Theatre review: The Watsons

Emma Watson (Grace Molony) was all set for a life of unusual financial independence for a Georgian woman, as the ward and heir to a wealthy dowager aunt. But after 14 years the aunt surprised everyone by marrying an officer who will now inherit everything instead, so Emma has been sent back to the comparative poverty of her own family, to stoically help her eldest sister Elizabeth (Paksie Vernon) care for their dying father. The only way out of being stuck there is marriage, and as the newcomer to the village Emma is the belle of the inevitable ball. She soon has three suitors to choose between: She likes the charming Tom Musgrave (Laurence Ubong Williams) but so does her other sister Margaret (Rhianna McGreevy) and besides, Tom is the story's designated cad. The character Jane Austen seems to have wanted her to end up with is parson Mr Howard (Tim Delap,) but while he might be a thoroughly decent man he doesn't seem like an interesting enough one to really engage someone as dynamic as our heroine.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The production is previewing at the Globe prior to a tour.

After a pretty safe opener in Twelfth Night, the second of Brendan O’Hea’s Globe productions vying for votes on the tour is The Taming of the Shrew. It’s a play that seems ripe for exploration in a year when #MeToo is a major theme in theatre, but it’s also one that, precisely because of the modern context, needs a lot of work and a high concept to find its place on a 21st century stage. Can an eight-strong company who are also rehearsing two other plays at the same time bring that level of nuance? No. Lucentio (Luke Brady) arrives in Padua and instantly falls in love with Bianca (Sarah Finigan,) daughter of the wealthy Baptista (Cynthia Emeagi.) Baptista knows his youngest daughter has many suitors, and has used this to deal with a problem: His eldest, Katherina (Rhianna McGreevy) is so bad-tempered she’s widely considered to be cursed. Baptista has decreed that he’ll only give his blessing for Bianca to marry when a husband has also been found for Katherina.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The production is previewing at the Globe prior to a tour.

After a turbulent couple of years for the venue, Michelle Terry has now officially taken over as Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe, and next week I'll be making my first trip to her summer season proper. But first, as well as any innovations of her own she might have planned, there were a couple of Globe favourites that had fallen by the wayside during the Emma Rice years that I'd hoped to see return; I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that Globe To Globe will be back in future years but in the meantime the "tiny" touring shows - small casts of actor-musicians frantically doubling all the roles in some of Shakespeare's best-known plays - are back, but with a twist that's Terry's own: Brendan O'Hea directs a cast of eight in three plays; once the company hits the road they won't know which play they're going to perform until the last minute, leaving it to an audience vote to decide the night's entertainment.

Theatre review: Spring Awakening

DISCLAIMER: Drama school productions are classed as amateur performances; but as ever, I try to treat them the same as I would professional ones as that's what the cast will be aiming to do next.

It's been a while since I went to one of LAMDA's public performances, and I've not seen them do a musical before, but Vanessa wouldn't have forgiven me if we'd missed a chance to see one of her absolute favourites, Spring Awakening. Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's Broadway musical takes Frank Wedekind's famously banned 19th century play and plays it pretty well straight in the spoken-word scenes, adding deliberately anachronistic songs revealing what the kids are really thinking. Melchior (Ross Kugman tonight - two casts alternate between performances) is the first of his classmates to find out about sex, and only because he reads about it in a book. Apart from those Melchior informs himself, the others remain completely unaware as their parents refuse to discuss it. In the case of his girlfriend Wendla (India Shaw-Smith,) her mother's painfully coy description of the facts of life leads to tragedy. Other kids suffering include the resident loser Moritz (Soroosh Lavasani,) whose parents will disown him if he fails, which his teachers are determined he will.