Theatre review: Radiant Boy - A Haunting

Nancy Netherwood's Radiant Boy is subtitled "A Haunting," and is framed as the story of an exorcism. But horror fans will probably be disappointed as this is a gentler, more elusive kind of haunting, more Emily Brontë than William Peter Blatty. It's 1983 and Russell (Stuart Thompson) has returned from London, where he's been studying singing at a conservatoire, to the home where he grew up in a small town in the North-East of England. He and his mother Maud (Wendy Nottingham) are awkward and chilly around each other, and while Russell claims to be ill, he seems wary of whatever cure his mother might have in mind, to the point of making you wonder why he's come back in the first place. It transpires he's had a kind of fit that's affected him before, and this time it almost caused him to hurt someone he cares about.

Theatre review: Time and Tide

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The press officially get invited tomorrow; I could only fit in a trip to this during the preview period.

Presented by Relish Theatre, a Norfolk-based company that aims to showcase creative talent from the regions, if James McDermott's Time and Tide is a love letter to the seaside town of Cromer it's a very subdued one. On the end of a pier that's slowly sinking, May (Wendy Nottingham) runs the failing café she inherited from her mother - but not for much longer. Local businesses have been closing up and selling off their shops to chains for the last few years, and May has someone from Pret a Manger coming to view the premises. But first she has a full Monday's work to get through with the help of her two assistants. She didn't even expect to see Nemo (Josh Barrow) today as he's due to get on a train at 6 to go to London and begin a drama course. But he wants to keep himself busy rather than spend his last day in town moping over the fact that his best friend didn't show up to his leaving drinks.

Theatre review: Diminished

In one of the better Hampstead Downstairs shows in a while, actor and filmmaker Sam Hoare makes a strong playwrighting debut with Diminished, which director Tom Attenborough sets in a clinical in-the-round space provided by the space's regular designer Polly Sullivan. It's a blank canvas that evokes a mental facility where Mary (Lyndsey Marshall) is being held. Although it takes a while for it to be said out loud it's clear she's there because she killed her severely disabled baby daughter. She'll be pleading diminished responsibility on the basis that depression and exhaustion caused temporary insanity, but with only a couple of days left until her trial she's decided that's not what she wants. She says she knew exactly what she was doing and deserves to serve a full prison sentence, and tries to convince Dr Parker (Rufus Wright) that his initial diagnosis was wrong.

Theatre review: Donkey Heart

The Old Red Lion has supplied the West End with a surprising amount of content in recent years, and their latest premiere sees the West End give back with a few big-name creatives going to the room above an Islington pub. The lighting is by recent Olivier nominee Peter Mumford, some of the cast have recently been in hit commercial shows, and the director is Nina Raine. The latter's involvement isn't that surprising though, as the playwright is her younger brother Moses Raine, and Donkey Heart touches on their family's Russian ancestry. The setting is a flat in modern-day Moscow where Ivan (Paul Wyett) and Zhenya (Wendy Nottingham) live with Ivan's father Alexander (Patrick Godfrey) and their children Sasha (Lisa Diveney,) Petya (James Musgrave) and Kolya (Albie Marber tonight, alternating with Pierre Atri.) Communism may be gone but the family live in what they describe as a collective hangover from it: They aren't (to the best of their knowledge) under constant surveillance, but the habit of keeping their thoughts and emotions to themselves is a hard one to break.

Theatre review: The Winslow Boy

Terence Rattigan's centenary celebrations in 2011 included a number of revivals of his plays, resulting in a renewed interest in his work, which continues to make regular returns to the stage a couple of years after the anniversary. It's no wonder; the last decade's reevaluation of his work has revealed one of the great playwrights of the 20th century, unfairly allowed to slide into obscurity after the Angry Young Men put him out of fashion in the 1960s. I've really enjoyed the work of his I've seen so far so was really looking forward to the latest revival, and one of his most famous works: After joining in the birthday party with Cause Célèbre two years ago, the Old Vic takes on The Winslow Boy, Lindsay Posner directing a cast led by Henry Goodman as the father taking on the government in a fight to clear his son's name.

Theatre review: Step 9 (of 12)

Director Tom Attenborough seems to be cornering the market in working with actors best-known for comedy, who want a chance to display a more dramatic side. After Ardal O'Hanlon in Port Authority, it's now The Inbetweeners' Blake Harrison who tackles a violent recovering alcoholic in Rob Hayes' Step 9 (of 12). Keith (Harrison) is on Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-step programme as part of his probation. Step 9 involves seeking forgiveness to those he's hurt in the past, although Keith's method of doing so seems to largely miss the point: Naming a past offense and then demanding that he be forgiven because "it's part of his recovery." He invites foster parents Alan and Judith (Barry McCarthy and Wendy Nottingham) to his crumbling flat to relive various events, from a knife attack that proved the last straw, backwards to try and find the origins of his problems.