Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

A couple of years ago Holly Race Roughan directed a Henry V in the Swanamaker that impressively reinvented the bombastic history play as a chilling tragedy, so I was willing to give her return to the venue a chance, despite it being advertised as the hoariest of all Shakespearean clichés - and the one every director who's ever tackled the play seems convinced they're the first ever to spot: The dark underside of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Co-directed by Naeem Hayat, this is the story of an Athens ruled by Michael Marcus' drunken bully Theseus, who's forcing the defeated Amazon queen to marry him; at the start, he and Hippolyta (Hedydd Dylan) are still trying to kill each other as they plan their wedding. When a young woman, Hermia (Tiwa Lade) petitions Theseus to be allowed to marry the man she loves, she's instead given an ultimatum to accept her father's choice, or be executed.

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.