Theatre review: Juniper Blood

Mike Bartlett's latest play sees him return to a Chekhovian setting and theme of a rural location consumed by possible ecological disaster, although without quite the formal use of Chekhov's structure of Albion: Juniper Blood features a much smaller cast and three acts rather than four, but it does still feel in many ways a successor to his earlier work. It starts almost as a comedy of disparate groups of farmers and urbanites forming an awkward blended family: Lip (Sam Troughton) is the monosyllabic heir to a farm that's been in his family for generations; quite how he ended up in a relationship with the well-off, earnest Ruth (Hattie Morahan) isn't entirely clear, but shortly before his father's death he agreed to take over the business, with his partner buying into it and investing in repairs and changes to turn it into a more sustainable, organic concern.

Theatre review: Oleanna

David Mamet's most recent foray into gender politics provided the definitive unflushable theatrical turd of 2019, so the return of his much-more lauded 1992 play about the battle of the sexes inevitably raises the question of how well its arguments will have aged. After all, Mamet isn't exactly best-known for his great roles for women, and although Oleanna is largely thought of as one of his better plays it was met with as much controversy as it was praise, for reasons that become apparent in the final moments. I haven't seen the play before, so the transfer of Lucy Bailey's production from Bath to the Arts Theatre is an opportunity to fix that: Jonathan Slinger is John, a University lecturer in... I think maybe Philosophy, although his love of waffling self-importantly means it's often anyone's guess what he's actually talking about. It's no wonder his student Carol (Rosie Sheehy) seems so confused. Set entirely in John's office, Oleanna opens with Carol arriving for an unscheduled meeting.

Stage-to-screen review: Crave

With Crave I've now seen all of Sarah Kane's inevitably small canon of theatrical work; originally premiered under a pseudonym to avoid being judged on the playwright's notoriety, her penultimate play marks a shift of direction into a more abstract poetic style. It famously has no stage directions and the characters are lettered rather than named, leaving it up to the actors and director to find characters in the stream of words (by the time of her de facto suicide note 4:48 Psychosis, Kane had also dispensed with telling us which character says which line, or indeed how many characters there are.) It's a piece that defies an easy summary of what it's about, although like its successor it's built on despair - though rather than that wider existential horror this is more specifically rooted in having despaired of love. There's a failed relationship at the heart of Crave, an intense and highly sexual one and almost certainly abusive to some degree, although whether this is the voice of the abused or the abuser is as fluid as anything else here.

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: Absolute Hell

It takes a certain amount of confidence to call a play Absolute Hell, given the likelihood it’ll end up doing the reviewers’ job for them; of course Rodney Ackland’s 1945 play, not produced until 1952, was originally called The Pink Room, which is only going to result in people like me saying something vague and misinformed about vaginas, so maybe titles were just never his forte. Set shortly after VE Day and either side of the General Election that would put Labour in power, Absolute Hell takes place in the Vie En Rose Club, a private members’ bar run, nominally – her staff regularly grumble about doing all of the work for none of the credit – by Kate Fleetwood’s Christine. A seemingly gregarious hostess with a penchant for men in uniform who tends to get as drunk as any of her customers, she really cuts a painfully lonely figure who needs the club and its clientele to keep her from despair.

Theatre review: Fanny and Alexander

The Old Vic's previous artistic regime was, famously, not really that interested in Fanny, but on Matthew Warchus' watch she's been put centre stage alongside her brother. Ivo van Hove's tedious double-bill had me uninterested in seeing another Ingmar Bergman adaptation, but casting Dame Penelope Wilton* was enough to make me change my mind about Stephen Beresford's Fanny and Alexander. It's easy to see why this one suggested itself for the stage, following as it does a theatrical family through the eyes of its youngest members, Alexander (Guillermo Bedward, Kit Connor, Jack Falk or Misha Handley) and his younger sister Fanny (Zaris Angel Hator, Amy Jayne, Molly Shenker or Katie Simons.) Wilton plays their grandmother Helena, matriarch of the Ekdahl family who run a theatre and restaurant in early 20th-century Uppsala, Sweden.

Re-review: Urinetown

When I first saw Jamie Lloyd's production of off-Broadway musical Urinetown back in March, I thought Soutra Gilmour's too-large-for-the-St James set indicated that a West End transfer was planned; but I also thought it would always be a hard sell there. Both proved true: It's currently playing at the Apollo but has recently shaved a couple of weeks off its run to accommodate the incoming My Night With Reg transfer next year. You can read my original review of Urinetown here; I enjoyed it at the time but probably wouldn't have made a return visit if there hadn't been a very good discount deal at the Last Minute. It turned out to be worth the revisit though, partly thanks to some central recasting. And no, although Nathan Amzi is good as the new Officer Barrel, it's not him I mean.

Theatre review: Urinetown

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I think the press night for Urinetown is sometime next week.

When tickets first went on sale last summer for the latest show at the St James, it was with a slightly awkward attempt at the recent fashion for secret theatre and cinema, that saw people invited to buy tickets for a show whose title wouldn't be announced until a few months later. All that was known was that it would be directed by Jamie Lloyd, but then so are most things. But its codename "UGC" led people with a knowledge of Broadway hits to quickly identify it as a 1999 show that won Tony awards and ran for three years on Broadway, but never made it to the UK until now. Mark Hollmann (music & lyrics) and Greg Kotis (book & lyrics) present a bleak environmental satire about the inevitable drain on resources, but in the form of a spoof musical. And, perhaps explaining why Lloyd's production was keen to shift a few tickets before people got a whiff of the title, it's called Urinetown.

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: Hamlet (RSC / RST & TR Newcastle)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This production invites the critics in next week.

Although I'd like to approach every show with no preconceptions, some productions are easier to get excited about than others. I like Hamlet, and the cast the RSC has assembled, enough to warrant a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. But David Farr is one of the company's most prolific directors, and Jonathan Slinger has been an almost constant presence in Stratford for the last few years. It's hard not to feel as if the pair have been let loose on the "big one" having paid their dues, rather than because of any really exciting idea they wanted to explore. It's a feeling not helped by the fact that Slinger isn't an obvious match to the role at this point in his career - at 40 he's the oldest Hamlet I've seen, overtaking Simon Russell Beale who was 39 when he tackled the role. Having put my preconceptions on the table from the outset I will say that as the show approached I got more excited about it; the production photos revealed an interesting set by Jon Bausor, and the publicity suggested a particular focus on the fencing that gives the play its climax, and I was intrigued by how that conceit would work.

Theatre review: The Comedy of Errors (RSC / RST & Roundhouse)

The last, for me, in the "What country friends is this?" season (although the first written) is The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's silliest play, featuring two pairs of identical twins, a gold chain and a fair bit of extramarital shagging, both intentional and accidental. Antipholus of Syracuse (Jonathan McGuinness) arrives in Ephesus with his servant Dromio (Bruce Mackinnon.) They try to blend in and do so a bit too well, unaware that they're being mistaken for their twin brothers, also called Anthipholus (Stephen Hagan) and Dromio (Felix Hayes.) And yes, it continues to irritate me that Antipholus of Syracuse doesn't put two and two together when he actually knows he has an identical twin out there somewhere, which is why he set sail from Syracuse in the first place, to find him; let's just put it down to him being a massive idiot and get on with the review.

Theatre review: The Tempest (RSC / RST & Roundhouse)

Distracted from his duties as Duke of Milan by his books of magic, Prospero was deposed in a coup by his brother Antonio and the King of Naples, Alonso. Washed up with his infant daughter on a remote island, he used his magic to rule it, enslaving its one human inhabitant and the various spirits, led by Ariel. 12 years later the royal families of Milan and Naples happen to sail by, and Prospero conjures The Tempest responsible for the next shipwreck in the RSC's "What country friends is this?" trilogy. Jon Bausor's set here becomes a much more expressionistic island of warped and broken floorboards, scattered with boulders and harshly lit by fluorescent lights. As with Twelfth Night, David Farr directs, and comes up with another uneven production that shines in the big setpieces, but struggles with the play's hefty exposition.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night (RSC / RST & Roundhouse)

It feels like so long since I saw a good Twelfth Night (the last one I really enjoyed was Michael Grandage's Donmar West End production in 2009) that I was starting to wonder if I'd completely imagined ever liking the play. So I was hoping for something special from David Farr's production for the RSC, currently visiting the Roundhouse as part of the "What country friends is this?" season. In rep with The Comedy of Errors and The Tempest, they're also calling the season Shakespeare's Shipwreck Trilogy (the RSC having realised Shakespeare wrote a shipwreck trilogy only after originally announced plans to include Pericles in the season got quietly shelved.) This particular shipwreck brings twins Viola and Sebastian to Illyria, here a dilapidated hotel in Greece in Jon Bausor's design. Each thinking the other drowned, Viola pretends to be a boy, and gets caught in the love games between the Duke Orsino (whom she has recently fallen for) and the disinterested object of Orsino's affection, Olivia, who now takes a shine to the "boy" Viola.