Theatre review: Kenny Morgan

Looking to somewhat more recent history than his adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, Mike Poulton takes us to London a few years after World War II for Kenny Morgan. The titular Kenny (Paul Keating) was an actor and lover of Terence Rattigan, but by the time we meet him in 1949 his career had stalled and he'd given up his life of comfort with the older playwright who was at that point at the height of his fame, moving into the damp flat of his new, younger lover. But life with Alec (Pierro Niel-Mee) clearly didn't have an upside, as the play opens with Kenny attempting suicide in front of the gas fire. The smell of gas alerts his neighbours, who save him in time; not wanting to alert the police they instead call the first name in Kenny's address book: Rattigan (Simon Dutton.)

Theatre review: The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead

To complete the Homeric theme of the Swanamaker's pre-season we have writer Simon Armitage and director Nick Bagnall, who gave us a play based on the Iliad in 2014, now returning to tackle the Odyssey. I wasn't sure what to expect as I found their take on The Last Days of Troy a somewhat redundant addition to the many other versions of the story, but for The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead Armitage has found a new angle and explored it well. In modern-day Britain, a few weeks before a general election, Smith (Colin Tierney,) a minister popular with the people but not necessarily so with his own party, wants to go home to Cumbria for his son's 18th birthday. But the Prime Minister (Simon Dutton) co-opts him to show his face at a World Cup qualifier in Istanbul. England win the match but in the aftermath Smith and his friends get caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time - attempting to break up a violent brawl, a photo taken from the wrong angle makes it look like the minister dealt a killer blow, and it goes viral.