Theatre review: The Cardinal

It may be a Troupe production at Southwark Playhouse's smaller space but the Royal Shakespeare Company's fingerprints are all over The Cardinal: The director and many of the cast are RSC regulars, there's a feeling the text has been thoroughly investigated, the programme features both articles from academics and a misleading running time, and there's even a dance break, as was de rigeur during the Michael Boyd years. The fact that James Shirley's play has even seen the light of day again can be traced back to the RSC as well, as it made the final four a couple of years ago when they were looking for an obscurity for the Swan. It lost out to Love's Sacrifice but director Justin Audibert clearly thought it was a shame for it not to reach an audience. On this evidence I would have to agree, it's got its problems, especially in the second half, but has a lot to recommend it as well.

Theatre review: Hamlet (RSC / RST)

A few duff Hamlets in recent years haven't quite shaken my belief that Shakespeare's best-loved play deserves its reputation if only because of how infinitely adaptable it can be; but it always helps to have a great production come along and justify my faith in what is probably the play I've seen more times than any other. The latest RSC Hamlet is a particularly stark contrast to their last one three years ago: Where David Farr's production was intellectual, clinical, relentlessly bleak and ultimately dull, Simon Godwin's new take is playful, emotional and colourful - literally so in Paul Wills' design, as Paapa Essiedu's Hamlet expresses his "antic disposition" with furious, expressive and very messy painting.

Theatre review: The Jew of Malta

Ever since I first read Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta a few years ago I've been keen to see it on stage; not necessarily because of its virtues as a piece of writing, but to see how a 21st century production would cope with the aggressive antisemitism and racism that is even more at the heart of this story than it is in The Merchant of Venice. I thought it might crop up on the fringe at some point but in the event it was one of the country's biggest companies that took on the challenge, with Justin Audibert getting a baptism of fire on his RSC directing debut. The solution he's come up with is an interesting one, particularly in light of the fact that Merchant's LOLantisemitism attitude is often dealt with by ramping up the play's dark side: The opposite happens here, Marlowe's bloodthirsty and vicious revenge tragedy revealed as a black comedy.

Theatre review: Love's Sacrifice

The more obscure of this summer's Swan shows have been chosen in part as a reflection of one of the main RST Shakespeares. John Ford's Love's Sacrifice, which is meant to mirror Othello, really is an obscurity: No definite record seems to exist of it ever having been revived after its 1632 premiere, until now. Matthew Needham returns to the RSC and, with no Roman Emperors available in this year's rep, has to make do with the brattish Duke of Pavy, newly ascended to power and just married to Bianca (inter-species space lesbian Catrin Stewart,) a commoner whose beauty alone he fell for. The closest thing to an Iago figure is D'Avolos (Jonathan McGuinness,) the Duke's vaguely disgruntled secretary, who plans to tell his master that Bianca is cheating on him with his best friend. Where Love's Sacrifice differs from Othello is that - thanks in part, admittedly, to D'Avolos' interference - Bianca and Fernando (Jamie Thomas King) really have fallen in love.