Theatre review: Love's Labour's Lost(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

It's great to see Jade Williams back at the Globe, even if it is indoors in the Swanamaker so there's no groundlings for her to vomit on. She and Dharmesh Patel pair up to play Rosaline and Berowne, the proto-Beatrice and Benedick who appear as one of the central three romantic couples in Love's Labour's Lost. That's right, three; Nick Bagnall's production, although not, to my knowledge, touring, has the kind of cast-size you'd expect of a "tiny" touring production, with eight actors covering all the roles. A cerain amount of editing is needed to make that work, and in this case Longueville and Maria have been edited right out of the play altogether. What's left is the story of the King of Navarre (Paul Stocker,) who talks his friends Berowne and Dumaine (Tom Kanji) into joining him in a puritanically strict three-year course of study that includes swearing off the company of women.

Theatre review: Tristan & Yseult

Tristan & Yseult was one of the shows that catapulted Kneehigh from Westcountry touring company to major name in UK theatre, and as Emma Rice's second and final summer season at Shakespeare's Globe has a "Summer of Love" theme, her take on the mediaeval romance takes the South Bank in as part of a new tour. Tristan (Dominic Marsh) is a French prince allied to King Mark of Cornwall (Mike Shepherd,) who helped the king defend against an Irish invasion. As part of his reparation, Mark demands the Irish king's sister Yseult as a bride, and sends Tristan to collect her. Yseult (Hannah Vassallo) swears eternal hatred for the man who killed her brother, but also brings along a love potion to help her get on with her new husband. One mix-up later and the two are in love, or at the very least passionate lust.

Theatre review: Steptoe and Son

Galton and Simpson's TV comedies seem to be endlessly popular as material for remakes, whether back on TV like Paul Merton's Hancock reboots, or on stage like this latest Steptoe and Son from Kneehigh. The justification is usually that the original scripts deserve to shine, and prove that they're works of comic genius even without the familiar casts people grew to love. The 50-year-old Steptoe and Son is particularly beloved, the theme tune, surely Ron Grainer's second most famous, is practically synonymous with classic sitcom (but actually barely makes an appearance here.) The story of two rag and bone men is acclaimed not just for its humour but for its underlying melancholy, darkness and humanity: Harold Steptoe longs to escape a life of buying and selling rubbish, but his mutually dependent relationship with his filthy, elderly father Albert keeps sucking him back in.