Theatre review: The Pitchfork Disney

Last year Jamie Lloyd's ongoing West End projects kept getting bigger, and arguably lost the plot in the process - I made his Doctor Faustus my Stinker of 2016. Perhaps Lloyd himself feels the scale of things had got a bit out of his control because his first few projects of 2017 see him taking a step back towards something a bit more intimate - although not necessarily low-key, as he opens a mini-season of Philip Ridley plays at Shoreditch Town Hall with the playwright's 1991 debut, The Pitchfork Disney. Presley (George Blagden) and Haley Stray (Hayley Squires) are 28-year-old twins and the only survivors of the apocalypse - at least that's the story they tell themselves to justify their childlike lives cloistered in an East London flat. In fact ever since their parents died a decade ago - probably murdered, possibly by Presley - they've retreated into a co-dependent world of dark fairytales, drugged into sleep much of the time and hardly going out except to stock up on the chocolate that seems to be all they eat.

Theatre review: Routes

Rachel De-lahay returns to the Royal Court Upstairs after The Westbridge with her follow-up Routes, which sees two men coming from opposite directions to end up in the same place: A detention centre for illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. The more obvious route is that taken by Femi (Peter Bankolé,) a Nigerian man whose family are living legally in London, but who for reasons that are revealed later can't join them through official channels. He deals with the shifty Abiola (Seun Shote,) always demanding bigger sums of money to get him his fake passport and visa to the UK, but the attempt to slip past Immigration looks less likely to succeed the more we find out about Femi. The real heart of the story though is a route that starts closer to home, in a London hostel and halfway house.

Theatre review: Our Country's Good

Timberlake Wertenbaker's versions of Greek tragedy are among my favourites (I think she strikes a good balance between being true to the genre and clear, unpretentious writing) but I hadn't seen any of her own original work. Now her best-known play, Our Country's Good, gets a touring production and it's well-timed as well, since it coincides with the Donmar's revival of The Recruiting Officer, a play that features heavily in this one. Captain Arthur Phillip (Aden Gillet) is governor of the newly-established Sydney, New South Wales. He presides over the soldiers guarding prisoners who've been transported to Australia for crimes big or small back in England. After a traumatic 8-month sea voyage, the convicts are desperate and their lives chaotic, the soldiers take out their own frustrations on them, and Phillip wishes they could start anew without the brutal whippings and hangings that are a daily feature. When he suggests putting on a play might have a civilising effect, 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Clark thinks volunteering to direct it might help his chances of promotion, and The Recruiting Officer is chosen.