Stage-to-screen review: Romeo & Juliet(National Theatre / Sky Arts)

Another very literal interpretation of the phrase "stage to screen" saw the Lyttelton Theatre's stage and wings turned temporarily into a film studio late last year. Among the many Romeo & Juliets cancelled or postponed in 2020 (what's the collective noun? Soutra Gilmour's design here certainly makes a case for "a vial" of Romeo & Juliets,) was Simon Godwin's at the National. Instead of getting put on the back burner or cancelled entirely the NT came up with a third option, teaming up with Sky Arts in the UK and PBS in the US to come up with a TV movie special. What this loses in nearly half the running time it gains in star power - Pirate Jessie Buckley as Juliet, Josh O'Connor as Romeo and Fisayo Akinade as Mercutio had already been announced before the lockdown scuppered the stage production, but I don't know that we'd have necessarily got Lucian Msamati as Friar Laurence, Tamsin Greig as Lady Capulet, Deborah Findlay as the Nurse and certainly not Adrian Lester in essentially a cameo role as the Prince, in a full live run.

TV review: Talking Heads - Her Big Chance /Playing Sandwiches

Of the collection of current and future dames in the new version of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads the most zeitgeisty is surely Jodie Comer - even with the discussion about Killing Eve largely focusing on how much it falls foul of the law of diminishing returns, she's still one of the biggest names to emerge in recent years. The other big name she replaces in these monologues is Julie Walters, as Comer takes on Her Big Chance. She plays young actress Lesley, who's not very bright but still isn't quite dim enough to fool herself that she's not really being used and abused by the film industry she's trying to break into: More by luck than judgement she lands a role as the villain's mostly-naked girlfriend in a low-budget German crime thriller being filmed in Lee-on-Solent, a distinctly chillier location than the Riviera setting it's meant to be. Her Big Chance is a very cleverly balanced tragicomedy - there's a profound sadness to the inevitability with which every man Lesley meets uses her for sex while pretending to help her career, not just on a one-to-one level but the entire cast and crew barely registering her as a person and walking out on her the morning after the night before.

Theatre review: "Master Harold" ...and the Boys

Probably South Africa’s most famous playwright, Athol Fugard is known for his plays skewering Apartheid; ”Master Harold” …and the Boys is described as semi-autobiographical, which may explain some of the background to why an Afrikaner turned so violently against a system designed to keep him in privilege. The setting is a tea room in Port Elizabeth, during a rainy afternoon in 1950 – water hammers down on a skylight over Rajha Shakiry’s set, keeping any potential customers away. So in between cleaning jobs the two black staff members Sam (Lucian Msamati) and Willie (Hammed Animashaun) have plenty of time to practice their steps for an upcoming ballroom dancing competition. That is until teenager Hally (Anson Boon,) son of the tea room’s owners, comes back from school, setting up at one of the tables to do his homework.

Theatre review: Amadeus

Michael Longhurst makes his Olivier debut in epic fashion with a revival of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, which takes its title from the middle name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - the middle name because that's the one that means "love of god," and it's a twist on that that causes the obsession at the heart of the play. Antonio Salieri (Lucian Msamati) is a star composer in 18th century Vienna, court composer to Emperor Joseph II (Tom Edden) and with much of the aristocracy as students. His choice of career comes from his religious faith, having prayed to be able to express the glory of god through his music. When the former child prodigy Mozart (Adam Gillen,) now a fully-fledged performer and composer himself, arrives and becomes flavour of the month, Salieri has a violent reaction to the younger man's talent.

Theatre review: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Dominic Cooke directs the 1920s installment of August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle - actually the only one of the plays not to be set in Pittsburgh, taking place entirely inside a Chicago recording studio - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. In this decade of Wilson's look at the black experience in 20th century America, the experience is still one of being second-class citizens, but real-life blues singer Ma Rainey (Sharon D Clarke) isn't going to let that stop her doing exactly what she wants: As the highest-earning artist on Sturdyvant's (Stuart McQuarrie) record label, she can get away with diva behaviour like flaunting her young girlfriend Dussie Mae (Tamara Lawrance,) refusing to sing until she's had her three bottles of Coke brought to her, and demanding the spoken-word intro to the titular song be performed by her nephew Sylvester (Tunji Lucas) - despite his stutter.

Theatre review: A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes

Last year Marcus Gardley took loose inspiration from Lorca's bleak The House of Bernarda Alba, to create the serious but hugely entertaining House That Will Not Stand. So I was very much looking forward to him teaming up with director Indhu Rubasingham again for a play based on a much lighter source: A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes is an adaptation of Molière’s satirical farce Tartuffe. The play could also be seen as a comic companion piece to Lucas Hnath's The Christians, as both playwrights are the sons of preachers in American megachurches, and that's where they've set their stories. But unlike Hnath's successful church, Gardley's play takes place in one that's hardly thriving: Tardimus Toof (Lucian Msamati) is the self-styled Apostle whose apparently successful healing of the sick isn't drawing in any cash - although it does give him the chance to hit on the young women he heals, much to the fury of his wife.

Theatre review: Othello (RSC / RST)

Iqbal Khan's production of Othello opens with a coup de théâtre courtesy of Ciaran Bagnall's set: The initial setting is Venice, and as Iago (Lucian Msamati) and Roderigo (James Corrigan) plot to reveal the secret of Othello's recent marriage, water bubbles up through grills in the floor, flooding part of the stage and creating the canal their boat floats in. It's an understated and effective start to a production that stays strong on visuals and atmosphere throughout. Hugh Quarshie plays Othello, the black general whose military skill makes him the go-to man when the Duke of Venice (Nadia Albina) needs someone to deal with a conflict in Cyprus. He takes with him his young lieutenant Cassio (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd,) newly promoted over Iago, who hasn't forgiven his general for overlooking him. He plots revenge on both men, and Othello's new wife is the tool he plans to use against them: If he can convince Othello that Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio, his jealousy might destroy them all.

Theatre review: Little Revolution

Alecky Blythe's biggest hit, the verbatim musical London Road, debuted in 2011, but away from the theatre that year's biggest news story was one that Blythe was out recording as the basis for her latest play. Little Revolution debuts three years on from the riots and looting that followed the killing of Mark Duggan by police, and focuses in particular on Hackney. Joe Hill-Gibbins' production goes back to Blythe's trademark performance style, which sees the play's "script" edited as an audio file from original interviews; the actors perform with earpieces through which this is played, so their performances retain the pace and cadences of the real people they're portraying. In keeping with the chaotic events it deals with the play has a particularly rough-and-ready feel, Ian MacNeil's design seeming to have almost blasted the Almeida apart to form a chipboard in-the-round set.

Theatre review: The Epic Adventure of Nhamo the Manyika Warrior and His Sexy Wife Chipo

This year's recurring meme of hefty play titles makes its next appearance at the Tricycle, where Lucian Msamati directs a new play by Denton Chikura, The Epic Adventure of Nhamo the Manyika Warrior and His Sexy Wife Chipo. The setting is Zimbabwe, where a fable for the ages is waiting to be told and the narrator, bad guy and romantic interest are present and correct. Unfortunately the story is stalled because it lacks a protagonist and, egged on by mysterious and somewhat threatening voices, the Narrator (Don Gilet) is desperate to find one. When the goatherd Nhamo (Ery Nzaramba) wanders out of the bush looking for an escaped goat, he's pressed into service but is found severely lacking, and the tale by necessity becomes an origin story, to turn him from zero to hero - all in the silliest way possible.

Theatre review: The Amen Corner

Marianne Jean-Baptiste makes a rare return to the London stage to take the lead in James Baldwin's 1965 play The Amen Corner at the National. She's sister Margaret, pastor at a Harlem church, with very strict rules she expects her flock to live by (despite the fact that one of her parishioners is desperate for work, she refuses to condone him accepting a job driving a whiskey delivery truck, even though he wouldn't be drinking himself.) Her style of preaching seems to have made her popular in the church but the first sign of weakness prompts the animosity of the church elders to come to the surface. Sister Margaret's absence for a week is the first thing to rile them - her trip to visit an affiliate church in Philadelphia makes them wonder why they're paying for it out of church funds. But it's her family life that'll prove the real Achilles heel.

Theatre review: If You Don't Let Us Dream, We Won't Let You Sleep

Anders Lustgarten is a full-time activist whose last play saw the BNP field an Asian candidate at the Finborough in time for the last election. Now that we know what actually happened in that election, he turns his attention to the politics of austerity. And the Royal Court Downstairs stage goes austere as well, with a production without décor for If You Don't Let Us Dream, We Won't Let You Sleep. The short play opens with a cabal of politicians, bankers and business leaders proposing the monetisation of society's downfall: Private companies will be responsible for crime prevention, and if the figures drop their bonds will pay out. But market forces have their own rules, and soon those who control the jails, hospitals and energy suppliers are betting short: The worse things get, the bigger their profits.

Theatre review: Belong

I've been unconvinced by Bola Agbaje's writing so far, but Indhu Rubasingham directing a cast including Noma Dumezweni and Lucian Msamati surely made Belong at the Royal Court Upstairs worth a look. Msamati plays Kayode, a Nigerian-born British MP who's just lost his seat thanks to some unwise Twitter comments that alienated other black voters. Returning to Nigeria for a holiday at his mother's (Pamela Nomvete) home, Kayode gets caught up in local politics when Mama's protégé Kunle (Ashley Zhangazha) introduces him to the corrupt Chief Olowolaye (Richard Pepple.) After getting on the wrong side of the Chief, Kayode experiences Nigerian police corruption first hand and decides to do something about it. He ends up running in local elections, much to the surprise of wife Rita (Dumezweni) who's still at home in London.