Theatre review: The Buskers [sic] Opera

John Gay's 18th-century Beggar's Opera has been called a precursor to the modern musical as well as directly influencing various adaptations - most famously The Threepenny Opera. Brecht and Weill's version is about to get revived at the National, so whether that's good or bad timing for a new rewrite remains to be seen. Dougal Irvine's The Buskers OperaSHOULD THERE BE AN APOSTROPHE IN THERE SOMEWHERE OR ARE YOU TRYING TO USE "OPERA" AS A VERB?* references its predecessors in its opening number, in a self-referential style that will become typical of the rest of the evening: Macheath (George Maguire) is a former X Factor contestant kicked out at Boot Camp because of his temper, and now films himself singing anti-establishment songs and posts them on a fairly successful YouTube channel.

Theatre review: Upper Cut

The history of black politicians in the Labour party must include some interesting stories, but on this evidence former journalist Juliet Gilkes Romero hasn't heard any of them. Her play Upper Cut traces the parallel careers of two black British politicians which wind up in very different places: By 2012 Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen) is Deputy Leader of the party, but Karen (Emma Dennis-Edwards,) at one point the great hope to be their first black MP, is moving to America to try a fresh start after decades of disillusionment. The play goes backwards in time until it reaches the Labour conference of September 1986, seeing how the radical socialist became the safe pair of hands, and the level-headed politician became the outcast loose cannon, deselected for publicly calling her own party racist at a rally.

Theatre review: The Beautiful Game

Stephen Ward was this year's entry in the "forgotten" category of Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber's back catalogue, but some of those noted flops do better as chamber pieces on the fringe. And so the Union Theatre takes on The Beautiful Game, the piece he wrote with former comedian Ben Elton, and whose title suggests is about football - but is actually about the much more musical theatre-friendly subject of sectarian violence and terrorism. Set in 1970s Belfast, it follows John (Ben Kerr) and four of his friends on an under-21s' football team with a chance of winning the local Catholic league title. But soon after winning their first game of the season, the one Protestant member of the team, Del (Stephen Barry) is hounded out by the more aggressively Nationalist of his teammates.

Theatre review: Lizzie Siddal

The Pre-Raphaelite equivalent of a supermodel, Elizabeth Siddal modeled for John Everett Millais' Ophelia, still the most popular painting at Tate Britain, and became muse to many artists of the Victorian movement. Jeremy Green's Lizzie Siddal looks at the life beyond the image, when Lizzie moved behind the canvas and attempted to become an artist in her own right. We first meet Lizzie (Emma West) posing for William Holman Hunt (a shamelessly scene-stealing Simon Darwen) and she later gets poached by Millais (James Northcote) for her most famous role, which almost proves fatal when the water goes cold and she contracts pneumonia. But her most enduring relationship, and one that could prove more destructive than any number of cold baths, will be with the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.