Theatre review: Linck & Mülhahn

Not that there seem to be a lot of great times for the trans and non-binary community lately, but we're in the middle of some particularly bad days at the moment, so it's fitting timing for a historical drama about a pioneering gender-bending couple. Linck & Mülhahn may be a tragicomedy that delivers on the tragic side as much at the comic, but it's also undeniably triumphant, celebratory, and optimistic that, while not enough has changed between 1721 and 2023, the day is coming. It's inspired by real people and events, but Ruby Thomas' play does add its own caveats about what exactly constitutes a true story - is it the story as interpreted by the laws and mores of the time, or the truth as felt and experienced by the people at the heart of it? In 18th century Prussia, Anastasius Linck (Maggie Bain) is a well-liked soldier in his regiment and as much known for his debauchery and female conquests as any of them.

Theatre review: After Electra

In her 2011/12 hit Jumpy, April De Angelis put a woman turning fifty at the heart of the action. For her new play - commissioned specifically to provide the sort of roles for older actresses that are in notoriously short supply - she puts a woman in her eighties centre-stage. Virgie (Marty Cruickshank) has been a moderately successful abstract artist, an inspiration to some but a black sheep in her own family. A hippie free spirit, when her marriage was failing she left her family, leading to her children being taken into care. Haydn (Veronica Roberts,) now a therapist with a tendency to analyse herself and everyone around her in Freudian terms at all times, and Orin (James Wallace,) with a disastrous marriage of his own under his belt, have reconciled with their mother after a fashion, but the youngest daughter was never returned to her, and who she might now be remains a mystery that haunts the whole family.

Theatre review: Richard II (RSC / RST & Barbican)

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of split ends and frizz.

After a year in charge of the RSC, Gregory Doran's first piece of programming finally rolls round, backing up a feeling that star casting is back to stay at Stratford where he directs David Tennant as Richard II. The great-grandson of Edward II, you'd expect family history to have made Richard fully aware that sometimes kings can be deposed, but instead he is steadfast about his divine right to rule, and does so capriciously. Banishing his cousin Bolingbroke is a bad idea, but worse is seizing his property once he's gone, to fund an Irish war. Bolingbroke isn't going to stand for it, and his return to England becomes a fully-fledged revolt. Faced with the fact that his power and even his life aren't as safe as he believed, Richard has to try and maintain both his crown, and the natural lustre and shine of his hair.