Theatre review: Salomé (National Theatre)

It's looking as if the successful Les Blancs was a fluke, and Yaël Farber really does believe that people walking around a stage incredibly slowly is the very essence of Dame Theatre. Her Salomé, which she writes as well as directing, has the tagline "the tale retold," but it's arguable whether it does even that - if you were raised in a non-Christian society and had never heard of Salomé, would you be any the wiser after this? I wouldn't put money on it. She's the niece and adopted daughter of King Herod, who lusts after her and demands an erotic dance from her in return for anything she desires; she asks for the head of the prophet Iokanaan, also known as John the Baptist. On stage the story is best known in the sole tragedy written by Oscar Wilde - which the RSC are, coincidentally, about to stage - in which her motives are those of a vengeful woman spurned, but Farber has a different interpretation of why she was so bloodthirsty.

Theatre review: riverrun

James Joyce's Ulysses is one of those classics people set themselves almost as a challenge, a novel anyone who believes themselves a fan of literature needs to tackle. His later, even more oblique work Finnegan's Wake however, is more likely to be seen as a punchline, a metaphor for something that makes about as much sense as a Coveney article. One of my English lecturers at University announced at a seminar that tackling Ulysses was rewarding, but taking on Finnegan's Wake was nothing more or less than a waste of time. And it's the latter book that gets a one-woman version at The Shed, or at least one of the voices from that book - the lyrical narrative of the river is embodied by Olwen Fouéré, who's also adapted and directed it (with Kellie Hughes) for the stage as riverrun.