Theatre review: Mary

Rona Munro's second James Plays trilogy has kicked off in Scotland (hopefully with a London run in its future) with James IV, but before that there's another entry in her cycle of plays about the Stuart rulers. Although Mary feels like a bonus feature rather than the next chapter, and not just because it's premiering out of chronological order: Instead of the bloody epics of the main sequence, Mary is a two-scene discussion with just three characters, and the titular Queen of Scots isn't even one of them. There is a James though, but he's not King: James Melville (Douglas Henshall) is a Lord loyal to the Queen at a time when much of the Scottish aristocracy seems to be plotting against her. We open at Linlithgow Palace in 1567, shortly after the murder of Mary's second husband Lord Darnley, father of James VI and I. The scheming Lord Bothwell is the likely culprit, but gossip also puts Mary herself under suspicion.

Theatre review: The Fever Syndrome

Hampstead Theatre may now be run by Roxana Silbert but some things don't change, and it remains London's main home for That American Play Where An Extended Family Gets Together After A Long Time, Preferably At Thanksgiving But That’s Optional. Silbert herself directs the latest iteration of a play every American playwright seems, for some reason, to be legally obligated to write and just change the character names. The twist is Alexis Zegerman isn't even American so The Fever Syndrome is... a tribute act maybe? It does tick every other box, including the ever-popular Asshole Genius add-on feature, as the excuse for bringing three siblings and their partners to the New York brownstone they grew up in is their father receiving a lifetime achievement award. Richard (Robert Lindsay) is an obstetrician and IVF pioneer, who still bears a grudge against the Republicans for delaying his research on religious grounds, meaning Britain beat America to the first test tube baby.

Theatre review: 'night, Mother

Marsha Norman's 1982 play is called 'night, Mother, because one of the cast is called Night, and the other one's Alicia Florick's mother. Its return to Hampstead Theatre, where it received its UK premiere, makes for another piece of evidence in my ongoing thesis that the Pulitzer is a booby prize as, despite the efforts of Roxana Silbert's production and its cast, it remains baffling to think the play itself is ever staged, let alone got singled out for a prestigious award. Set in a remote farmhouse, Jessie (Rebecca Night) moved back in with her mother after her divorce, supposedly to help look after her. But Thelma (Stockard Channing) seems very sprightly and capable, and as her daughter is very much aware, caring for her is essentially an excuse to try and keep her busy - Jessie has epilepsy which seems to have dominated her life, and the recent problems in her personal life have only made her retreat further from the world.

Theatre review: The Haystack

Roxana Silbert finally directs her first show since taking over Hampstead Theatre with the last production of her opening season, Al Blyth's debut full-length play The Haystack. The people searching for needles in it are GCHQ computer coders Neil (Big Favourite Round These Parts Oliver Johnstone) and Zef (Enyi Okoronkwo,) on secondment to the counter-terrorism division when they impress the Deputy Director, Hannah (Sarah Woodward) so much she keeps them in her team permanently. They do wonder exactly what their first assignment actually has to do with terrorism: Junior Guardian journalist Cora (Rona Morison) has discovered a possible connection between Saudi Arabian money and a number of British MPs, and the pair are set to task finding her source. After some time monitoring Cora they're suddenly taken off the case, only for her source, a Saudi princess (a pre-recorded Sirine Saba) to die in mysterious circumstances.

Theatre review: What Shadows

I can’t wait until a time when I can go months without seeing a play about a dark chapter in history, and finding it painfully relevant to the present day. We’re not there yet though, and so Roxana Silbert transfers her Birmingham production of What Shadows to the Park Theatre, in which playwright Chris Hannan looks at one of the most notorious instances of a British politician fanning racism. After decades playing Emperor Palpatine Ian McDiarmid is about as qualified as you can get to play Enoch Powell, the Conservative politician whose hate-filled “Rivers of Blood” speech in Birmingham made him a by-word for racism. In 1967, with the Tories in opposition, Powell starts to see himself on the one hand as the man to get them into power, and on the other marginalised by his own party, who view him as a crank who gives shit-stirring populist speeches to regional Conservative clubs.

Theatre review: Khandan (Family)

Roxana Silbert recently took over at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and has started by bringing back a controversial figure from the theatre's past: Ten years ago Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's play Behzti (Dishonour) was taken off after offending Sikhs. But Bhatti is also a writer for The Archers, and as her new play Khandan (Family) comes to London, it proves to be less explosive, and more gentle family drama. Jeeto (Sudha Bhuchar) has recently lost her husband, by all accounts a kind man but one with a drink problem. She now lives in a suburban house that's too big for her with her son Pal (Rez Kempton,) who's now running the shop his late father left him. Jeeto keeps up a pretense of disapproval that he married a white woman, but in reality she dotes on Liz (Lauren Crace,) who's as much part of the family as her own children.

Theatre review: A Life of Galileo

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The RSC isn't inviting the Press to this until Tuesday.

To round off the RSC's "A World Elsewhere" season, looking at what else was going on in the world during Shakespeare's lifetime, we have a 20th century classic that deals with one of Shakespeare's exact contemporaries, Brecht's A Life of Galileo. Always strapped for cash, Galileo Galilei passes off the Dutch invention, the telescope, as one of his own. He gets found out but not before the new tool gives him a new look at the heavens, and he realises he's found proof of Copernicus' theory that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The fact that the theory is considered heretical by the Catholic Church doesn't dim his enthusiasm or deter him from sharing his knowledge with the people. But the Church won't let mere evidence get in the way of centuries of teaching, and soon the Inquisition has taken an interest, demanding that Galileo betray his science and abjure his theory.

Theatre review: A Soldier in Every Son - The Rise of the Aztecs

Playing a short run (but apparently not short enough - today's final matinee was only half full) as the third play in the RSC's "Nations At War" season in the Swan, Luis Mario Moncada's A Soldier in Every Son takes its title from a line in the Mexican National Anthem, and its story from the country's oral history. The ensemble from Richard III and King John are boosted by a handful of actors from Mexico's Compañía Nacional de Teatro, and Roxana Silbert directs. As the play opens in the late 14th century, three royal families each rule their own kingdom, power shifting and being maintained through diplomacy, the payment of tributes to each other, tactical marriages and, when all these fail, outbreaks of violence. Somewhere in the background lurk the Aztecs, a tribe of "savages" nobody sees as much of a serious threat.

Theatre review: Richard III (RSC / Swan)

There's many legendary speeches in Shakespeare, which must be nerve-wracking for any actor. Most of them turn up well into the play, and clever choices by directors and actors can even sometimes make them take you by surprise. But Richard III's most famous line, "Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York" is the play's very first, so as the lead actor enters, much of the audience will be wondering how he'll deliver it. Some might even know the speech so well they find themselves muttering it under their breath, like a woman in the front row of the Swan did today. A few lines into the speech Jonjo O'Neill turned, smiled at her and said "Yes, that's it. You know it?" It set the tone for what kind of Richard we were in for: Having done his time as a member of the Ensemble^TM, O'Neill returns to the RSC as the star turn, to play the Duke of Gloucester as the consummate actor, playing to and flirting with the crowd.