Theatre review: The Authenticator

Crumbling country estates have in recent years been at the centre of controversy over the suggestion that maybe the visitors, whose tourist cash is pretty much keeping them standing, might want to know about the darker parts of the building's history, like how much its glory days were supported by the slave trade. They're also the setting for many a gothic mystery, and what Winsome Pinnock's new play The Authenticator does very effectively is bring those two elements together to touch on a hot-button topic in entertaining fashion. Eccentric aristocrat Fen (Sylvestra Le Touzel) is the last descendant of the Harford family, and the first woman to inherit the estate following centuries of male primogeniture. Digging through family history, she's unearthed the previously unseen diaries of 18th century ancestor Henry Harford, the founder of the family's wealth.

Theatre review: The Glow

When Alistair McDowall says he prefers his plays to offer more questions than answers you should believe him: The playwright who's previously taken us into the Cthulhu mythos and to Pluto now appears to take us into a Victorian ghost story, before veering off into a whole new English* mythology. In 1863, self-styled spiritualist medium Evelyn (Rakie Ayola) is roaming the cells of an asylum in search of someone to use as a conduit in her séances. She finds a woman she names Sadie (Ria Zmitrowicz,) who's forgotten her own name and everything else about herself, and essentially kidnaps her, bringing her back to stay with her. The horror-movie feel is tempered with humour as Evelyn's brattish son Mason (Fisayo Akinade) throws tantrums at having to share the house with the new arrival, but he may have a point about the woman they really know nothing about.

Theatre review: On Bear Ridge

Shifting constantly between intimate lament for rural communities and ways of life that are gradually dying out, and outright apocalyptic drama, Ed Thomas’ On Bear Ridge takes place in a butcher’s shop on the top of the titular mountain. Given the character names, all-Welsh cast and the fact that Thomas and Vicky Featherstone’s production has come straight to the Royal Court from National Theatre Wales there’s a definite flavour of where this remote area might be, but the Beckettian tone of the play suggests it’s more the case that it’s everywhere and nowhere. Almost everyone has left Bear Ridge but devoted couple John Daniel (Rhys Ifans) and Noni (Rakie Ayola) have been running the butcher’s as more of a general store for years and are sticking around despite the fact that there’s barely any food left to feed themselves, let alone sell to anyone else, and they’re running out of furniture to burn for heat.

Theatre review: The Half God of Rainfall

Inua Ellams scored his biggest hit to date by keeping things very much down to earth for his Barber Shop Chronicles, but for his follow-up he returns to more mythical storytelling with a vengeance: The Half God of Rainfall mixes Greek and Nigerian mythology with the more modern deities of professional sports. Modupe (Rakie Ayola) was high priestess to a river goddess and under her protection, but the Yoruba gods end up in a war with the Olympians, seemingly for no other reason than the fact that they're gods, and fight is what gods do. The Greeks win and Modupe is claimed as one of Zeus' spoils; he impregnates her and her demigod son is a baby who causes floods when he cries. When he's older Demi (Kwami Odoom) makes it rain in a more metaphorical way, as a star basketball player whose talent begins to earn him adoring fans.

Theatre review: Leave to Remain

It's mercifully not about Brexit, but the title of Matt Jones and Kele Okereke's new musical Leave to Remain is still enough to bring me out in hives. Instead it's "leave" as in "permission," as the story begins when London-based American Alex's (Billy Cullum) firm decide to relocate their business entirely out of the UK to Abu Dhabi (...so I guess it is about Brexit?) His visa is entirely dependent on his job, so if he resigns he'll no longer be entitled to stay in the country. He's built his life here and the fastest obvious way to stay is to marry his boyfriend Obi (Tyrone Huntley.) But their relationship is very new so it's an extreme step, and despite quickly agreeing to it Obi is emotionally very distant so it's hard to be sure how he really feels about his partner. Besides, formalising his relationship will mean Obi confronting his family and the way they reacted when they found out he was gay.

Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (RSC / RST & tour)

Lucy Bailey's history at the RSC seems mainly to involve directing some of my least favourite Shakespeare plays. And Jo Stone-Fewings', for some reason, always requires him to lounge barefoot on piles of scatter cushions. Both memes are present and correct as Stone-Fewings plays Leontes in Bailey's production of The Winter's Tale. Leontes is the King of Sicilia, and has been friends with Bohemian King Polixenes since childhood. Despite years of happy marriage to Hermione, Leontes is gripped by am irrational jealousy (here strongly implied to be the result of a sudden mental illness) that his wife and best friend are having an affair, and that the baby Hermione is carrying is Polixenes'. The latter is warned in time to escape, but the Queen is subjected to a humiliating show-trial, and when Leontes' doubts are proven groundless he's punished by a series of personal disasters - which only the play's notorious lurch into magical pastoral fairytale can make better.