Theatre review: Misalliance

Paul Miller's seasonal offering is what has become his personal trademark at the Orange Tree, another lesser-known play by one of the best-loved late 19th or early 20th century playwrights. It's Bernard Shaw's turn again, with Misalliance a fairly straightforward attempt at a knockabout comedy, although one with a message that would have still ruffled a few feathers in 1909. Tarleton (Pip Donaghy) is a self-made man who made a fortune with his brand of hard-wearing underwear. He sent his children to the most expensive schools so that they wouldn't mingle with the aristocracy (they're always asking for loans they never pay back) but somehow his daughter Hypatia (Marli Siu) has still got engaged to Bentley (Rhys Isaac-Jones,) youngest and oddest son of Lord Summerhays (Simon Shepherd.)

Theatre review: The Lottery of Love

Its programming is fairly varied but Artistic Director Paul Miller's productions of classics a couple of times a year have become a signature of the Orange Tree. He usually picks British plays from the last century or so, but this time he's ventured a bit further afield, to the 18th century French writer Marivaux and his comedy The Lottery of Love. Sylvia (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Richard (Ashley Zhangazha) have been promised to each other since childhood, and are about to meet for the first time. Their fathers have both agreed they only need to go ahead with the marriage if they like each other, and Sylvia wants to make sure she catches Richard as he really is, not just on his best behaviour. So she hatches a scheme, agreed to by her father Mr Morgan (Pip Donaghy,) to trade places with her maid Louisa (Claire Lams,) and get all the gossip from her prospective husband's servants.

Theatre review: Taken at Midnight

With the true scale of Hitler's plan years away from becoming generally known, the 1930s saw many in Germany start to fear their chancellor was far more dangerous than he appeared, but the world at large wasn't yet willing to risk taking action against him. In Mark Hayhurst's Taken at Midnight, one dissenting voice within Germany is Jewish lawyer Hans Litten (Martin Hutson,) who in a case against the Nazi party's militant Brownshirts dared to call Hitler himself to the witness stand. It was a deliberate humiliation that wouldn't be forgotten: Once the party come to power, Hans is arrested in the night and imprisoned "for his own protection." As the Nazis' power becomes absolute, he is moved from concentration camp to concentration camp, tortured for information on his former clients. His mother Irmgard, meanwhile, doggedly pursues the SS for news of her son, campaigning for his safe release.

Theatre review: Gabriel

After 2011's The God of Soho Shakespeare's Globe steered clear of staging new commissions for a while for, er, some reason, but this year they're jumping back in, with the casts of each of the three main Shakespearean productions each getting a premiere to work on as well. First up Dominic Dromgoole directs Samuel Adamson's Gabriel, a celebration of the music of Henry Purcell, and particularly of the trumpet, built around trumpeter Alison Balsom. Purcell himself never appears as a character, instead the play is an attempt to contextualise his music by showing us an epic sweep through London in the time of William and Mary. Our guide is John Shaw (Richard Riddell,) a talented trumpeter who becomes Purcell's preferred player and has pieces written especially for him - Balsom providing the actual music when Riddell mimes playing the instrument.