Theatre review: Punch

James Graham's widest audience has arguably come from Sherwood, the TV crime drama not only located in the Nottinghamshire area where he grew up, but also with a story built entirely on the very specific historic tensions that have a ripple effect there to this day. He stays in Nottingham for his latest return to the stage with a production that originated there, and a play based on a true story: Jacob Dunne (David Shields) was 19 when he joined some of his friends in a drunken fight, and punched a stranger, James Hodgkinson, who fell to the street and hit his head. Jacob ran away from the scene and more or less forgot about the assault, but nine days later James died of his injuries and Jacob was suddenly facing a murder charge. Punch follows his life leading up to that point, as well as the surprising turns it took after he served a 30-month prison sentence for manslaughter.

Almost-a-review: God Bless the Child

Not quite a review because I didn't see all of Molly Davies' God Bless the Child. Not because I didn't want to, but because 10 minutes from the end the performance had to be cancelled due to one of the cast getting ill. As it's pretty much sold out tonight's audience had to be refunded rather than reschedule to another date, so this is the best I can do as far as reviewing Vicky Featherstone's production goes.

The first time I ever went to the Royal Court Upstairs, it had been turned into a pretty realistic B&B room in Scarborough, and this is the most uncanny transformation I've seen there since: Chloe Lamford has turned the attic space into the primary school classroom of Class 4N, who have been chosen to trial a new government teaching initiative.