Theatre review: Golden Boy

One of the most successful and memorable shows of the Almeida's Gooldilocks era was Rebecca Frecknall's rediscovery of Summer and Smoke, which took an obscure Tennessee Williams play and revealed it as equal to some of the playwright's most famous works. It came to mind with the penultimate show programmed by Goold, as director Sam Yates has spotted the potential for a striking night at the theatre in a 1937 play by the influential but largely forgotten American playwright Clifford Odets. Where the comparison doesn't hold up is in convincing us that Golden Boy itself should be reevaluated as some kind of masterpiece. The production marks a return to the stage for Josh O'Connor - when I first saw him in 2013's Farragut North I called him "one to watch" and he's one of those cases who's proven me right and then some, as people have very much enjoyed watching him in the intervening 13 years.

Theatre review: Here We Are

Stephen Sondheim's final completed musical makes its UK debut at the National with a transfer of Joe Mantello's original off-Broadway production, although "completed" might be a bit of a stretch: The composer had given permission for this version to be staged, but mainly because he was aware he was unlikely to live to write a final version. So we end up with a show whose music and lyrics are very recognisably Sondheim, but which doesn't actually have that many songs mixed into David Ives' book. Inspired by two films by the avant-garde filmmaker Luis Buñuel, Here We Are looks at first to be a fairly straightforward social satire of the criminally rich: Leo (Rory Kinnear) and Marianne Brink (Jane Krakowski) are surprised by a visit from Marianne's sister Fritz (Chumisa Dornford-May.)

Theatre review: Company

Marianne Elliott’s production of Company has been a long time coming – tickets have been on sale for a year and a lot of excitement has been built up over Elliott’s twist to the famous 1970 musical: Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s story of the one singleton in a friendship group full of couples has gender-flipped the lead, with a number of other characters either following suit, or having their roles mixed around a bit to suit the new premise. Bobbie (Rosalie Craig) is turning 35, and her friends are waiting at her apartment to throw a surprise birthday party; when she arrives they will inevitably keep bringing the subject round to her single status and asking when she’s going to get married. The show’s original working title was Threes, because that’s what Bobbie keeps finding herself in as her married friends invite her to be a third wheel and see how great coupled life is – something that’s not as convincing as they think it is.

Theatre review: Urinetown

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I think the press night for Urinetown is sometime next week.

When tickets first went on sale last summer for the latest show at the St James, it was with a slightly awkward attempt at the recent fashion for secret theatre and cinema, that saw people invited to buy tickets for a show whose title wouldn't be announced until a few months later. All that was known was that it would be directed by Jamie Lloyd, but then so are most things. But its codename "UGC" led people with a knowledge of Broadway hits to quickly identify it as a 1999 show that won Tony awards and ran for three years on Broadway, but never made it to the UK until now. Mark Hollmann (music & lyrics) and Greg Kotis (book & lyrics) present a bleak environmental satire about the inevitable drain on resources, but in the form of a spoof musical. And, perhaps explaining why Lloyd's production was keen to shift a few tickets before people got a whiff of the title, it's called Urinetown.