Theatre review: Product

Leah (Future Dame Olivia Poulet) is a mid-ranking Hollywood executive who thinks she's found the script to take her to the big leagues, in Mark Ravenhill's 2005 monologue Product. With the right leading lady in place she might be able to get it green-lit, and she's managed to get a meeting with a big enough name. The whole 50-minute show is Leah's pitch to the actress, as she talks her through what she believes will be a bold and moving epic: Mohammed and Me, the story of a 9/11 widow who falls in love with a suicide bomber. Product is a pretty straightforward play, a satire on how Hollywood latches onto tragedy in the most crass possible way, as well as of stereotyped Western attitudes to Islam. The tasteless movie being pitched is clearly ridiculous but feels just on the edge of something that might actually have got made.

Theatre review: How I Learned to Drive

Nostalgia with a markedly sinister edge at Southwark Playhouse's Little, with Jack Sain's production of Paula Vogel's 1998 Pulitzer-winner, How I Learned to Drive. As she approaches 40, Li'l Bit (Future Dame Olivia Poulet) reminisces about her teenage years in the 1960s, and in particular her relationship with her uncle, Peck (William Ellis.) He did indeed teach her to drive, but from the first time we meet them it's clear that's not all that happened in his car - and if he'd had his way even more would probably have gone on. Li'l Bit initially flashes back to 1969, when she was 17 and preparing to take her driving test. But her narration then takes us back and forward in time, jumping through memories as they come to her, and building up a picture of how her adolescence formed who she is today.

Theatre review: Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Official critics have not yet been invited to review this.

Considered a bit of a feminist classic but not revived for decades, Pam Gems' Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi follows the titular four women sharing a small flat. All are strong-willed and appear liberated but each has her problems holding her back: Dusa (Sophie Scott) is trying to get her children back after her ex-husband ran away with them to Argentina. Stas (Emily Dobbs) is a hospice nurse with a sideline in prostitution and a knack for shoplifting, saving up to study Marine Biology in Hawaii. The tiny Vi (Helena Johnson) is obsessed with yoga and vegetarianism, to the point that it's become an eating disorder and she barely eats any more. On the outside, Fish (Olivia Poulet) seems the strongest of the quartet, a working woman and Union representative, she's a public speaker campaigning for equal working conditions and pay for women.

Theatre review: The Captain of Köpenick

I'm not sure what's going on at the National lately - the better the quality of work at the now-defunct Cottesloe, the more questionable the choices in the two bigger houses seem to get. After last year's unmemorable Travelling Light in the Lyttelton, Antony Sher moves to the Olivier for Carl Zuckmayer's farcical satire on bureaucracy and the blind following of orders, The Captain of Köpenick.

Wilhelm Voigt (Sher) is a lifelong small-time crook. Released from prison for the umpteenth time, he finds life on the outside even more of a challenge as he can't do anything without presenting his official papers - documents he's never actually had. As Voigt's very existence is questioned by the authorities, the Mayor of Köpenick (Anthony O'Donnell) is having a new military uniform made - a plot that will (eventually) cross paths with Voigt's.

Re-review: Shivered

You can read my original review of Philip Ridley's latest play Shivered here; at the end of it I said I could have gone straight back to the theatre and watched it again. That, of course, wasn't possible (apparently even actors have homes to go to) but as the end of the run neared I increasingly wanted to catch the show again before it ended, and a few days ago booked for its final performance last night.

It's no secret that as far as I'm concerned, Shivered is the show to beat this year, and a second visit did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm. The scenes are shown out of chronological order, which means on a first viewing one of the pleasures is in putting the story together in your head and realising how seemingly innocuous events seen early on have a greater significance. But even without this element of surprise, there's satisfaction to be found in the dramatic ironies that pepper early scenes (Gordy's bullshit "story of Baby G" features an event that closely mirrors how Mikey's story will end, as well as links to Alec's experiences in the Middle East.)