Theatre review: Summerfolk

Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk was written in 1904, the year Anton Chekhov died; Nina Raine and Moses Raine's new version for the National moves the action to one year later, possibly so that the characters can make reference to his death, and the obvious comparisons to Gorky's playwrighting contemporary aren't left to be the elephant in the room. Because this all feels very familiar: A large group of well-off Russians (in this case explicitly said to be self-made, nouveau-riche) are on their annual extended summer holiday at a dacha. Some are related: The house belongs to Varvara (Sophie Rundle) and her laywer husband Sergei Bassov (Paul Ready,) while her brother Vlass (Alex Lawther) is nominally Sergei's clerk, but in practice seems to be there mainly to moon over an older woman, the doctor Maria Lvovna (Justine Mitchell.)

Theatre review: Rock'n'Roll

Tom Stoppard time, so lots of people overheard in the interval carefully avoiding giving an opinion in case they're exposed as not understanding it. Rock'n'Roll pits Communist idealism against Cold War reality via two Cambridge academics, whose lives it follows from 1968 to 1989. Max (Nathaniel Parker) is a lecturer and vocal Communist who thinks he's found an enthusiastic protégé in Czech graduate student Jan (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd.) When Russia invades Czechoslovakia to curb its apparent intentions for reform, Jan returns to Prague in the vague impression that he can do something to help, but the authorities - who sent him to England to spy on Max in the first place, and see if he can be turned to an asset - are unimpressed. But Czechoslovakia is still seen as a comparatively open, accessible part of the Eastern Bloc, and the fact that it allows foreign bands to play is a plus to the music-obsessed Jan.

Theatre review: Bach & Sons

The Bridge Theatre's large, easily flexible auditorium, together with Nicholas Hytner's contacts meaning he could quickly bring in many small-scale shows that could play to diminished capacity without breaking the bank, meant that during 2020's two false starts coming out of lockdown it became my most visited venue. The socially distanced seating remains but the programming has gone back to business as usual, with a play that allows Simon Russell Beale to combine his acting day job with his side hustle presenting documentaries about choral music. In Nina Raine's Bach & Sons he plays Johann Sebastian Bach, the most successful and best-remembered of many generations of composers, although in the years covered by the play that doesn't look like it'll be the case: He correctly predicts that his death will be a great career move as he'll get reevaluated, but at the time his meticulous, mathematical musical style is going out of fashion.

Theatre review: Stories

Nina Raine returns to the Dorfman, this time also directing her latest play Stories. It’s named after the idea that there are only seven basic stories in the world, and Anna (Claudie Blakley) seems to go through most of them – mainly the quest - in her attempts to have a baby. After a couple of years of trying with her partner Tom (Sam Troughton,) IVF is the step that makes it feel all too real for him and he breaks up with her. Approaching forty and finding herself single again, Anna becomes all too aware of her biological clock and decides to have the child on her own. She looks into finding a sperm donor online but doesn’t like the anonymity of it, and instead comes up with a plan to find the father herself – never quite giving up on the hope that Tom might change his mind, she nevertheless arranges to meet several men she knows (all also played by Troughton) who she thinks might be suitable candidates.

Theatre review: Consent

It feels like a while since we had a new Nina Raine play so Consent is a welcome arrival at the National, and the playwright's sharp dialogue finds a natural home in a group of friends most of whom are barristers. Kitty (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Edward (Ben Chaplin) have been married for ten years and have only just had their first child; Rachel (Priyanga Burford) and Jake (Adam James) have two children but their marriage has hit a rocky patch as Rachel suspects Jake of having an affair. The sextet is rounded off when Ed sets up his colleague Tim (Pip Carter) with Kitty's actor friend Zara (Daisy Haggard,) but this has the side effect of the two men's antagonistic relationship in court spilling out into their personal lives as Tim accuses Ed of actually wanting Zara for himself.

Theatre review: Tiger Country

There's something of a mini-trend at the moment, of productions from about four years ago returning. At Hampstead there's Nina Raine's Tiger Country, which she once again directs on a wide traverse stage designed by Lizzie Clachan. A hospital drama with more than a little touch of the soap opera about it, it does in fact rise above what look like fairly generic beginnings. Young doctor Emily (Ruth Everett) transfers from Brighton to the Casualty department of a London hospital where her boyfriend James (Luke Thompson) also works - although he doesn't seem too keen on everyone knowing they have more than a working relationship. Emily is still heavily emotionally invested in her patients, in apparent contrast to Vashti (Indira Varma,) a surgeon whose colleagues joke has buried all trace of a personal life to help her progress in her job. But when her aunt (Souad Faress) is admitted to the hospital, Vashti finds it harder to maintain her stiff upper lip.

Theatre review: Donkey Heart

The Old Red Lion has supplied the West End with a surprising amount of content in recent years, and their latest premiere sees the West End give back with a few big-name creatives going to the room above an Islington pub. The lighting is by recent Olivier nominee Peter Mumford, some of the cast have recently been in hit commercial shows, and the director is Nina Raine. The latter's involvement isn't that surprising though, as the playwright is her younger brother Moses Raine, and Donkey Heart touches on their family's Russian ancestry. The setting is a flat in modern-day Moscow where Ivan (Paul Wyett) and Zhenya (Wendy Nottingham) live with Ivan's father Alexander (Patrick Godfrey) and their children Sasha (Lisa Diveney,) Petya (James Musgrave) and Kolya (Albie Marber tonight, alternating with Pierre Atri.) Communism may be gone but the family live in what they describe as a collective hangover from it: They aren't (to the best of their knowledge) under constant surveillance, but the habit of keeping their thoughts and emotions to themselves is a hard one to break.

Theatre review: Longing

As well as his better-known work for the theatre, Anton Chekhov was also a prolific writer of short stories, and it's two of these that William Boyd uses to fashion a new Chekhov play, Longing. Successful lawyer Kolia (Iain Glen) has been invited back to a small town where he spent much of his childhood, by two old friends, Tania (Natasha Little) and Varia (Tamsin Greig.) But the women don't just want to catch up - Tania's alcoholic husband Sergei (Alan Cox) has frittered away her fortune on doomed business deals, and mortgaged the estate to the hilt. Everything is due to be repossessed within days, and Tania hopes that Kolia can help come up with a solution. But he has distractions of his own as Tania's teenage sister Natasha (Eve Ponsonby) has fallen for the much older man.

Re-review: Jumpy

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The second press night for Jumpy is next week.

Almost all of the original Royal Court cast of Jumpy from last year have returned for this, the second transfer to take up residence at the Duke of York's Theatre. Still, Nina Raine's production may take a couple of days to settle into its new home, and seemed to me to be starting a bit sluggishly tonight. I'm sure it'll have found its feet again by the end of the week and in any case once it hit its stride April De Angelis' occasionally dark comedy of a mother and daughter sparks into the entertaining show I remembered enjoying so much the first time. Hilary (Tamsin Greig) is 50 and feeling as if she's about to lose everything. Her job's in danger, her marriage to Mark (Ewan Stewart) is stagnant and, in the play's central relationship, her teenage daughter Tilly (Bel Powley) seems to hate her guts.