Theatre review: Three Sisters

Last winter season saw the Swanamaker take a successful first crack at Ibsen; this year, and in the annual onstage appearance by the Artistic Director, Shakespeare's Globe adds Chekhov to the repertory. In a remote part of Russia the titular Three Sisters live in the house their father bought when he was appointed commander of the resident military garrison. A year after his death, his children are still there, talking about moving back to Moscow but tied to the area by a few circumstances. Over the next five years, instead of freeing themselves from them, they'll end up with ever more reasons they can't escape the depressing small town they only ever thought was a stopgap. Olga is the eldest, the schoolteacher who has little love for the job and certainly doesn't see it as a career she'll progress in.

Theatre review: Quiz

My policy on making theatre trips to Chichester changed from "never" to "three times this year" in part thanks to each of the three shows feeling like they completed some kind of set: The decider was the chance to bookend a decade with different Ian McKellen performances of King Lear, but Sweet Bird of Youth made for a double bill of Tennesse Williams plays starring Brian J. Smith, and now the final show in Daniel Evans' first season in charge concludes a trio of new James Graham plays in 2017. Quiz is less obviously political than most of Graham's plays but you don't have to scratch too deep to find some of the wider themes that often come up in the playwright's work, particularly Privacy, about transparency in personal life, politics and the law; and whether the tendency towards leaving nothing secret in the name of full disclosure is in fact harming the chance of fair treatment behind closed doors. The reason this comes up is that Graham's creating a fictionalised version of a legal case considered to have become trial by media.

Theatre review: The Lottery of Love

Its programming is fairly varied but Artistic Director Paul Miller's productions of classics a couple of times a year have become a signature of the Orange Tree. He usually picks British plays from the last century or so, but this time he's ventured a bit further afield, to the 18th century French writer Marivaux and his comedy The Lottery of Love. Sylvia (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Richard (Ashley Zhangazha) have been promised to each other since childhood, and are about to meet for the first time. Their fathers have both agreed they only need to go ahead with the marriage if they like each other, and Sylvia wants to make sure she catches Richard as he really is, not just on his best behaviour. So she hatches a scheme, agreed to by her father Mr Morgan (Pip Donaghy,) to trade places with her maid Louisa (Claire Lams,) and get all the gossip from her prospective husband's servants.

Theatre review: The White Devil

After providing highlights of the last two RSC seasons with King John and As You Like It, this year's outing for director Maria Aberg was a show to look forward to, but John Webster can be tricky. And The White Devil is a typically convoluted plot: The setting is Rome, where recently-arrived duke Bracciano (David Sturzaker) soon lusts after Vittoria (Kirsty Bushell,) but she's already married to the poor Camillo. With Vittoria's sister Flaminio (Laura Elphinstone) acting as her sister's pimp, Bracciano tries to get Camillo (Keir Charles) out of the way so he can bed his wife. But he soon wants a more permanent solution both for Camillo, and for his own wife Isabella (Faye Castelow.) When they are both found murdered, Vittoria's adultery means she's also trageted as the killer, and a show-trial follows. The lovers manage to flee Rome and get married, but there are people who want revenge for their former spouses' deaths.

Theatre review: The Roaring Girl

The show that gives this year's RSC Swan season its overall title is Dekker and Middleton's The Roaring Girl, a comedy inspired by a real-life Jacobean woman nicknamed Moll Cutpurse, whose fondness for dressing in men's clothes, drinking in taverns and starting fights made her notorious. Jo Davies transfers the fictional Moll to the 1890s, and a Victorian London obsessed with sex, but uncomfortable with any kind of gender-bending. So when Sir Alexander Wengrave (David Rintoul) disapproves of his son marrying Mary (Faye Castelow) because her dowry isn't big enough, Sebastian (Joe Bannister) has a plan: Pretend to be in love with Moll Cutpurse, and his father will be so horrified that Mary seems the perfect daughter-in-law in comparison. One slight problem with the plan is that Moll (Lisa Dillon) doesn't actually know about it, and may not want to cooperate.

Theatre review: Arden of Faversham

The RSC's Swan has been rededicated to its original purpose of staging work by Shakespeare's contemporaries, and Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman programmes the first season in this capacity, Roaring Girls, which focuses on plays with prominent roles for women - in particular, women who go against the grain of society's expectations. Arden of Faversham, whose author remains unknown, is based on the true story of the titular landowner murdered by his wife. In Polly Findlay's modern-dress production, Arden (Ian Redford) becomes the owner of a factory manufacturing Japanese lucky cats, who suspects his wife Alice (Sharon Small) of having an affair with Mosby (Keir Charles.) He's right, but they're also plotting to murder him. Ironically it's Arden's own wealth that will enable Alice to bribe a succession of ne'er-do-wells to help get rid of her husband.

Theatre review: Mydidae

DryWrite is a company that commissions playwrights to produce work on very specific briefs, and there's nothing dry about their challenge to Jack Thorne, to set a play entirely in a bathroom. Named after a kind of short-lived fly, Mydidae takes place over a day in the life of a couple, Marian (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and David (Keir Charles.) It starts as a fairly light piece that looks at how comfortable the pair are together, their morning peeing, flossing and shaving all done in front of each other, sharing a lot of in-jokes that suggest a couple who've got to know each other really well. But a darker underside becomes apparent - the day ahead is one they're both dreading, and it's not just because of the important business pitch David has to make: This is also the anniversary of an event which Thorne makes the audience aware of with a nice degree of subtlety.