Theatre review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Former Deputy Artistic Director of the National Theatre Clint Dyer moves down the road to the Old Vic to direct a somewhat reimagined look at One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dale Wasserman's play based on Ken Kesey's novel about order versus anarchy - where order comes across very much as the bad guy. In a 1960s New Orleans mental asylum, the patients appear to be steadily and quietly getting on with their treatment under Dr Spivey (Matthew Steer) and Nurse Ratched (Future Dame Olivia Williams.) But when R.P. McMurphy (Aaron Pierre) arrives on the ward, having accepted a diagnosis of psychopathy and committal instead of a five-month prison sentence, his rebellious attitude quickly reveals the real power dynamic in the asylum. He makes it his mission to bring some fun and unpredictability to the inmates, but has no idea the lengths Ratched is willing to go to to stop him.

Theatre review: Tartuffe, the Imposter

Molière’s religious con-man Tartuffe has been around a lot in the past year, but for various reasons (having bronchitis when I was meant to be seeing it in Stratford-upon-Avon; avoiding the Theatre Royal Haymarket like the plague) the National’s is the first of the current crop I’ve caught. And certainly as adapted by John Donnelly and directed by Blanche McIntyre the play shows why so many people have chosen it at this particular moment. Robert Jones’ set is a garishly opulent living room that nods to the play’s origins at Versailles, but the action’s been relocated to Highgate where Orgon (Kevin Doyle,) who made his fortune in unspecified dubious ways, lives with his mother Pernelle (Susan Engel,) daughter Mariane (Kitty Archer,) son Damis (Enyi Okoronkwo,) second wife Elmire (Future Dame Olivia Williams) and her brother Cleante (Hari Dhillon.) All except Pernelle are currently horrified at the puritanical turn the household has taken.

Theatre review: Mosquitoes

After the success of Chimerica, Lucy Kirkwood’s latest play Mosquitoes gets its premiere at the National Theatre, with Rufus Norris directing, a Katrina Lindsay set full of bells and whistles and spectacular projections, and most of all the central roles filled by two Future Dame Olivias: Williams plays Alice, a particle physicist working at CERN in the buildup to the Large Hadron Collider being switched on for the first time. Colman is her sister Jenny, the black sheep in a family full of scientists, as she’s superstitious and much more likely to believe any unfounded rumour she reads online than empirically proven facts. In particular, she believed the scare stories about the MMR vaccine causing autism and refused to vaccinate her baby daughter, with tragic results that kick off the story: In need of some support Jenny is visiting her sister in Switzerland, along with their mother Karen (Amanda Boxer.)

Theatre review: Waste

I have a certain amount of healthy suspicion for plays best-known for being banned. What was too unspeakably controversial to be staged in - in this instance - 1907, tends to have lost its shock value by now, and all too often what's left without it would have been long-since forgotten under normal circumstances. It seems to have been a combination of themes of abortion, suicide, and corruption at the highest levels of power that kept Waste off the stage until 1936. Harley Granville Barker's play about political scandal sees the Conservative Party win a General Election, with a mandate that requires them to pass a law separating Church from State. It's not a job anyone in the party actually wants so the new Prime Minister, Horsham (Michael Elwyn) takes the unusual step of inviting Independent MP Henry Trebell (Charles Edwards) to join his cabinet with particular responsibility for drafting and passing the disestablishment bill.

Theatre review: Scenes From a Marriage

A delayed trip for me to Scenes From a Marriage at the St James Theatre, as I'd booked to see a show early in the run but Mark Bazeley's illness resulted in not just that night but a whole week's worth of performances being cancelled. Happily Bazeley is looking more than healthy again now as he and Olivia Williams play Ingmar Bergman's warring couple, in an adaptation by Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Trevor Nunn. Johan and Marianne are a happily married couple, so much so that we meet them giving an interview for a magazine article about successful marriage. Their confidence in the effortlessness of their relationship is misplaced, as becomes apparent over the next ten years while we follow them through a surprise pregnancy and abortion, divorce and, eventually, what kind of relationship is left for people who once seemed inseparable but proved better apart.