Theatre review: Ghosts

I dithered over whether to see the Lyric Hammersmith's new version of Ghosts: The Swanamaker's 2023 production was possibly the best I've seen, and when something like that is comparatively recent I can be loath to spoil the memory with something that might not live up to it. In the end I gave Gary Owen's version, which reunites him with regular director Rachel O'Riordan and star Callum Scott Howells, a go in part because it sounded like it would essentially be a new, entirely different play. After all, Iphigenia in Splott and Romeo and Julie took only loose inspiration from the classics their titles alluded to. But Ghosts isn't quite the same kind of complete reinvention, nor is it really a version of Henrik Ibsen's original as advertised: Instead it starts with Ibsen and goes off in a different direction, and it's in being neither one thing nor the other that I found it stumbled.

Theatre review: Fairview

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s dark comedy about cultural appropriation Fairview begins as That American Play Where An Extended Family Gets Together After A Long Time, Preferably At Thanksgiving But That’s Optional, and let’s face it that was probably enough to win it the Pulitzer on its own. The play ends up divided into three distinct sections plus a powerful postscript, but to begin with Nadia Latif’s widescreen production is practically a sitcom as an African-American family prepares a meal: Beverly (Nicola Hughes) is stressing about getting everything just right for her mother’s birthday dinner; her husband Dayton (Rhashan Stone) is much more relaxed – a bit too relaxed as far as she’s concerned, but he has helped organise more of the cooking than she realised, and he helps her calm down a bit by dancing to their favourite songs. When her sister Jasmine (Naana Agyei-Ampadu) arrives she’s sassy and combative and manages to get the guest of honour to lock herself in the bathroom, but she does have a soft spot for Beverly and Dayton’s tomboyish daughter Keisha (Donna Banya.)

Theatre review: All About Eve

Ivo van Hove's love of translating cinema to the stage (while keeping a few cinematic tricks in his back pocket) brings him to the 1950 classic All About Eve, a fairly obvious fit for a return to the theatre as it's all about backstage intrigue and ambition, and based on a stage play in the first place. The production was originally set to star Cate Blanchett in the role made famous by Bette Davis, but she ditched it to star in a play that you can only see if you win a load of old ballots. For me it worked out, as I prefer her replacement Gillian Anderson, a woman who can spell both "Gillian" and "Anderson," as opposed to one who can spell neither "Kate" nor "Blanket." Anderson is Broadway grand dame Margo Channing, a star currently wowing the crowds in a role specially written for her by popular playwright Lloyd Richards (Rhashan Stone,) who's lining up a role in his next play for her as well.

Theatre review: The Strange Death of John Doe

Fiona Doyle’s second play for Hampstead Downstairs, The Strange Death of John Doe is structured as a post-mortem on what was, indeed, a strange death – though one not only based on a true story but on circumstances that are surprisingly common. The John Doe body in question will eventually be identified as Ximo (Benjamin Cawley,) found dead under the Heathrow flightpath with no sign of how he got there. The conclusion is that he’d stowed away in a plane’s landing gear and fell as it prepared to land, although whether the fall killed him or he was already dead from hypothermia is something pathologist Ger (Charlotte Bradley) and her team may never be able to establish. As they cut into Ximo’s body to find answers, detective John Kavura (Rhashan Stone) tries to figure out how he got there. Put on suspension because of his alcoholism and taken off the case, John is haunted too much by the story to let it go, and investigates anyway.

Theatre review: The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Tony Kushner's 2009 play - set two years before that - The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures gets its UK premiere at Hampstead, who've appended the alternate title iHo (you can't really tweet the whole thing, I guess.) But the full title is probably worth sticking to as the wordiness and sheer unnecessary length give a better indicator of what the play itself is like, as opposed to iHo, because it isn't actually about what would happen if Apple made prostitutes. Instead it's something of a family saga, though playing out over just a few days, set mainly in a Brooklyn brownstone that's in need of fairly regular repair but has still skyrocketed in value as the property boom gets going. Tom Piper's design puts the bare white shell of the four-story building on a revolve.

Theatre review: Our Town

Occasionally I see productions of shows I was in at University, but tonight something a bit rarer - a play I was in at school. Of course it wouldn't be quite as rare in America - the cliché about Thornton Wilder's Our Town is that on any given day there's a production playing somewhere in the world, most likely in the US. Its simple staging conceit, decent-sized cast and homespun feel make it popular with local, amateur and school productions, but if it's notable for its simplicity it's definitely of the deceptive kind. In a production that originated in Chicago in 2008, David Cromer directs as well as playing the Stage Manager, the businesslike narrator who pieces the story together out of the barest theatrical techniques. It's the story of Grover's Corners, a small New Hampshire town, in the first decade or so of the 20th century; but the Stage Manager is looking at it from 1938 when the play debuted, so he knows from the start how everyone's story will end.

Theatre review: Love and Information

Nikki Amuka-Bird, Linda Bassett, Amanda Drew, John Heffernan, Paul Jesson and Amit Shah are among the cast of 15 for Caryl Churchill's latest play, Love and Information. Almost as if she'd seen the Royal Court Downstairs' flair in recent years for lightning-fast scene changes and wanted in on the action, Churchill gives us essentially a fast-paced sketch show format. On what looks like the same white box, endless configurations of people and settings appear, to perform vignettes no longer than a couple of minutes at most, some lasting only seconds; a couple of them with barely any dialogue. The significance of some of the scenes is occasionally hard to pinpoint but overall a picture builds up of information in modern life: The demand for it (the opening scene is of Shah demanding a secret from Amuka-Bird,) the overload of it (he soon regrets asking,) and where emotions and individuality fit into a world made up of endless streams of data, both useful and useless.