Theatre review: Klippies

Continuing the unplanned "African women" theme running through London theatre this year, actress Jessica Siân takes us to South Africa for her impressive playwrighting debut, the coming-of-age story Klippies, A pair of Johannesburg teenagers, poor, white Yolandi (Samantha Colley) and rich, black Thandi (Adelayo Adedayo) are in a couple of the same classes at school, but only really speak once a week, when they both have a long wait to be picked up by their parents from the swimming pool. They slowly build up a friendship that retains a spiky, confrontational edge throughout, even though their mutual affection is real and obvious. Over a long drought season, Thandi tries to help Yolandi out of trouble at school, while Yolandi in turn helps Thandi find a more rebellious side, as they sit by the rich girl's pool smoking and drinking stolen Klipdrift "Klippies" brandy.

Theatre review: Far Away

This year's JMK Award-winner is Kate Hewitt, who directs Caryl Churchill's Far Away at the Young Vic's Clare. It's a fairytale nightmare that follows Joan, first as a child (Emilia Jones or Sasha Willoughby,) who on a visit to her aunt Harper's (Tamzin Griffin) farm witnesses something horrific in the stables. As an adult, Joan (Samantha Colley) gets a job creating elaborate hats alongside co-worker Todd (Ariyon Bakare.) Their work is creative and beautiful, but the hats serve a grotesque purpose. Finally we see Joan, Todd (now her husband) and Harper all together, trying to stay safe from an enemy with eyes and ears everywhere. But the trio are as suspicious of each other as they are of anyone outside their walls, and in a world where anyone and anything could be an enemy, and allegiances shift constantly, it's hard to even know which side you're on.

Theatre review: The Crucible

Will the critics still shit stars all over the Old Vic once Kevin Spacey leaves? I can't help but wonder after the newspapers heaped praise over Yaël Farber's production of The Crucible. Arthur Miller wrote his play about the Salem witch trials in the wake of McCarthyism, in which he was caught up; but it functions just as well as a metaphor for any mass hysteria in which accusation is treated as the same as guilt in the court of public opinion. In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, fear of witchcraft is rife. A group of teenage girls are glimpsed dancing naked in the woods, and divert attention from themselves by pinning the blame elsewhere, accusing various local women of being in league with the devil. This escalates quickly into a trial where half the town seems to stand accused, and the only way to avoid hanging is to confess - and give the court another name to go after.