Theatre review: Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

My first trip to the Globe's Summer 2015 season coincides with the surprise announcement of Emma Rice as its next Artistic Director. It'll be interesting to see if she continues what has become one of the trademarks of the Dominic Dromgoole era: The "tiny" touring productions of some of Shakespeare's most popular plays, that see a handful of actor-musicians play all the roles. Last year's great Much Ado About Nothing is due back in a couple of months' time, but first the new production, and as comedy and tragedy alternate on these tours, it's the turn of Romeo & Juliet. Dromgoole and Tim Hoare direct a cast of eight actors plus two musician/stage hands, and the usual rustic look (designs by Andrew D Edwards) has a suitably Italian flavour in this story of fair Verona, where for generations the Montague and Capulet families have been at each other's throats, the original cause forgotten. A friar sees a way to end the feud - he succeeds, but not in the way he'd envisaged.

Theatre review: James I - The Key Will Keep The Lock

Laurie Sansom inaugurates his time in charge of the National Theatre of Scotland in epically ambitious fashion, in a co-production with the other National Theatre, Rona Munro's The James Plays. This trilogy of new history plays - a genre that's definitely back in fashion at the moment - looks at the first three King Jameses of Scotland, beginning right in the middle of the period Shakespeare looked at in his own English histories. At the start of James I - The Key Will Keep The Lock, Henry V (Jamie Sives) rules England, but not for much longer: The dysentery that would kill him is taking hold. In an attempt to leave one less source of conflict for his infant son to rule over, Henry frees his prisoner, King James of Scotland, who's been held hostage in England for 18 years. In return for being returned to his throne, James (James McArdle) is expected to pay a hefty ransom, which Henry hopes will leave the country too poor to wander South of the border; but James has other ideas.