Theatre review: Guess How Much I Love You?

The Royal Court opens its seventieth anniversary year with one of its most notorious memes, although I'm not sure I would even count Luke Norris' Guess How Much I Love You Question Mark as part of that tradition, and not just because it doesn't take place in the Upstairs Theatre: The venue has traditionally used dead babies for shock value, but Norris' story takes the possibility of a baby dying and goes somewhere a lot more human and moving. It opens with an unnamed couple halfway through a pregnancy scan, playing Twenty Questions and discussing baby names, partly to distract them from the fact that the sonographer left them abruptly to get a second opinion, and has been gone for an unusually long time. We next meet Her (Rosie Sheehy) and Him (Robert Aramayo) during a sleepless night, after they've received a devastating diagnosis.

Theatre review: The Constant Wife

Based on a W. Somerset Maugham play that's one year shy of celebrating its centenary, Laura Wade's The Constant Wife gives us a fun but complicated twist on the new, liberated women of the 1920s. Constance (understudy Jess Nesling*) has been married for 15 years, and remains perfectly happy with her husband. But John (Luke Norris) has been having an affair with her best friend Marie-Louise (Emma McDonald) for some time, something everyone but her seems to know about. Her mother Mrs Culver (Kate Burton) and sister Martha (Amy Morgan) disagree over whether to tell her, but things come to a head when Marie-Louise's husband Mortimer (Daniel Millar) finds out about the affair and confronts them. At which point Constance bends over backwards to disprove the truth, not because she doesn't believe it but because she knows all about it and wants to keep the lie going.

Theatre review: The Motive and the Cue

The National Theatre has lured a couple of the most commercially successful British playwrights amd screenwriters to the South Bank to premiere new shows this season, starting with Jack Thorne in the Lyttelton, with stage and screen director Sam Mendes at the helm of a play about screen stars, and what draws them to the stage. The Motive and the Cue is inspired by the real story of Richard Burton (Johnny Flynn,) who in the middle of the honeymoon for (one of) his marriages to Elizabeth Taylor (Tuppence Middleton) went to Broadway to rehearse for Hamlet. John Gielgud (Mark Gatiss) had already become a legendary Shakespearean actor by his mid-20s, but by 1964 and at the age of 60 his glory days seem to be far behind him.

Theatre review: The Normal Heart

A couple of years ago the National Theatre scored one of the biggest hits of the RuNo era with its revival of the iconic American AIDS play, Angels in America. Now the reconfigured Olivier plays host to an earlier work that it's probably safe to say is the seminal work of the genre. First seen in 1985, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart never actually mentions AIDS - not out of any artistic choice, but because we're dealing with a time when the authorities were loath to admit there even was a disease that seemed to be targeting New York's gay men, let alone give it a name. Far from the magical realism of Tony Kushner's epic, Kramer's play deals very much with the down-to-earth. And while Vicki Mortimer's set is dominated by a memorial eternal flame for the victims, and the play is far from short on heartbreak, the main emotion is anger and frustration at a bureaucratic brick wall; one that seems increasingly purpose-built to help purge Reagan's America of a population it would rather see the back of.

Theatre review: Nora: A Doll's House

You can't move without tripping over a production of A Doll's House lately and the Young Vic, whose last production of it feels comparatively recent in the scheme of things, is back at it with a production first seen in Glasgow last year. Ibsen's play is a proto-feminist story whose heroine finding her strength and identity caused a scandal in its day, and rather than present it as written or relocate it to a single new setting Stef Smith's version attempts to see just how much Nora's story would change over the course of a century. The retitled Nora: A Doll's House casts three versions of its leading lady: Amaka Okafor is 1918 Nora, a dutiful housewife still feeling some of the thrill of being allowed to vote for the first time. Natalie Klamar is 1968 Nora, a pill-popping mother of three idly, or not so idly wondering how her life might be different if the Pill and legal abortions had come along just a little bit sooner. And Anna Russell-Martin is Nora in 2018, propping up a family who've been living on credit.

Theatre review: So Here We Are

DRAMA SCHOOL DISCLAIMER: Drama school productions are classed as amateur performances, which is why I always make this disclaimer; that said, I’ll hopefully be seeing everyone involved in professional productions soon, so I avoid judging them differently.

Yes, catching the odd LAMDA production does open up the possibility that I’ll get bragging rights for spotting a star of the future, but it can also be a chance to see a play I missed the first time round – in this case because Luke Norris’ 2013 play So Here We Are premiered in Manchester. While Norris-as-playwright is yet to have had as big an impact as Norris-as-actor had on that girls’ school party when he took his shirt off in A View From The Bridge, I’m pretty confident he’s got it in him, as the first half in particular of this play about young men’s mental health demonstrates. Nate Gibson’s set is a concrete wall on the banks of the Thames, where four men in their twenties are hanging around after the funeral of their friend Frankie, drinking, smoking, and waiting for the dead man’s girlfriend Kirstie (Amy Vicary-Smith) to arrive with balloons for one last ceremony she has in mind.

Stage-to-screen review: Been So Long

If my theatregoing currently appears to be at something like normal human frequency that's because I've been stuck at home with bronchitis, but Netflix have filled in the gap a bit by releasing their film adaptation of Been So Long - Ché Walker and Arthur Darvill's first musical (maybe you shouldn't hold your breath for their second one to get filmed too soon) which I saw when it premiered at the Young Vic in 2009. From that original cast only Arinzé Kene has returned to play Raymond, released from prison and finding nobody to celebrate with him because while he's been away all his friends have got partners and families. Instead he ends up alone at a bar that's days away from closing, where he meets single mother Simone (Michaela Coel,) who's as attracted to him as he is to her, but has put up a lot of barriers to protect herself and her disabled daughter.

Theatre review: Growth

I'm pretty sure Paines Plough hate London audiences and don't want them to see their shows - I can't see any other reason for setting up the only London dates of their new Roundabout tour in a well-hidden corner of Hackney 20 minutes' walk from the nearest tube station. Indeed, they succeeded in keeping people away from the final London performance of Growth, which is a shame as Luke Norris' new play works well even with a small turnout, but I think could have really captured the attention of a full house. Norris' first play looked at the health issues of an older man, but now he looks at those of someone a lot closer to his own age. Andy Rush plays Tobes, who loses his job, his girlfriend and his flat in the course of a few weeks. But all his frustrations end up focusing on something else he's about to lose.

Theatre review: Blue/Orange

I've been waiting a long time to see Blue/Orange; I missed the National Theatre's original 2000 production, and subsequently the play has gained a reputation as a modern classic - any time a lacklustre new Joe Penhall play premieres, I hear people say he owes his career to this one big hit. A three-hander taking in mental illness, racial stereotyping and professional backstabbing, it takes place in a generic meeting room in a psychiatric hospital. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) has been sectioned after a public incident involving an orange, but his 28 days of observation are up and it's time to decide if he's well enough to be released, or if he's a danger to himself and others. The diagnosis is that he has Borderline Personality Disorder, but his doctor, Bruce (Luke Norris,) believes he's actually schizophrenic, and calls in a consultant for a second opinion.

Re-review: A View From The Bridge

You can read my original review here, of the production that eventually made it to #2 in my best shows of 2014 - a result only unusual in that most other blogs and reviews put Ivo van Hove's production of A View From The Bridge at #1. The original cast from the Young Vic's production has come along for the West End transfer to Wyndhams, led by Mark Strong as Eddie Carbone, the Brooklyn longshoreman whose tragedy is that he never recognises his own attraction to his niece Katie (Phoebe Fox,) even as it makes him bring his life crashing down around him. The production originally played in thrust, something Jan Versweyveld's design attempts to replicate by putting two banks of seating on stage, either side of the enclosed performance area; it's a successful recreation of the design, and even from a seat much further away than last time, I didn't feel the experience was lessened - after all, the effect was always one of making us distant, helpless observers of the inevitable tragedy.

Theatre review: A View From The Bridge

Arthur Miller imagined commuters using the Brooklyn Bridge and barely registering, let alone caring, that there were people living in the neighbourhoods around it. Hence the title of A View From The Bridge, in which Miller imagines the stuff of classical tragedy taking place in the cramped apartments of Red Hook. A mostly Italian-American neighbourhood, it will sometimes see families putting up illegal immigrants from Italy, fleeing desperate poverty and glad to find work on the docks, hoping nobody rats them out to Immigration. Eddie Carbone (Mark Strong) has just put up such a pair of his wife's relatives, brothers from Sicily. Marco (Emun Elliot) is a married man sending money back to his wife and children and hoping to return to them when he's made enough; but Rodolpho (Luke Norris) is single, entranced by the bright lights of America and determined to make his life there.

Theatre review: As You Like It (RSC / RST & TR Newcastle)

From a Shakespeare play that's new to me to one I'm very familiar with, As You Like It having been the first Shakespeare comedy I saw on stage in 1989, and the one that made me realise their humour can still work today. Accordingly it's also a play I can be very particular about, and have been known to get stroppy if I think it's been poorly served by the production. This year's RSC offering though comes with a promising pedigree: Maria Aberg directed my favourite Shakespeare of 2012, King John, and here she reunites with its leads, Pippa Nixon and Alex Waldmann, to take on Rosalind and Orlando. Rosalind's father, the Duke Senior, has been deposed and exiled by his younger brother Frederick. When she spots the mistreated young nobleman Orlando de Boys winning a wrestling match, he and Rosalind fall in love. Shortly afterwards they're banished, separately, to the forest, and by the time they meet again Rosalind is disguised as a boy - a subterfuge she now uses to test and toy with her lover.

Theatre review: Hamlet (RSC / RST & TR Newcastle)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This production invites the critics in next week.

Although I'd like to approach every show with no preconceptions, some productions are easier to get excited about than others. I like Hamlet, and the cast the RSC has assembled, enough to warrant a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. But David Farr is one of the company's most prolific directors, and Jonathan Slinger has been an almost constant presence in Stratford for the last few years. It's hard not to feel as if the pair have been let loose on the "big one" having paid their dues, rather than because of any really exciting idea they wanted to explore. It's a feeling not helped by the fact that Slinger isn't an obvious match to the role at this point in his career - at 40 he's the oldest Hamlet I've seen, overtaking Simon Russell Beale who was 39 when he tackled the role. Having put my preconceptions on the table from the outset I will say that as the show approached I got more excited about it; the production photos revealed an interesting set by Jon Bausor, and the publicity suggested a particular focus on the fencing that gives the play its climax, and I was intrigued by how that conceit would work.

Theatre review: Antigone

At Southwark Playhouse last year, Tom Littler's Middle East-set Antigone became unexpectedly topical when it coincided with the death of Osama bin Laden, and the unceremonious disposal of his body. This year, Polly Findlay's production at the National very consciously exploits the parallels, opening with a tableau that recreates the famous photo of President Obama and his staff watching the raid unfold. This, then, is Antigone as The West Wing, Soutra Gilmour's set creating the hectic offices of Government, as well as the back corridors where we first find Jodie Whittaker's Antigone and her sister Ismene (Annabel Scholey) discussing in hushed tones what's to be done with the remains of their brother Polyneices: Having led an army against his native Thebes, the new King Creon has decreed that his body is to be left unburied and unmourned as a warning to others. If Antigone defies her uncle's orders and buries her brother, the penalty is death. If she doesn't, she's disobeying the gods themselves.

Theatre review: Filumena

Once a prostitute, Filumena was taken from the brothel by Domenico and put up in a little flat as his mistress. But even after his wife died, he still only kept her there, refusing to marry her and carrying on with other women. Now in her forties, Filumena is on her deathbed and convinces Domenico to marry her - at which point she makes a "miraculous" recovery, just in time to stop him marrying his new girlfriend. Set in the bright, sunny courtyard of the wealthy Domenico's house in 1940s Naples, Filumena is largely concerned with the other big secret the title character has been keeping: Her three grown-up sons by different fathers (one of whom is Domenico) who live in town with no idea of who their real mother is. Robert Jones' set effectively evokes the warm, sunny mood of Eduardo De Filippo's play, but despite a great cast led by the always-watchable Samantha Spiro, Michael Attenborough's production at the Almeida fails to come to life.

Theatre review: Goodbye To All That

It's déjà vu time at the Royal Court where I was for the second night in a row: Although this time in the Upstairs theatre, we're still in Essex (Romford this time) and there's another hospital bed on stage. I was also accompanied by Ian for the second night running, because Goodbye To All That is the playwrighting debut of actor Luke Norris, and Ian wanted to know if he's as good at writing as he is at being on stage in just his underpants. This is the opening play in this year's Royal Court Young Writers' Festival but, inspired by the fact that at 25 it was the last year he was young enough to qualify, Norris has written a play concerned with ageing. Frank (Roger Sloman) is nearly 70 and is confronted at the golf club by grandson David (Alexander Cobb) whom he and his wife have raised. David has his A'level results but this isn't the main thing he wants to talk about: He's spotted his grandfather with Rita (Linda Marlowe,) a woman who isn't his grandmother.