Theatre review: Teddy Ferrara

It's been seven years since we last saw a play by Christopher Shinn in London - he had a big hit with Now or Later, which gave Eddie Redmayne a career-boosting role. That play's themes of political ambition and high-profile young gay people are also present in his new play Teddy Ferrara, and Shinn's return has also coaxed back director Dominic Cooke, who's been off the radar since leaving the Royal Court. Hildegard Bechtler's set design turns the Donmar stage into a functional meeting room in a modern US university campus building. But this is a space for impassioned arguments rather than coursework, because most of the students we meet are particularly driven and ambitious, with a high profile on campus. The central character is Gabe (Luke Newberry,) the leader of the college's LGBTQ group. His best friend Tim (Nathan Wiley) is the student president, and Gabe has been persuaded to run for the post himself in his Senior year.

Theatre review: A Human Being Died That Night

Anyone who's followed London theatre in the last few years must surely be excited about the prospect of Noma Dumezweni and Matthew Marsh being pitted against each other in a dramatic two-hander. Psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's book A Human Being Died That Night chronicled her meetings with notorious South African police colonel Eugene de Kock, known as Prime Evil for his many crimes against humanity. In Nicholas Wright's stage adaptation, Pumla (Dumezweni) is serving on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when de Kock's request to meet with the widows of three of his victims piques her interest. She arranges a series of meetings in prison where de Kock (Marsh) is serving 212 years, eager to explore the thin line between the majority of the population and those it deems to be evil. Her prime rule of not emotionally connecting with him is soon broken and she is forced to confront the fact that a "monster" is created out of the same humanity as everyone else.

Theatre review: Proof

Mental illness and prime numbers both seem to be theatrical memes at the moment, and they're coming together at the Menier as Polly Findlay revives David Auburn's Proof. Robert was an exceptionally gifted mathematician in his youth, but the last ten years have been blighted by an unspecified mental illness which left him delusional and unable to work on coherent theories. His younger daughter Catherine (Mariah Gale,) although unable to finish her studies as she's been caring for him, may have inherited some of his mathematical genius but could that also mean she's inherited his madness? In the opening scene she worries about this threat to her sanity as she has a conversation with her father (Matthew Marsh) but she may already have her answer - as he's been dead for the last week.

Theatre review: The Last of the Haussmans

Old hippie Judy Haussman (Julie Walters) has just had a cancer scare, and Social Services have warned they're not happy with the state her house is in. Her children return to the cluttered Devon home they grew up in, but highly-strung daughter Libby (Helen McCrory) is convinced Judy has an ulterior motive: To get them to tidy up the house so she can sell it and deny them their inheritance. With its look at how a generation who said they were trying to save the world actually left it in a worse state for their children, Stephen Beresford's play The Last of the Haussmans shares some similarities with Love, Love, Love, whose final act also saw a family reunite at a Devon house in the summer. Fortunately this establishes its own identity, and ultimately a very different core of characters with their own dynamic.

Theatre review: His Greatness

Inspired by an apocryphal story about Tennessee Williams near the end of his life, Daniel MacIvor's His Greatness (which doesn't name the characters in the actual dialogue but makes no secret of who they're based on) spends two days in late 1980 in a Vancouver hotel room with three gay men. The Playwright (Matthew Marsh) is in town for the opening of his latest play - actually just a rewrite of an earlier, critically panned work. Already feted as a Great American Playwright for his early plays, his most recent work has met with derision, which he responds to by burying himself in whiskey and cocaine. A former lover, now his long-term Assistant (Russell Bentley,) steers him through his schedule, his main job seeming to be keeping the Playwright sober for any public appearances. As tonight is opening night, his job also involves hiring a Young Man (Toby Wharton) to escort the Playwright to the theatre, as well as providing other services later in the evening.