Theatre review: All My Sons

Outside of Belgium and the Netherlands, it was A View From The Bridge that really announced Ivo van Hove as a big-name director, and more than a decade later he returns to Arthur Miller in a production that mirrors a lot of what made that show distinctive, without feeling like an outright copy. In fact visually this seems, if not a complete change of aesthetic, definitely freed from the very strict house style that has sometimes felt like a straitjacket in recent years. So An D'Huys' costumes are timeless rather than aggressively, anachronistically modern, and Jan Versweyveld's set, though still minimalist, has an almost Japanese spareness dominated by a large sun-like window, and a stage scattered with petals that could be cherry blossom: All My Sons opens with a tree crashing to the ground during a storm.

Theatre review: A Little Life

I think it's the first 2023 show to self-identify as "the theatrical event of the year" - certainly A Little Life has become a hot topic, whether because of selling out so conclusively it's already added a second West End run, or the discussion of whether it represents the apex of misery porn, or just because people like celebrity cock (something this blog has never had any strong opinions about, obviously.) Then there's the fact that it's had a decidedly marmite response from the critics - my personal experience with Ivo van Hove has been very love/hate as well so this really could have gone any number of ways. van Hove and Koen Tachelet adapt Hanya Yanagihara's 2015 novel about Jude (James Norton,) one of a quartet of university friends who stay close throughout their lives. He's well-liked but it's openly acknowledged among his friendship group that he's so private they don't know the most basic things about him.

Theatre review: Bartholomew Fair

The 1980s Canadian sprinter wasn’t the first Ben Jo(h)nson to very obviously be on drugs, as evidenced by the Jacobean playwright’s Bartholomew Fair. Jonson’s comedies tend to be madcap affairs with a lot of grotesque characters getting themselves tied up into convoluted plots and gulled by con-men. Bartholomew Fair’s slice-of-life look at the characters who populate the titular fair features all of this, but without even the suggestion of a coherent plot holding it all together – as Phill put it, if someone asked what happened in the play, you’d have to answer “everything.” But a couple of plotlines do just about start to make sense: Bartholomew Cokes (Zach Wyatt) is due to get married on the feast day of the saint who bears his name and, laden with cash, is spending the day at the celebratory market (in what is now Spitalfields,) keen to stock up on food and luxuries for the wedding day.

Theatre review: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare's Globe)

Despite being a spin-off for one of Shakespeare’s best-loved characters, The Merry Wives of Windsor’s main claim to fame is a highly dubious story about Queen Elizabeth I wanting to see “Falstaff in love” (which if it were true would surely have seen Shakespeare at the very least spend some time in the stocks because love… ain’t really what Falstaff’s in here*.) Not that the play’s one of the harder comedies to get a laugh out of, but it’s rarely one of the big hitters either. Now Elle While’s production for Shakespeare’s Globe comes along to make a solid case for this proto-sex farce as, if far from the subtlest of comedies, one that can deliver reliable laughs all evening. It doesn’t hurt that While has brought back, from last year’s rep company, someone whose name in the casting announcement instantly makes a production a must-see: Pearce Quigley plays Sir John Falstaff, the viciously amoral but strangely likeable knight from the Henry IV plays.

Theatre review: Wild East

The Young Vic's Clare Studio continues to be the home for the Genesis Future Director Award Winners, and 2019's first production sees Lekan Lawal take on April De Angelis' absurdist take on the job interview from Hell format, 2005's Wild East. Frank (Zach Wyatt) is a socially inept anthropology graduate applying for a job at a company that collates and analyses data from people in emerging markets, for use in product marketing. It seems an unlikely match for him but it would involve spending a lot of time in Russia, a country he's always felt a strong connection to, and where a girl he likes lives. So he's keen to impress his interviewers, but even if his lack of social skills didn't trip him up, the fact that Dr Pitt (Lucy Briers) and Dr Gray (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) start imploding in front of him will.

Stage-to-screen review: I and You

Portrait (orientation) of the artist as a young woman.

One of the shows I had a ticket to but had to skip when I was ill last month was Hampstead Theatre's latest imported US hit, Lauren Gunderson's I and You. Sometimes unexpected second chances do come up though, and while the run's now ended the theatre has decided to stream a recording of it for free for 72 hours. Not quite a unique occurence, but the platform's an unusual one, as Gunderson's teen tragicomedy will have attracted a younger audience than usually frequents Swiss Cottage, and accordingly its new home is Instagram and its IGTV service for longer-format videos. What's immediately notable about this is that although of course it can be accessed on a PC, IGTV's optimised for phones and can only be shot in portrait. Which means if nothing else, Edward Hall's production is going to look different to any other stage-to-screen adaptation I've seen before.