Theatre review: All's Well That Ends Well(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

The latest winter season at Shakespeare's Globe will include a major playwright who's never appeared in the Swanamaker before, but first two Shakespeares both of which have already made a previous appearance in the candlelit Playhouse; and from my own experience All's Well That Ends Well for one certainly seems to work better indoors than outdoors. Chelsea Walker's production is an edited, speedy one that comes in at a little over two hours, and if it loses anything in clarity of storytelling it gains in clarity of character development. It doesn't make the leads any less icky, but it does eliminate some of the tonal whiplash in the way they're portrayed. Helen (Ruby Bentall) is the daughter of a recently-deceased doctor, who travels to Paris to treat the dying King (Richard Katz) with one of the miracle cures she inherited from him.

Theatre review: Our Country's Good

After a few years away from its ubiquity about a decade ago, I'm going to guess Our Country's Good is back on the A'Level syllabus as it makes a return to the stage (and the school groups in the audience seemed very familiar with the play as well.) For Rachel O'Riordan's production at the Lyric Hammersmith Timberlake Wertenbaker has made some revisions to her most famous play, apparently to provide a more authentic voice to the speeches by the play's sole Australian First Nations character, who casts a detached, quizzical eye over the hordes of British men and women who've come off a fleet of ships. In addition to these text revisions, which I guess are the translations into Aboriginal dialect that pepper the speeches, instead of a man in traditional dress Killara (Naarah) is now a woman in modern clothes, witnessing the soldiers and convicts arriving in what will eventually become Sydney in the late 18th century.

Theatre review: The Rubenstein Kiss

When Roy Cohn dies in Angels in America he’s visited by the ghost of one of the earliest and most notorious victims of his long and questionable legal career: Ethel Rosenberg, like her husband Julius, was sent to the electric chair for alleged collusion with the USSR at the height of McCarthyism, Cohn having been the chief prosecutor for the communist-obsessed senator. His role as mentor to a young Donald Trump means I won’t be surprised if Cohn himself starts turning up as a ghostly figure in plays still to come, but he doesn’t make an appearance in The Rubenstein Kiss, James Phillips’ barely-fictionalised version of the Rosenbergs’ case and legacy. A shame, because a larger-than-life figure might have been just the kick this long, drawn-out evening desperately needs. Jakob (Henry Proffit) and Esther Rubenstein (Ruby Bentall) are dedicated communists, something that doesn’t cause too many problems during the War, when the USSR is still America’s ally.

Theatre review: Ramona Tells Jim

In a story that jumps back and forth fifteen years, Sophie Wu has put together what feels like parts of two different plays, one of which works much better than the other. Ramona Tells Jim takes place in a remote part of coastal Scotland – “the shittest village in Scotland” according to Jim (Joe Bannister.) At age 17, he’s a loner who likes collecting crustacea and dreams of becoming a marine biologist. Meeting Ramona (Ruby Bentall) will make for a memorable few days but will also be partly responsible for thwarting his ambition: An awkward 16-year-old English schoolgirl on a geography field trip, she’s his first romance, but early on in the play we get a clue that a violent event will sour the memory of their relationship. 15 years later Ramona turns up again unexpectedly, first on Facebook, then on Jim’s doorstep.

Theatre review: The Cement Garden

The Vault Festival is an annual(ish) event that takes place underneath Waterloo station, in railway arches on the opposite side of the graffiti tunnel from where the Old Vic Tunnels used to be. It's a slightly less chaotic space than that was, a main corridor with doors to various performance spaces on each side, and a bar at the end (followed by a magical mystery tour should you need the loos.) As well as music, the programme comprises fringe theatre shows, most of which are only playing for a week. There's a couple of headline shows that'll be playing straight through the festival though, and the one I chose was The Cement Garden, which David Aula and Jimmy Osborne have adapted from Ian McEwan's novel about four siblings who lose their parents and have to find their own path to adulthood - what turns out to be an insular, creepy path.

Theatre review: Peter and Alice

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I don't recall booking to see this during the preview period, but apparently I did, and the critics aren't being invited in until next week.

The second in Michael Grandage's 14-month residency in the West End is the only new play, reuniting him with the author of the hit Red, John Logan. Once again this is a fictionalised look at real historical figures, Ben Whishaw and Judi Dench playing the real-life inspirations for the immortal literary characters Peter and Alice. Or Q and M, as Logan was also one of the writers of the most recent Bond film Skyfall, and this play reunites him with two of the franchise's stars.