Theatre review: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

As a Tennessee Williams fan there's mixed emotions coming to a new production of a lesser- known play: He was so prolific there's always something new to discover, but if that prolonged burst of creativity owed something to his prodigious coke habit, the quality of some of the later plays seems to attest to it just as much. The Wikipedia page for this 1963 meditation on mortality and grief, thought to have been written in response to the terminal illness of his long-term partner, is essentially a list of how many times Williams wrote it, and it tanked, rewrote it, and it tanked worse, rewrote it as a film, and it tanked globally. But as well as simply wanting to tick another title off the list, there's always the hope that someone will do a Summer and Smoke, and reveal an almost-forgotten work as a misjudged classic with a revelatory production. Robert Chevara's take on The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore at Charing Cross Theatre is not that production.

Theatre review: The Visit, or,The Old Lady Comes To Call

After Angels in America was a transatlantic success for the National Theatre twice over, it's no surprise if they're keen to bring Tony Kushner back to their stages; the Olivier this time, and instead of an original story it's for an adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's obscure 1956 play The Visit, or, The Old Lady Comes To Call; but one thing that definitely hasn't changed is Kushner's determination that, once he's got the audience through the doors, he's going to keep them there as long as humanly possible. And while it doesn't fly quite as far into the realms of magic realism as his most famous work, this play - essentially an extended fable on debt of many different kinds - is full of oddities. It takes place over a few days in 1955 in the town of Slurry, New York State, once a manufacturing hub but now collapsing, its various businesses sold up to unseen buyers and liquidated years ago, and now reduced to selling the church bells for scrap metal.

Theatre review: The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Tony Kushner's 2009 play - set two years before that - The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures gets its UK premiere at Hampstead, who've appended the alternate title iHo (you can't really tweet the whole thing, I guess.) But the full title is probably worth sticking to as the wordiness and sheer unnecessary length give a better indicator of what the play itself is like, as opposed to iHo, because it isn't actually about what would happen if Apple made prostitutes. Instead it's something of a family saga, though playing out over just a few days, set mainly in a Brooklyn brownstone that's in need of fairly regular repair but has still skyrocketed in value as the property boom gets going. Tom Piper's design puts the bare white shell of the four-story building on a revolve.

Theatre review: Torch Song Trilogy

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This one officially opens to critics next week.

Having had one of their biggest-ever hits with La Cage Aux Folles, it's perhaps not that surprising that the Menier Chocolate Factory have turned to Harvey Fierstein's work again; although as despite the title Torch Song Trilogy isn't a musical, it may not reach quite as big an audience. Fierstein's three short plays from the late 1970s, later rewritten into a single show, follow drag queen Arnold (David Bedella) over the course of six years, and through his ever-shifting relationship with the bisexual Ed (Joe McFadden.) In the opening act, The International Stud, it's just the two of them on stage, getting together then parting when Ed falls for a woman. In Fugue in a Nursery, Ed is now married to Laurel (Laura Pyper,) and Arnold visits for the weekend, accompanied by his new boyfriend Alan (Tom Rhys Harries.) The final section, Widows and Children First, sees Albert dealing with family: His mother (Sara Kestelman) is about to visit, unaware that the real reason she's been invited is to meet David, (Perry Millward,) the gay teenager Arnold is in the process of adopting.

Theatre review: Making Noise Quietly

Josie Rourke continues her first season at the Donmar with a show that links it to her previous theatre - Robert Holman's Making Noise Quietly premiered at the Bush in 1986, and director Peter Gill has worked at both theatres before. The play is a triptych, and in a programme note David Eldridge says its format directly influenced his own play Under The Blue Sky (which I liked, so I'll take that as a recommendation) and Simon Stephens' Wastwater (which I'm sure is also meant to be a recommendation but I don't think I know anyone who actually saw Wastwater who'd consider the comparison as a good thing.) Eldridge and Stephens also, of course, co-wrote A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky with Holman, and he seems to be a writer with a huge influence on other playwrights.