Theatre review: Es & Flo

Sometimes I hit a pleasingly strong streak of shows and the last few weeks seem to have been one of those - but did all the best ones have to be the tear-jerkers? In Jennifer Lunn's Es & Flo, the titular couple have been together for 36 years, after meeting as protesters at Greenham Common. Esme (Liz Crowther) was unhappily married at the time, and though she divorced her husband after meeting Flo (Doreene Blackstock,) it was far from painless: She lost custody of her son, and has never had a close relationship with him since. Flo has been the constant in her life ever since, but they never married when it became legal, or made any kind of legal provision. Everything is in Es' name, which is becoming an urgent problem - as Es is showing increasing signs of dementia, and won't agree to sign the power of attorney.

Theatre review: The Fellowship

Roy Williams, whose Death of England trilogy inadvertently ended up bookending the Covid lockdowns, now turns his hand to a traditional intergenerational family drama at he continues to explore the tensions and contradictions of the children of the Windrush generation. The Fellowship, set in 2019, makes explicit reference to that generation, in the unseen 91-year-old mother of Dawn (Cherrelle Skeete.) She moved into her younger daughter's house when her health started to fail terminally - it's implied if never explicitly stated that her deterioration really began with the Home Office scandal that she got caught up in. Dawn's feelings about a mother who was physically and emotionally abusive are complicated at best, but she's still taken on most of her care compared to older sister Marcia (Suzette Llewellyn,) a barrister and one of a tiny minority of black QCs, whose career has always taken precedence.

Theatre review: Doctor Faustus

Will you have infinite knowledge in return for a bit of the old eternal damnation? Ah you will.

With two plays each over the winter, the Swanamaker is giving William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe equal billing this year, and the last of Michelle Terry’s “Ambitious Fiends” is the most ambitious of all (although Macbeth might be the more fiendish) as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus seeks to gain knowledge – and by extension power – over the whole of creation. Faustus (Jocelyn Jee Esien) is a voracious scholar who, as far as she’s concerned, has exhausted all human knowledge and wants more. The only books left are the forbidden volumes of necromancy, which she uses to summon a demon. Mephistopheles’ (Pauline McLynn) contract specifies that she’ll serve Faustus for 24 years on Earth, in return for her immortal soul. Believing herself to have outsmarted the demon, Faustus takes the deal and begins a journey to learn the mysteries of the universe.

Theatre review: Lady Anna All At Sea

Anthony Trollope's Lady Anna proved a controversial novel in its story that argued against keeping the classes apart for no other reason than the accident of birth. It centres around the disputed will of the recently-deceased, apparently deeply unpleasant Earl Lovel, whose title passes to the next male heir, distant nephew Frederick (Adam Scott-Rowley.) But this honour comes without any of the usual financial advantages, because the old Earl had a secret family, and Countess Lovel (Caroline Langrishe) has spent much of her life fighting to have her title acknowledged. However the marriage is judged legal, and when she comes of age her daughter Lady Anna (Antonia Kinlay) stands to inherit all the money and lands. The lawyers can't untangle the contesting claims, but a marriage between Frederick and Lady Anna would unite title and money again to almost everyone's satisfaction.

Theatre review: One Monkey Don't Stop No Show

A middle-class black family in Philadelphia get their lives shaken up when a smart-talking niece from the country comes to live with them. If the basic premise of Don Evans' 1982 play One Monkey Don't Stop No Show has echoes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, it's a similarity director Dawn Walton has obviously spotted as well: For the play's UK debut (which toured last year and now starts a second leg at the Tricycle) she's framed it as a 1970s/'80s US sitcom, complete with "ON AIR" announcement, jaunty theme tune and a canned audience cheering the arrival of every new character on stage (although fortunately the laughs come from the real audience.) It's an innovative approach that at times stifles some of the satirical intent behind Evans' comedy but, aided by some game performances, for the most part it gets away with it.