Theatre review: Beneatha's Place

Kwame Kwei-Armah premiered Beneatha's Place a decade ago in Baltimore, when he was running a theatre there. Now he's running a theatre here, and directs the play's belated UK premiere at the Young Vic. Cherelle Skeete plays Beneatha, a character from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun, who ends that play contemplating marrying a Nigerian academic and moving with him from Chicago to Lagos. In the first act that's what she's done, and she and Joseph (Zackary Momoh) are moving into a neighbourhood until then populated by white Americans: The departing previous occupants' (Tom Godwin and Nia Gwynne) hamfisted attempts to appear gracious and welcoming are as telling at they are comic. It's 1959, Nigeria is still a British colony but on the brink of independence, and Joseph could potentially be a significant political figure in the discussions of what that independent country could look like.

Theatre review: Timon of Athens (RSC / Swan)

With its story of economic inequality and social unrest - in Greece no less - Timon of Athens seems like a play that would have attracted a lot of revivals in recent years, but the fragmentary nature of the text means Shakespeare and Middleton's tragedy remains as obscure a part of the canon as ever. Its obligatory appearance in the "T" season as part of the RSC's complete works is only the third time I've seen it, and marks one of the few occasions when the company's departed from their current policy of staging all the Shakespeares in the main house, presumably figuring the Swan would be easier to fill. But if the play's obscure the casting is, to me at least, a definite draw, with Kathryn Hunter taking on the title role. Timon has a seemingly infinite belief in the goodness of humanity, as she has more friends than any other woman in Athens. Of course, she's also one of the richest, and famously generous.

Theatre review: Titus Andronicus (RSC / RST & Barbican)

For the most famous playwright in history, Shakespeare is surprisingly subject to the whims of fashion, or at least individual plays of his are. Having been in almost constant rotation in the repertory when I first started going to the theatre, The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew have become a lot rarer, although the former did briefly become ubiquitous again a couple of years ago. On the opposite trajectory is a play you'll still find plenty of people willing to swear is Shakespeare's worst, but which has been cropping up a lot more in hit productions, and I'm yet to see a truly bad one: My first Titus Andronicus was only in 2013, on the RSC's smaller Swan stage; I think Michael Fentiman's take was one of the things that reminded people of what a crowd-pleaser it could be, and on its next Stratford outing it gets a go on the main stage as well as a limited London transfer, as part of this year's overarching Roman theme.

Theatre review: King Lear (RSC / RST & Barbican)

This year's installment of The Greg & Tony Show brings us to what has always been inevitable, as Antony Sher takes the title role in Shakespeare's bleak but beautiful King Lear. Gregory Doran's rule of the RSC has been criticised (largely by me, to be fair,) for sometimes resembling an extended vanity project for his husband, a criticism he's presumably not too worried about dispelling, as this is a production whose aesthetic is all about showing Lear not so much as a king but as a god. Funnily enough that meant I saw parallels with the show I saw last night, but where Haile Selassie worked into his old age to desperately try and cling on to power, Lear starts to believe the adoration he gets is his divine right, and gives up the power that is the only reason anyone respected him.