Theatre review: 1536

Anne Boleyn looms large over Ava Pickett's 1536, although she never actually makes an appearance*: Instead we're in a field in Essex with three regular young women, who we catch up with over the course of a few weeks as gossip reaches them of the queen's arrest for treason, increasingly lurid accusations of sexual impropriety, and eventually her execution. In the process we see them deal with the slow, horrifying realisation of just how precarious their lives are as women in Tudor England. Central to the story is Anna (Siena Kelly,) whose outlook on her own body and sexuality is very modern - she enjoys her power over men as much if not more so than the actual sex, doesn't particularly care if she's got a reputation in the village, and is currently hooking up with Richard (Adam Hugill,) even when she discovers he's about to enter into an arranged marriage with her best friend Jane (Liv Hill.)

Theatre review: That Is Not Who I Am

Theatres are going to have to keep trying to make up their Covid losses for some years to come, so you can forgive them if they try the odd gimmick to get bums on seats. Or at least you'd think you could, but the Royal Court's latest show has come with an elaborate framing device that extends way beyond the stage and begins with the publicity; something that could be described as underhand but in reality feels more like the theatre overtly trying to create an air of mystery, so why it seems to have made some critics quite so angry is a bit beyond me. In any case the setup is that the venue had discovered a first-time writer, a man in late middle age called Dave Davidson, who'd dabbled in playwrighting before but not had anything produced until That Is Not Who I Am. This pretence barely seemed to last a couple of days before it was commonly known Davidson was the pseudonym of an established author. Now that it's opened the information is easy to find but just in case anyone's still trying to go in blind, I'll keep the spoilers for after this text break.

Theatre review: Force Majeure

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Force Majeure has had its press night pushed back by the usual.

Are steep stages going to be a 2022 theatrical meme? After Spring Awakening's set of steps comes an off-kilter, steeply raked white stage dominating the Donald and Margot Warehouse for Michael Longhurst's production of Force Majeure. The reason for these white expanses is that Tim Price's midlife crisis play, based on a film by Ruben Östlund, takes place at a ski resort in the French Alps, where a Swedish family have decided to take a rare holiday together. Ebba (Lyndsey Marshal) thinks her husband spends too much of his time at work and not enough with their kids, so she's convinced Tomas (Rory Kinnear) to revisit a place he often went to as a child, and try to forge a relationship with his own, increasingly difficult children: Vera (Bo Bragason, alternating with Florence Hunt) is entering her teenage years and has, in a detached way, decided her parents are heading for divorce, while Harry (Oliver Savell, alternating with Henry Hunt) is having an alternately clingy and shouty phase.

Theatre review: Teenage Dick

A dick joke about Richard III? Who would do such a thing?

Michael Longhurst's second directing gig at the Donald and Margot Warehouse since taking over as Artistic Director is Mike Lew's take on the once-ubiquitous teen movie sub-genre of Shakespeare plays (or other classics) relocated to American High Schools. Richard III becomes Teenage Dick and the role of Senior Class President is the crown a physically disabled anti-hero will do anything to get. In a story that for much of its running time is savagely funny, Richard Gloucester (Daniel Monks) has been bullied and marginalised throughout his school years because of his hemiplegia (apparently Lew makes it a condition of staging the play that this role and that of his sidekick Buck be played by disabled actors, with the script adapted to match their real disabilities.) Quarterback and Junior Class President Eddie (Callum Adams) has been his chief tormentor, and Richard hatches a plot to steal the upcoming election out from under him.

Theatre review: Describe the Night

Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj took its inspiration from a false, but widely believed, legend about the building of the Taj Mahal; for Describe the Night he mixes real historical figures and events with fiction of his own invention, in a play that looks at Fake News in a context that made an art form of it: Soviet Russia. His story ranges over 90 years and could be described as the journey taken by a diary, written by journalist and novelist Isaac Babel (Ben Caplan) in 1920. Following the Russian army to Poland, he was employed to write the official dispatches, but also kept this personal journal to record his reactions and descriptions of places and events. In 2010, a plane crash near Smolensk killed the Polish president and much of his cabinet on the way to a memorial service, inspiring conspiracy theories about the Russian government’s involvement. When Feliks (Joel MacCormack) finds the wreckage, a dying woman gives him the diary.

Theatre review: On The Town

Continuing Drew McOnie's inexorable rise to challenge Matthew Bourne as Britain's most famous choreographer, and after his dances were one of the reasons for last year's Jesus Christ Superstar's success, he returns to Regent's Park to add directing to his CV as well. And it makes sense to have the same person direct and choreograph On The Town because it's the kind of show where the two seem very much like the same job: It was originally conceived as a ballet, and wordless dance sequences still form a huge part of Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green's musical. Best known for the Gene Kelly / Frank Sinatra film version, and for its big number "New York, New York," it follows three sailors on 24 hours' shore leave who each have a different idea of how to spend their big day, but all end up going on the same quest once Gabey (Danny Mac, who turns out not to be a discount cosmetics brand but a person,) sees a poster of a beauty queen on the subway.