Theatre review: Grace Pervades

Playing in the West End at the same time as one of his earlier plays that's starting to show its age, David Hare's latest one consciously harks back to an even older tradition of performance than Teeth'N'Smiles: Grace Pervades centres on the most celebrated actress of the Victorian theatre, Ellen Terry (Miranda Raison) and her longstanding professional and personal relationship with actor-manager Henry Irving (Rafe "Ralph" Fiennes.) The latter chose her as his leading lady when he was setting up his own theatre company, convincing her to come out of retirement after she'd decided she would never be as good an actress as her sister. But once they start working together it's Terry who has the bigger impact on him, helping an actor who was admired for his intensity but criticised for his stiffness, to find a style with more connection to castmates and audiences alike.

Theatre review: Harlequinade and All On Her Own

When life gives you harlequins, make...

Harlequinade has a reputation as a very minor part of the Terence Rattigan canon. It's certainly not notable for its depth, but it's no doubt also suffered from often being paired with one of the playwright's masterpieces, The Browning Version, for no other reason than their both being one-acters. Playing in rep with The Winter's Tale in the SirKenBranCo season, it's paired with a different Rattigan piece, but it's no less of an unusual combination: The evening opens with Zoë Wanamaker in the monologue All On Her Own as widow Rosemary, returning from a date to an empty house. Sitting in the room where her husband died of an overdose, she has a conversation with him about whether it truly was an accident as the coroner ruled, or a suicide; she replies to herself on his behalf, expressing thoughts she's been afraid to say out loud before.

Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (Kenneth Branagh Company at the Garrick Theatre)

The latest director to launch his own West End residency is Kenneth Branagh, and he promises to stick around until the end and not get distracted by a shiny thing this time. For the opener SirKenBran co-directs with Rob Ashford and stars as Leontes in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Leontes is king of Sicilia, and lifelong best friends with the king of Bohemia, Polixenes (Hadley Fraser.) Until, that is, for no reason at all, he becomes convinced that Polixenes is having an affair with his wife Herminone (Miranda Raison) and that the baby the queen is pregnant with isn't his. By the time the oracle at Delphi confirms Hermione's innocence it's too late: His public accusation and humiliation of her has brought about deaths and divine retribution, and Leontes' misery can only be ended 16 years later, when his lost baby daughter Perdita (Pirate Jessie Buckley) is found in Bohemia.

Theatre review: Strangers on a Train

"Strangers on a train, exchanging glances. Wondering, on a train, what were the chances..." Actually I think I might have entirely the wrong song stuck in my head. Laurence Fox and Jack Huston certainly don't end up sharing love before the night is through, although given the play opens with the latter getting up close to the former before inviting him back to his private cabin to ply him with alcohol, it does look on the cards for a bit. Guy Haynes (Fox) is an architect with a wife who won't grant him the divorce he wants, Charles Bruno (Huston) a drunken son of millionaires, who'd quite like to see his father dead so he can get his hands on the cash. Bruno proposes that the two murder each other's nemeses, providing not only an alibi but also no known connection to the killer. Guy dismisses the man as a crank but soon finds himself with a dead ex-wife, and Bruno demanding he keep his end of the bargain.

Theatre review: The River

Like a lot of businesses, theatres have tried to capitalise on the Olympics this year; although who would have thought the Olympic theme the Royal Court would choose to emulate would be a ticketing system that confused and angered people, leaving some unable to get hold of tickets at all, and others with more than they actually wanted? It'd be nice to approach The River with a completely open mind, but this really would be ignoring the elephant in the room, as the decision to stage the new play from the creative team behind the juggernaut hit Jerusalem in their smallest venue, for the standard month-long run, with a starry cast and no advance tickets available, has been one of the theatrical stories of the year, widely seen as a cynical marketing ploy to drum up demand for a money-spinning West End transfer. I wasn't willing to skip booking other shows I wanted to see on the off-chance of catching this one, so had left only one day next week free to try my luck. As it happens I didn't need to, as two of my friends were trying to book simultaneously in hopes of doubling their chances and getting two tickets between them; they ended up with two each, and a quick Twitter message later I had a ticket a lot sooner than expected, and without the stress.

Well I'll say right from the start that I thought The River was a very good play; but is it good enough to justify not just the faff, but the animosity the Royal Court has courted with its perverse marketing?

Theatre review: The Physicists

Three shows in and it's harder than ever to see what identity Josie Rourke is trying to give the Donmar Warehouse under her Artistic Directorship: She takes the director's reins again for Jack Thorne's new translation of The Physicists, Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1962 satire of Cold War fears. In the old wing of an insane asylum, only three patients remain. Two think they're famous physicists, Albert Einstein (Paul Bhattacharjee) and Sir Isaac Newton (Justin Salinger.) The third, Möbius (John Heffernan) is a physicist, who believes King Solomon appears to him daily to impart wisdom. As the play opens, Einstein and Newton have each murdered one of the nurses; and Möbius' relationship with his own nurse (Miranda Raison) seems to be following an uncomfortably similar pattern. I've seen people name-check Doctor Strangelove with regard to the play, and there's certainly a sense of the gently, but threateningly surreal to the affair.