Theatre review: Twelfth Night (RSC / RST)

The RSC's apparent reverse-Globe scheduling policy of rarer Shakespeare plays in the summer and the most famous ones in winter continues with Twelfth Night as the holiday show. Prasanna Puwanarajah's production even embraces the play's seasonal title with a few Christmas songs and decorations - all fairly subtle though, this story does after all feature a high-profile Puritan, and they were famously not big fans of Christmas. In fact I was meant to see this closer to the season itself but with the train service between That London and Stratford-upon-Avon being nonexistent for most of this month I had to reschedule to the final matinée: I'd rather not have to publish a review after the show's closed but needs must when Chiltern Railways exists. Opening not with the big storm but with Gwyneth Keyworth's Viola spluttering out of the water, the sense of understatement extends from the Christmas trimmings to many elements of the play.

Theatre review: Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train

Kate Hewitt's production of Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train is the first time Stephen Adly Guirgis' play has been revived in London since 2010, when I saw a production at the smaller of the Trafalgar Studios. The Young Vic's main house is a much larger space but set designer Magda Willi has found interesting ways to evoke the different kinds of confinement and freedom in this prison-set drama. The location is New York's Rikers Island prison, and as the play opens the glass walls on Willi's traverse set form a small central cell where Angel Cruz (Ukweli Roach) waits to hear his fate. He's there because, after all his attempts to free his friend from a cult failed, he shot the "son of god" cult leader in the ass. He's facing an attempted murder charge but insists he only planned to hurt the man, and his lawyer should be able to plead the charge down; until complications in surgery kill his victim and he suddenly finds himself up for First Degree Murder.