Theatre review: Meetings

Trinidadian couple Jean and Hugh are living the 1980s dream: Chain-smoking Jean (Martina Laird) has never wanted to be a domestic goddess, instead becoming a successful businesswoman who's just taken on a contract marketing a new American cigarette brand to the island's poor villagers. Hugh (Kevin N Golding) has a plumbing supplies company, and has struck a deal to sell pipes at inflated prices to a government crony. Yes, there might have been the odd topical connection that helped put Mustapha Matura's Meetings on the list of potential revivals for this year's JMK Award. But while Jean doesn't seem to want anything to change, Hugh is on the verge of a midlife crisis prompted by food: With no time or inclination to cook or eat together, the couple have largely depended on restaurants and takeaways.

Stage-to-screen review: Much Ado About Nothing(RSC / RST & BBC)

After Covid kept me away from Stratford-upon-Avon for two years, the aftermath of 1990s Gladiators winner Storm Eunice kept me away a bit longer when I was due to see the RST reopen with Roy Alexander Weise's take on Much Ado About Nothing. The BBC has come up with another chance to catch it though, with a filmed performance that's now available on iPlayer. Much Ado is set to be this year's most ubiquitous Shakespeare play, and another 2022 meme it's contributed to is the understudy having to permanently take over a lead role: Michael Balogun, himself the beneficiary of a sudden promotion, dropped out just before opening and Luke Wilson (not that one) got the plum role of Benedick. And he makes the most of the opportunity, easily becoming one of the best things in a frankly bizarre production whose high concept design overwhelms it.