Theatre review: Stage Kiss

Sarah Ruhl takes a decidedly metatheatrical stab at romantic comedy, a genre that over the years has seen many stage and screen couples emulate their characters' relationships in real life. Whether the stars actually managed to recreate their happy endings, though, has never been guaranteed. The unnamed leads in Stage Kiss are actors cast in a regional revival of a forgotten 1930s romance; only when She (MyAnna Buring, as opposed to YourAnna Buring) and He (Patrick Kennedy) arrive for the first day of rehearsals do they discover they've been cast opposite someone they had a tempestuous relationship with two decades earlier. As they go through weeks of rehearsal and performances, kissing each other dozens of times a day, the lines between play and reality start to get blurred.

Theatre review: The Argument

The title of William Boyd's The Argument does relate to one argument in particular - the one in the opening scene, which has repercussions for the rest of the play - but every scene sees a different pairing of characters lock horns. Pip (Oliver Dimsdale) and Meredith (Marianne Oldham) are disagreeing about a crappy movie they've just watched, when the topic suddenly gets darker, leading to Pip admitting that, after only three years of marriage, he's had an affair with a colleague. He moves out of the house, leading their friends to try and get them to reconcile, while Meredith's parents Chloe (Diana Hardcastle) and Frank (Michael Simkins) can't agree on whether they want their daughter to get back with her husband, or move on. A lot of alcohol seems to be fueling both the characters' aggression, and their bad decisions, a fact which Anna Ledwich's production highlights by leaving their empty wine glasses and beer bottles to litter the stage as the play goes on.