thomas Otway's Restoration thriller as completely new to me. Prasanna Puwanarajah directs a mercifully coherent production, although how much sense the plot itself makes remains up for debate. Jaffeir (Michael Grady-Hall) is recruited by his best friend Pierre (Stephen Fewell) to join a bloody rebellion against the corrupt ruling class of Venice; both swear loyalty to the cause, but each also has a personal vendetta against some member of the senate which is the real clincher in wanting to bring them down. In Jaffeir's case, it's his senator father-in-law Priuli (Les Dennis,) who disapproved of the marriage and went out of his way to punish him for it.

Non-review: The Provoked Wife

Not a review because I'm afraid the curse of Restoration Comedy as directed by anyone-who-isn't-Jessica-Swale strikes again. Under normal circumstances I sit through shows in Stratford-upon-Avon to the bitter end regardless, because I'd only have to wait for my train anyway if I ducked out at the interval, but with today's train schedules all over the place with engineering work I had the chance for an early escape from The Provoked Wife. John Vanbrugh's third play (according to the prologue, in which he apologises for writing so many) opens with the familiar grumbling of Sir John Brute (Jonathan Slinger) about how much he's tired of his wife after two years of marriage. As a result he treats her with such indifference and rudeness that Lady Brute (Alexandra Gilbreath,) who's keen to point out she's never cheated on her husband despite never liking him much, now feels provoked to pursue an affair with his friend Constant (Rufus Hound, mainly delivering his lines when other actors are trying to deliver theirs.)

Theatre review: The Ferryman

The last time Jez Butterworth wrote a 3-and-a-half hour rural epic for the Royal Court Downstairs it was the mega-hit Jerusalem, and his latest looks to replicate at least some of that success: It sold out at the Royal Court and had already announced a West End transfer months before opening. But where Jerusalem was a very particular vision of England, The Ferryman takes us to 1980s Northern Ireland and the issue that's dominated centuries of its history. The Troubles are both distant and ever-present in a remote farm in County Armagh where IRA man-turned-farmer Quinn Carney (Paddy Considine) now lives with his extended family. As well as his wife Mary (Genevieve O'Reilly) and their seven children, this includes several elderly aunts and uncles plus his sister-in-law Caitlin (Laura Donnelly) and her teenage son Oisin (Rob Malone,) who've lived there ever since Quinn's brother vanished ten years earlier.

Theatre review: Hangmen

The Royal Court ended its last season Downstairs with a play about hanging; it begins its autumn season with another one. But where debbie tucker green imagined a Britain where capital punishment is still in place, Martin McDonagh's Hangmen takes us to the day after its abolition. Most of the action takes place in a small Oldham pub run by Alice (Sally Rogers) and her husband Harry (David Morrissey.) But up until yesterday Harry's main job was as the country's second-best hangman, after the legendary Albert Pierrepoint. Any mention of Pierrepoint is taboo in this pub though, as instead of notoriety, Harry's job has gained him a macabre kind of celebrity, and he's been happy to capitalise on it for status. With the abolition of hanging in the news, a reporter from the local paper wants Harry's side of the story, and while he pretends to keep a dignified silence, he can't wait to hold court again.

Theatre review: Orson's Shadow

Just as there's a disproportionate amount of novels about writing novels, and films about making films, theatre too has a fondness for shining its light on itself. Austin Pendleton's off-Broadway hit Orson's Shadow, getting its London premiere at Southwark Playhouse in a production by Alice Hamilton, does so with a self-mocking wink at the big personalities and bigger egos the stage attracts: Laurence Olivier (Adrian Lukis) is soon to become the first-ever Artistic Director of the National Theatre, and the respected critic Kenneth Tynan (Edward Bennett - tonight half a dozen of last Christmas' RSC ensemble had come along to watch him) wants to be one of his advisors. But he doesn't really know Olivier that well, and to impress him he decides to find him a director for his latest project, the UK premiere of Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Royal Court.

Theatre review: Love's Labour's Won (RSC / RST)

For the RSC's run through the complete works of Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing is being staged under the title Love's Labour's Won, on the (reasonable) assumption that this is the real identity of the mysterious "missing" comedy some sources refer to. In Christopher Luscombe's paired productions it's being presented as a direct sequel to Love's Labour's Lost, which ended with the various couples separated as the men go off to the First World War. Love's Labour's Won has been set at Christmas 1918, with Leonato's (David Horovitch) home still being used as a makeshift hospital, his daughter Hero (Flora Spencer-Longhurst) and niece Beatrice (Michelle Terry) nursing wounded soldiers. But the War is over now and the house can start going back to normal with the arrival of a victorious regiment led by Don Pedro (John Hodgkinson) and including Beatrice's ex-lover and favourite sparring partner Benedick (Edward Bennett.)

Theatre review: Unscorched

For the third year running the Finborough Theatre hosts the Papatango playwrighting competition, although this year they've simplified things further and are just presenting the winner in a full production. Luke Owen's Unscorched looks at what for most people must be the epitome of a dirty job they'd rather someone else did. Tom (Ronan Raftery) has just started a job in digital analysis for child protection services. What this translates into is clicking on website links that have been flagged up as suspicious, and determining whether or not they really show one of five categories of child abuse; if so, he passes them on to the police. Many prove innocent but the ones that do need action can be traumatic to watch. Tom's determination to do a good thing is tested by the reality of the job, and the ways it affects his new relationship.