Theatre review: The School for Scandal

Continuing the new RSC artistic team's unpredictable approach to an opening season we have a rare main stage outing for Restoration Comedy, that genre made up of such a tangle of mini-plots it always defeats my attempts to provide anything like a coherent synopsis. But it's probably accurate enough to say the main focus of all the shenanigans in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal is a pair of brothers, young adults but still theoretically being kept an eye on by family friend Sir Peter Teazle (Geoffrey Streatfeild) since their father's death: Charles Surface (John Leader) is the party-animal youngest, who's already got through his share of the inheritance and has sold off half the contents of his house. But a lot of his financial mismanagement comes from his generosity to friends and strangers alike, and he's essentially kind-hearted - something his public image doesn't really reflect.

Theatre review: The Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC/RST)

Known for being particularly good with some of the lesser-loved Shakespeares, Blanche McIntyre returns to Stratford-upon-Avon for the new RSC regime's first season. And in the first half at least, The Merry Wives of Windsor justifies its place as very few people's favourite: While the popular myth of Elizabeth I demanding to see Falstaff in love seems very unlikely, it does feel probable that this Henry IV spin-off was written because of popular demand, and its mix of characters from a very different world with a whole bunch of new comic foils begins as a tangle of plots, tricks and misunderstandings. There's even a very tedious version of the Twelfth Night subplot about convincing two different types of idiot that the other wants to duel them to the death, which even the characters get openly and mercifully bored with and ditch after the first couple of acts.