Theatre review: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

As a Tennessee Williams fan there's mixed emotions coming to a new production of a lesser- known play: He was so prolific there's always something new to discover, but if that prolonged burst of creativity owed something to his prodigious coke habit, the quality of some of the later plays seems to attest to it just as much. The Wikipedia page for this 1963 meditation on mortality and grief, thought to have been written in response to the terminal illness of his long-term partner, is essentially a list of how many times Williams wrote it, and it tanked, rewrote it, and it tanked worse, rewrote it as a film, and it tanked globally. But as well as simply wanting to tick another title off the list, there's always the hope that someone will do a Summer and Smoke, and reveal an almost-forgotten work as a misjudged classic with a revelatory production. Robert Chevara's take on The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore at Charing Cross Theatre is not that production.

Theatre review: Vincent River

A production of Vincent River eight years ago was one of the plays that established Philip Ridley as one of my absolute favourite playwrights, so a revival at the Park Theatre's studio space was something to get excited about. First produced in 2001 but with elements that are sadly still relevant with the rise in homophobic hate crime since the Brexit vote, the titular Vincent is what the play's characters have in common, but we never see him because he died 18 weeks earlier, beaten to death in a Shoreditch cottage. His mother Anita (Louise Jameson,) who claims never to have suspected her son's sexuality, has just moved to Dagenham to get away from the scene of the crime and the backlash from her neighbours, but she's not got away from everyone who's interested in her story - a young man has been stalking her, not particularly subtly so she's well aware he's there.

Theatre review: Billy Budd

Is the new Southwark Playhouse deliberately stripping themes across its two studios or is it happening by accident? After an (aborted) South American theme to open with, it's all going nautical now. The Large will shortly be hosting a musical Titanic but for now The Little brings us some more peril at sea with Herman Melville's Billy Budd. The titular Billy (Charlie Archer) has worked on merchant ships since childhood when, aged about 20, he's conscripted by the HMS Indomitable. A simpleton who's unable to see anything but good in people, he quickly charms the rest of the sailors and becomes a calming influence over the whole crew. It could also be said he charms the master-at-arms as well, but this coldly sadistic man reacts very differently: He deals with his attraction to Billy by trying to destroy him.