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: Jess and Joe Forever

When a 9-year-old girl is caught spying on a group of skinny-dipping boys, they make fun of her until the smallest of the boys, and the only one wearing swimming trunks, distracts them by jumping out of a tree into the water. It's a little kindness that'll develop into a friendship over the next few years. Two young adult actors give convincingly wide-eyed and halting performances as the titular characters of Zoe Cooper's Jess and Joe Forever. Jess (Nicola Coughlan) is the city-girl daughter of a rich couple who've bought a cottage in a remote part of Norfolk just so they can send her there with the au pair for a couple of weeks every summer to "learn how to have a childhood." Her real holiday will be with them straight afterwards, for quality time and to brush up on her Italian language skills.