Theatre review: Britannicus

In a year that's been dominated by stories of swings and understudies keeping the theatre industry going - halfway through and I've probably already seen more people covering roles than in any other year - another show having to cope with cast illness has been the Lyric Hammersmith's take on Jean Racine's Britannicus: Ben and I were meant to see the show last Friday but it got cancelled, and there were further cancellations this week. With the theatre, like so many, not being able to afford to carry regular understudies, it's only by bringing in two actors to cover roles script-in-hand that they've managed to reopen tonight, in time for us to be second time lucky and catch it before it closes next week. And even if not quite at its best I'm glad I managed to see a show I'd been particularly looking forward to - I've seen and enjoyed a past production that used the same Timberlake Wertenbaker translation that Atri Banerjee's production uses.

Theatre review: Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation

Two years before the performance in the Royal Court Upstairs, Miles' son fell through the ice on a lake and drowned. Miles tried to save him but failed, and although he survived he ended up in a coma. In the present day, he regains consciousness, waking from dreams of the end of the world which he believes are premonitions; others believe him too, and follow him to the cult he sets up in a remote part of Bolivia. Fifteen years from now, the solar eclipse that portends the apocalypse is finally due, and Miles' estranged wife Anna (Susan Vidler) has flown out in a last-ditch attempt to get their daughter Sol (Shyvonne Ahmmad) away from his clutches. As with most plays, Sol's words and actions are pre-determined by the playwright's script. But the playwright in question is Tim Crouch, an experimental theatre-maker who regularly plays with the idea of how stories are told and who's in control of them, so Sol the character actually has a copy of the script in her hand.