Theatre review: Cleansed

A pair of fraternal twins are separated; the female twin, believing her brother to be dead, goes to a strange and possibly dangerous place where she takes on his identity, only to reconnect with him in an unexpected way. It's one of the main plots of Twelfth Night, which Sarah Kane cited as an inspiration for Cleansed, but it's fair to say that she interpreted it in a slightly different way than Shakespeare did. A lot more incestuously, for one thing. Grace (Pearl Chanda) tracks down the hospital-like place where her brother Graham (Jack Riddiford) died of a heroin overdose. The body's long since been cremated so she isn't able to say goodbye to him in that way, instead wearing his clothes and starting to take on his mannerisms. She willingly puts herself under the control of Tinker, the violent and twisted man everyone calls a doctor, but who seems to be anything but a healer.

Theatre review: Women, Beware the Devil

James VI & I's legacy for Britain included a paranoid obsession with witchcraft which would long outlast his own reign; his son's mainly boiled down to a bloody Civil War, the temporary overthrow of the monarchy itself, and Charles I suddenly finding himself shorter by one head. Both of these dark elements of 17th century history feature in Lulu Raczka's new play at the Almeida, although Rupert Goold's slick production never quite gets to the bottom of why Women, Beware the Devil is doing any of this. In rural England in 1640, Agnes (Alison Oliver) has been accused of witchcraft, and accusation would usually be enough to get her hanged. The local lady of the Manor, Elizabeth (Lydia Leonard,) offers her protection and a job as a maid, but there's a catch: She wants Agnes to use the demonic powers she swears she doesn't have to help secure a wife for her brother: If Edward doesn't have a legitimate male heir before he dies, Elizabeth could lose her ancestral home.

Theatre review: The Duchess of Malfi

Rebecca Frecknall has inherited Robert Icke's Associate Director position at the Almeida and with it, it would seem, the van Hove-style captions and a set dominated by a glass-panelled room. Why this one, designed by Chloe Lamford, appears to be a gym changing room I'm not sure, but if the visuals are a bit more elaborate than in her last couple of shows here, Frecknall's style continues to pare scenes down to a breathtaking minimum. The Duchess of Malfi is John Webster's tale of a woman afflicted with two sexy-but-evil brothers, and Lydia Wilson gives a steely performance as the Duchess who's widowed very young, and claims she has no intention of marrying again. It's a lie she tells because she's in love with her steward Antonio (Khalid Abdalla,) and the gulf between their stations means her older brother the Cardinal (Michael Marcus) would rather see her dead than marrying beneath her and disgracing the family.

Theatre review: Mephisto [A Rhapsody]

Deconstructing itself as it goes along, Samuel Gallet's Mephisto [A Rhapsody] is based on a novel by Klaus Mann which was banned for decades – as argued successfully in court by his family, the real-life target of his satire was all-too-easily identifiable. That target was a German actor whose liberal principles went out the window when he realised the Nazis could be good for his career, and ended up performing Faust for Hitler. Gallet transposes the action to present-day France, and the actor making a deal with a metaphorical devil is Aymeric (Leo Bill,) a company member in a provincial rep. They tour Chekhov around a region with poor transport links to the rest of the country, which leaves it a financial and cultural backwater, and a centre for the rise of neo-fascism. Aymeric, along with colleagues Luca (Elizabeth Chan) and Nicole (Subika Anwar-Khan) urge the artistic director Eva (Tamzin Griffin) to ditch the classics in favour of more urgent work addressing the current political crisis.

Theatre review: The Tragedy of King Richard The Second (Almeida)

Simon Russell Beale first made his name as a Shakespearean actor taking on roles that didn't always seem immediately obvious fits for him (I first saw him as Edgar in King Lear, then Ariel in The Tempest.) By contrast Richard II seems like a part he was born to play, but in recent years he's often said he regretted never getting the chance while he was young enough (the real king died aged 33, inasmuch as historical accuracy ever matters where Shakespeare's Histories are concerned.) If someone was going to come along and give him the chance to play the part in his fifties, it makes sense for it to be Joe Hill-Gibbins, never a director to get too hung up on the literal. Hill-Gibbins has restored the full original title The Tragedy of King Richard The Second but elsewhere he and Jeff James have ruthlessly cut down the text so the play comes in at a little over 90 minutes.

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream(Young Vic)

My first two Shakespeare productions of the year fell on consecutive nights, and while both are comedies they couldn't present more of a contrast, even before I got to their respective theatres: Where I'd been looking forward to Twelfth Night, last year saw A Midsummer Night's Dream even more overexposed than usual, so I was approaching it with some trepidation. Added to that was the publicity promising a particularly dark approach to the play, a cliché that can usually be taken as meaning "we failed to actually make it funny," and in any case the nightmare flipside of the Dream is frequently-explored territory. In the runup to a royal wedding Hermia (Jemima Rooper) and Lysander (John Dagleish,) whose love is forbidden, escape the threat of death by fleeing to the forest. They're pursued by Demetrius (Oliver Alvin-Wilson,) in love with Hermia, and Helena (Anna Madeley,) in love with Demetrius.

Theatre review: Hamlet (Barbican Theatre)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The press haven't yet been invited to this. Not that they felt they needed an invitation as, notoriously, a few papers couldn't wait to get some of that Benadryl Cumulonimbus publicity, and printed reviews of the first preview. You know, like those evil unprofessional theatre bloggers sometimes do.

Actually I'm not even sure if this was originally meant to be a preview performance when I first booked my tickets, as I think the original press night was moved back. In any case, the ticket prices weren't discounted for previews, which is the traditional quid pro quo for an early audience seeing a show that's not been locked down yet. And a couple of weeks into the run Lyndsey Turner's production of Hamlet still doesn't feel locked down. Hamlet (Benelux Cenotaph) is the Prince of Denmark who, at the opening of the play, is dealing with a sense of general dissatisfaction that can't just be put down to his father's recent death. Instead of being crowned himself, he's had to stand back and watch his uncle Claudius (Ciarán Hinds) not only take the throne, but also marry Hamlet's mother Gertrude (Anastasia Hille.)

Theatre review: Secret Theatre Show 4

After a break for panto the Lyric Hammersmith's Secret Theatre returns with one notable change: The secret is now revealed slightly earlier, the sheet with title, writer, cast and creative details being handed out before the show rather than after. But for the purposes of this review I'll be sticking to the same format as before: If you're planning to see Show 4 and don't want spoilers, stop reading now.

Theatre review: Secret Theatre Show 3

I've had a numerically-themed week at the theatre, with 1984 on Thursday, Two on Friday and Show 3 tonight. But I'm about to spoil the pattern because, as with all the Secret Theatre shows, I'll be ditching the code number after the text break and calling the show by its real title. So if you're planning to see it yourself and want it to stay a secret, this is as far as you should read.

Theatre review: Secret Theatre Show 1

One bit of mystery Show 2 didn't keep that Show 1 remedies is to keep the safety curtain down as the audience enters. Yes, it's back to the Lyric Hammersmith for Secret Theatre's second show which, as they're numbered by the first preview rather than when they open, is actually called Show 1. As before, only read further if you want to know the play's identity.

Theatre review: Secret Theatre Show 2

Once again, the Lyric Hammersmith is closed for several months to allow building of their new educational annexe. But although the front-of-house is a construction site, the auditorium itself is not being touched, so this time around Sean Holmes has come up with a new plan to keep things going: A young ensemble of 20-something actors will be resident for a year alongside other creatives, who will build up a repertory season.

As an additional twist, the shows are being billed as Secret Theatre, and initially sold to audiences who have no idea what show they've booked to see. (I don't know, realistically, how long they expect the secret to be kept, and if they intend to extend the runs they'll have to relax the secrecy sooner or later, most people won't want to leave their evening's entertainment entirely to chance.) In the spirit of the thing, I won't be revealing the titles of the show on the front page of my blog (you might want to avoid looking at the labels as well) for the sake of anyone who wants to play along (and who wasn't spoiled by HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL theatre reviewers tweeting the title in the interval so they can say they got the exclusive, like one of those people who comments "FIRST!" after an online article.) For those who want to know what they're booking for, I'll review after the cut. The first two shows are now running in rep; tonight I caught Show 2.

Theatre review: The Silence of the Sea

For the final Donmar Trafalgar production, Simon Evans directs Vercors' The Silence of the Sea, set in a recently-occupied French fishing village. An Older Man (Finbar Lynch) has kept himself pretty much to himself for most of his life, but he's recently been joined in his hilltop home by a Young Woman (Simona Bitmaté,) his niece. When the Germans arrive a young officer, Werner (Leo Bill) is stationed to live in their upstairs room. Right from the start Werner is talkative, giving enthusiastic speeches to the pair about his philosophical beliefs and his excitement to finally be in a country he always dreamed of visiting, insensible to the fact that these are people whose nation he's invaded. In his monologues to them he almost seems not to notice how they're responding to his unwanted presence in their home: For the entire duration of his stay, the Man and Woman don't speak a single word to him.

Re-review: Posh

I saw Laura Wade's Posh when it was first performed at the Royal Court in 2010, and despite not being entirely sold on it at the time, booked again for its belated West End transfer: Two years ago the story of an Oxford "dining" club for the incredibly rich and privileged was seen in the context of the election, and the people who were likely to soon be running the country; I was interested to see how the play bears up in the hindsight of two years with those people in charge. Despite the long gap in transferring, six of the original 10 members of the Riot Club have come along to the Duke of York's (including Joshua McGuire, interestingly opting to reprise this instead of his Globe Hamlet from last year; maybe a summer in the West End was more appealing than another regional tour.) They're joined by Max Bennett as Harry, Pip Carter as Hugo, Edward Killingback (Yeah!) Them Motherfuckers Don't Know How To Act (Yeah!) as Miles and Harry Lister Smith as Ed. The club have had to take a few terms off after Toby (Jolyon Coy) got careless and their exploits made the papers. Now they're determined to pick up where they left off with their once-a-term tradition: A private dinner in a village gastro-pub, topped off by trashing the place, and throwing cash at the landlord to keep quiet about it.