Theatre review: Queen Anne

It'd be a bit optimistic to think it signals 2016 sorting out theatre's notorious gender imbalance, but I've started the year with a trio of plays centring on women. The third is Queen Anne, Helen Edmundson's attempt to restore the memory of a largely forgotten monarch, whose name nowadays is mostly likely to be followed by that of a piece of furniture. The last of the Stuarts, even before her reign began its central issue was the succession, and England was determined enough to avoid another Catholic king to spend years and a fortune on wars in Europe to prevent it. When her predecessor William III (Carl Prekopp) dies earlier than expected, Anne (Emma Cunniffe) has been unable to provide herself with a living heir, and the seventeen pregnancies she's had while trying have left her physically and mentally exhausted. But she still embraces her new responsibilities, determined to be remembered as England's fairest ruler*.

Theatre review: Fatal Attraction

OK, so I've sometimes been guilty of getting the giggles when a show's attempt to be dramatic goes badly wrong. But 30 seconds into a performance is a record that's surely going to be hard to beat. Yet that's how long it takes for the stage to go dark except for a frame of blue neon lighting, and for Mark Bazeley to walk out of a crowd of extras (more on them later,) stride downstage and announce to the audience that sometimes you take the wrong road in life and it leads you STRAIGHT TO HELL! Bazeley is playing Dan, the anti-hero of Fatal Attraction, which James Dearden has adapted from his own screenplay, and Trevor Nunn has put on stage in the form of a fevered crack dream. Natascha McElhone plays Alex, the original bunny-boiler, and Kristin Davis plays Beth, the wife with the personality of a wet tissue.