Theatre review: Juniper Blood

Mike Bartlett's latest play sees him return to a Chekhovian setting and theme of a rural location consumed by possible ecological disaster, although without quite the formal use of Chekhov's structure of Albion: Juniper Blood features a much smaller cast and three acts rather than four, but it does still feel in many ways a successor to his earlier work. It starts almost as a comedy of disparate groups of farmers and urbanites forming an awkward blended family: Lip (Sam Troughton) is the monosyllabic heir to a farm that's been in his family for generations; quite how he ended up in a relationship with the well-off, earnest Ruth (Hattie Morahan) isn't entirely clear, but shortly before his father's death he agreed to take over the business, with his partner buying into it and investing in repairs and changes to turn it into a more sustainable, organic concern.

Theatre review: Rutherford and Son

If it seems like Roger Allam has been building up to playing King Lear for a few years now then Rutherford and Son absolutely feels part of that progression. Although while there’s echoes of Lear in Githa Sowerby’s dictatorial patriarch, even more so he feels like a precursor to Bernarda Alba – trapping his children in dead-end lives for self-destructive reasons of his own – with a story that even suggests Mother Courage in terms of what happens to his legacy. Rutherford owns and runs the Tyneside glassworks founded by his father, which remains the principle employer in his small town. He commands fierce loyalty from his workers, but at home it’s only bullying and intimidation that’s made his children obey him all their lives. For the last few years the glassworks has been operating at a slight loss, and oldest son John (Sam Troughton) has returned after some time in London with a new wife, child, and a formula he believes could cut down production costs significantly and turn around the company’s fortunes.

Theatre review: Stories

Nina Raine returns to the Dorfman, this time also directing her latest play Stories. It’s named after the idea that there are only seven basic stories in the world, and Anna (Claudie Blakley) seems to go through most of them – mainly the quest - in her attempts to have a baby. After a couple of years of trying with her partner Tom (Sam Troughton,) IVF is the step that makes it feel all too real for him and he breaks up with her. Approaching forty and finding herself single again, Anna becomes all too aware of her biological clock and decides to have the child on her own. She looks into finding a sperm donor online but doesn’t like the anonymity of it, and instead comes up with a plan to find the father herself – never quite giving up on the hope that Tom might change his mind, she nevertheless arranges to meet several men she knows (all also played by Troughton) who she thinks might be suitable candidates.

Theatre review: Beginning

With no shortage of drama about the end of relationships, David Eldridge's new play at the Dorfman looks at a possible Beginning. It's 3am and Laura's (Justine Mitchell) flatwarming party has just ended; all the guests have left except one she only met tonight. Danny (Sam Troughton) is a friend of one of Laura's clients, and they've been flirting with each other across the room all evening. He hasn't quite picked up on the fact that she returns his interest though, or that she's engineered him being left behind alone with her. Even when she makes it clear she wants to have sex with him Danny is nervous and reluctant. The two end up getting to know each other better, as Danny reveals the reasons he's so reticent even to have a one-night stand, let alone something that could turn into a relationship with someone he seems to be making a real connection with.

Radio review: Julius Caesar (Radio 4)

As well as TV spectaculars, radio has also been getting in on the BBC's Shakespeare Festival, and after listening to their version of Hamlet a couple of years ago, I gave Radio 4's three-part Julius Caesar a go - with a bit more trepidation this time, as regular readers will both know it's far from my favourite Shakespeare play. But director Marc Beeby had once again assembled a quality cast, and audio-only Shakespeare can throw up some interesting details you don't always notice with everything else going on on stage. The three 45-minute episodes ended up dividing the story up quite neatly - episode one boiled down to the building of the conspiracy, with Cassius (Sam Troughton, who's previously played Brutus on stage,) convincing Brutus (Robert Glenister) that the newly-promoted Julius Caesar (Tim Pigott-Smith) has the potential to be every bit as much of a brutal tyrant as Pompey, the man he's just overthrown; and that assassination is the only way to protect Rome from this.

Theatre review: La Musica

At the start of their marriage Michel (Sam Troughton) and Anne-Marie (Emily Barclay) spent three months living in a hotel room, while they waited for their home to be built. They return to the hotel, or at least to its otherwise empty bar, on the last night of their marriage: Having both been unfaithful they ended up getting divorced, a protracted process that's gone on for three years. They've met again after all that time on the eve of signing the decree absolute as well as, ostensibly, to discuss what to do with a few last pieces of furniture and boxes of books. In reality what they want to do is pick at old wounds, as Marguerite Duras' La Musica is essentially a post-mortem on a failed relationship.

Theatre review: Bull

Although London audiences were impressed by Mike Bartlett's Cock, it's taken a while for the companion piece, Bull, to make its way here (the premiere production was originally seen in Sheffield.) Both plays turn a bloody animal fight into a verbal sparring between humans that's not much less brutal; but where the first play looked at poisonous personal relationships, Bull takes us to a boardroom so cutthroat LdAlan Sugar would need a mop to clean up the blood after every firing. Thomas (Sam Troughton,) Isobel (Eleanor Matsuura) and Tony (Adam James) are a sales team in a company being downsized. One of them will be getting fired, and Carter (Neil Stuke) is on his way to make a decision. But the outcome seems inevitable long before he arrives, as Isobel and Tony have no intention of losing their jobs, and if it takes destroying Thomas completely, that's what they'll do.

Theatre review: King Lear (National Theatre)

The first King Lear I ever saw, 20 years ago, starred Robert Stephens in the title role, and Edgar was played by the then rising star of the RSC, Simon Russell Beale. It maybe says a bit too much about my age that the wheel, which is so often referenced in the play, has come full circle and it's now SRB's turn - admittedly at the comparatively young age of 53 - to play the king who abdicates in all but name. He reunites with his long-time collaborator Sam Mendes on the National's main stage, and although it's a long-awaited event I couldn't help but feel a little bit apprehensive given I didn't love any of Mendes' Bridge Project productions. King Lear, though, sees the director get his Shakespearean mojo back for a truly epic - there's no major text cuts so we're in it for the full three-and-a-half hours - and emotionally devastating production.

Theatre review: Mint

Director Clare Lizzimore tries her hand at playwrighting (and immediately makes it into my good books by not attempting to pull double duty and direct it herself.) Instead Caroline Steinbeis directs Mint, this week's offering from the Royal Court's rep season. Mint is the name of the colour of paint in Alan's jail cell, and he chose it himself - one of the few times during his lengthy incarceration that he had any small measure of control. The exact nature of Alan's crime is revealed later on, but we know from the off that it's something pretty serious - he's behind bars for several years and he starts off in a maximum security prison, although good behaviour sees him moved elsewhere down the line. Sam Troughton may never have been more intense than as the man whose supposed rehabilitation we follow from the end of the last millennium into the start of this one.

Theatre review: Death Tax

The main event in the Royal Court's Open Court season is a six-week repertory, in which a company of actors takes on a different play every week, with just one week's rehearsal and one of performances. I missed the opening offering from the new Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone (word on Twitter suggests I didn't miss much) but the second play in the series is directed by her most trusted lieutenant from the National Theatre of Scotland, John Tiffany. Lucas Hnath's Death Tax revolves around money, and how it seems to corrupt your life whether you've got too much of it or not enough. Set in a Florida nursing home, much of it centres on Tina (Natasha Gordon,) a nurse who finds herself tempted when a wealthy, elderly resident accuses her of trying to speed up her death - and offers her a much-needed incentive not to.

Theatre review: Three Sisters

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Three Sisters invites the official critics in tomorrow night.

Still in previews it may be, but Benedict Andrews' take (he both adapts and directs) on Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters already seems to be causing some pretty heated debate, judging by the reaction I've seen on Twitter over the last couple of nights. Having now seen the production myself, I must admit I'm a bit baffled as to why it's been quite such a love/hate affair. Still set in Russia but relocated to the present day, the three sisters of the title live comfortable but unfulfilling lives in a small, remote town, notable only for the army regiment stationed there. Longing for a return to Moscow, where they grew up, theirs is a story of disappointment at every turn, as their plans are thwarted, love turns out not to be anything like the books and movies say it is, and it looks like their lives are stuck in a dead end before they're even out of their twenties.

Theatre review: Love, Love, Love

Having premiered in a touring production a couple of years ago, Mike Bartlett's tragicomic Love, Love, Love finally makes it to London in a new production at the Royal Court. Looking at the "baby boomer" generation that now famously made more money than both their parents and their children, it follows Kenneth (Ben Miles) and Sandra's (Victoria Hamilton) relationship from the 1960s to the present day. We first meet Ken as a teenage student, living in his stuffy, old-fashioned older brother Henry's flat. When Henry (Sam Troughton) brings home the girl he's been seeing, the hippieish, feminist Sandra takes more of a liking to his Beatles-loving little brother, and they bond over "All You Need Is Love" (according to Ian, the people sitting behind us were muttering in surprise that the song echoes the repeated word of the title, as if Bartlett might have named his play by accident.) A little over twenty years on we find the pair married, with two teenage kids who will very literally get caught in the middle of their parents' crumbling relationship.