Theatre review: Bacchae

Long before he even announced he was leaving the National Theatre I was arguing that RuNo should be succeeded by InRu, so when I actually got what I wanted I wasn't going to let a little thing like Covid keep me from seeing the results: A couple of weeks later than originally planned I'm at the Olivier for Indhu Rubasingham's debut as Artistic Director, and the current front of house exhibition is all about how Ancient Greek theatre has always been a major part of the venue's DNA, not just in the amount of adaptations staged over the years but in the very architecture of the largest auditorium. But Rubasingham has always been more of a specialist in new writing than classics, so if Euripides' Bacchae already seemed a gory start to a new regime, it was always going to come with a twist or two as well.

Theatre review: Hope has a Happy Meal

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I saw the show a couple of nights before Press Night.

When she became a teen mother Hope (Laura Checkley) abandoned her family and baby son, leaving him with her sister to raise, and went travelling around the world. She cut off all contact but 24 years later she's returned home unannounced, to try and reconnect with what family she has left. But home is the People's Republic of Koka Kola, a cross between North Korea and M&M's World, where everything from the trains to the forests is owned and run by multinational corporations. Tom Fowler's Hope has a Happy Meal is a similarly jarring mix of styles and themes, which opens with Hope telling a rambling but clever joke, before turning into, variously, a fairytale road trip, a thriller, and a kitchen sink drama, all with a touch of surreal comedy and a sense that if the concept of hope returned after a long absence, its journey would be as rocky and weird as that of the character of the same name.

Theatre review: Cyrano de Bergerac

“They set in in the 17th century, gave him a long nose, maybe made it a bit funnier... but for the British, Bergerac will always be John Nettles.”

Jamie Lloyd is a director known for being able to get big names on stage, rather than one who has an unofficial company of actors he keeps working with; but one regular collaborator is James McAvoy, who takes the lead as Lloyd launches his latest West End residency, this time a selection of eyewateringly-priced international classics at the Playhouse. And if there's any doubt that this opening salvo is going for a stripped-back style, the one thing that everyone automatically associates with Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac doesn't make an appearance on McAvoy's face. In 1640 Paris, soldier Cyrano is notorious for three things: One is his proficiency with a sword, which sees him able to take out multiple assailants on his own, and also means he can take brutal revenge on anyone who seems to be making fun of his second notable feature, his unusually large nose. But it’s the third thing that becomes central to the play’s plot, and therefore the only one that Lloyd actually stages in a literal way.

Theatre review: Armadillo

It's hardly a fresh observation to say Americans have a uniquely odd, unhealthy relationship with guns; so it says something about Sarah Kosar's new play that she's found a new and disturbing twist on the subject. Armadillo follows three people in their late twenties who've grown up in families where firearms were seen as essential, to the point of fetishisation. For newly-married Sam (Michelle Fox) and John (Mark Quartley) the fetish has literally become sexual - they use loaded guns as foreplay, until an accident six months into their marriage leaves Sam with a gunshot wound in her arm. Realising that it's not just dangerous but an addiction, John comes up with a regime for them to give up having guns in the house. For a while they seem to be managing it, except for the fact that gunplay was so tied up in their love life that Sam can't have sex without it.

Theatre review: The Merry Wives of Windsor(RSC / RST & Barbican)

I'd been fully expecting the RSC to announce that Antony Sher would return to the role of Sir John Falstaff "by" "popular" "demand" when the complete works got round to The Merry Wives of Windsor, but apparently King Lear marked the First Lady's retirement from Shakespeare so instead it's another RSC stalwart who gets a crack at one of the most popular characters, albeit in his least popular appearance. David Troughton plays Falstaff in a play rumoured, somewhat dubiously, to have been commissioned by Elizabeth I herself when she wanted to see more of the breakout star of the Henry IV plays. It's this legend Fiona Laird's production takes as its starting-point, with a Terry Gilliam-style animation of the Queen demanding Shakespeare get out of bed and write her a spin-off in two weeks (a timescale that, let's face it, isn't rendered entirely implausible by much of what follows.)

Theatre review: Romeo and Juliet(RSC / RST, Barbican and tour)

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Romeo and Juliet, but it's also no secret that I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise - Rupert Goold's production was my favourite show of 2010, an accolade I gave it largely because making me like the play is a feat in itself. Since then no version I've seen has given me reason to think that was anything other than an outlier. I wonder how many others see Goold's as such a landmark, because since then the RSC has steered clear of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays: For comparison, Michael Boyd's Antony and Cleopatra opened around the same time, and the company has already revisited that twice since then. Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman is the brave soul tasked with finally taking on the star-crossed lovers again, and while this won't be another production to entirely defy my expectations, she's taken a suitably bold approach to the play, and one that attempts to solve many of the problems I have with it in performance.