Theatre review: This Is My Family

First seen in Sheffield in 2013, Tim Firth's (book and music) This Is My Family has taken twelve years to make it to London, and after seeing Vicky Featherstone's production at Southwark Playhouse I have to wonder: Why the rush? Nicky (Nancy Allsop) is a 13-year-old girl who's entered a competition to explain why her family is perfect, and has told the truth, but left out a few salient details: Parents Steve (Michael Jibson) and Yvonne (Gemma Whelan) have been together since they were 16, but they're drifting apart and Steve is considering taking a job in Abu Dhabi. Older brother Matt (Luke Lambert) used to be very close to her but now he's having a teenage druid phase and obsessing over his girlfriend. And grandmother May (Gay Soper) has the mischievous side she describes, but she's now also got fast-encroaching dementia.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe)

Without the new writing or more obscure revivals that sometimes take us into the autumn at Shakespeare's Globe, it's already time for my last outdoor visit of this summer season (there is one more show scheduled, but it's in the Swanamaker,) and it's the regular onstage appearance of the Artistic Director, as Michelle Terry takes on Viola in Twelfth Night. Shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria - here a scrapyard full of car parts, old neon signs, a jukebox and other clutter of 1950s Americana in Jean Chan's design - Viola makes a beeline for the local Duke, Orsino (Bryan Dick.) Disguised as a boy called Cesario, she falls for him immediately, but he's smitten with the unattainable, grieving Countess Olivia (Shona Babayemi.) When "Cesario" is sent as an envoy of Orsino's love to Olivia, the circle of unrequited love is completed when she's instantly attracted to "him."

Re-review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe)

I have fond memories of, and emotional connections to, a lot of venues, but in the last year of theatres facing an existential crisis it was the thought of never being able to go to Shakespeare's Globe again that hurt the most. So it's probably for the best, given I might have got a bit emotional, that my first trip back to the main house in two summers was to a production I'd seen there before: Sean Holmes' fiesta-style A Midsummer Night's Dream from 2019 has returned to launch the 2021 season, and though both venue and production have had to make a few changes while COVID-19 restrictions are still in place, both have retained the atmosphere that makes them special. In the audience, along with social distancing in the three galleries, and all shows playing without intervals (to stop everyone crowding to the loos at once,) the most obvious change is in the Yard, where there's usually up to 700 standing groundlings. For the first couple of months of the season these have been replaced with just three rows of temporary seats arranged by support bubbles.

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe)

The third and last of this year's major London Midsummer Night's Dreams comes courtesy of Sean Holmes in his new position as an associate at the Globe. In a crowded field the production needs to do a lot to stand out: While there's a couple of interesting little twists on the familiar story this isn't a particularly high-concept Dream; instead everyone's energies have been thrown into mining every possible moment of comedy, with great success. Jean Chan's Athens is more South American than Southern European, the design evoking a pastel-coloured Rio Carnival, although to start with this is for appearances only - Duke Theseus (Peter Bourke) is holding festivities for his upcoming marriage to Hippolyta (Victoria Elliott) but the latter has no choice in the matter of marrying a much older man, and is far from thrilled with it - this is the second Dream this summer to have the Amazon Queen arrive on stage in a box, although it's played slightly more for laughs here.

Theatre review: I Can't Sing!

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: No idea when the producers are going to risk letting the critics in for this one.

All the press about new musical I Can't Sing! has focused on the fact that it's got songs by Glen Ponder from Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge. OK, so strictly speaking none of the press has been about that - they seem to be more interested in the fact that it's a show about The X Factor and has a book by Harry Hill. But it's also true that Steve Brown, who was better known in the mid-nineties as the sidekick whose house band had a different name every week, has brought his musical Savoir Faire to composing the show's songs. All the signs building up to I Can't Sing! were less than promising, from the early previews cancelled due to technical issues to the most worrying fact of all - that this is an official X Factor spin-off, fully authorised and approved by Simon Cowell. To be honest I was planning on skipping this one, but the casting of Nigel Harman as Simon meant my sister wanted to see it as a late Christmas present.