Theatre review: She Loves Me

I started 2016 with a musical about a rather niche subject; I end the year on a more old-fashioned one that isn't strictly speaking formulaic - it became the formula for several Hollywood Rom-Coms. She Loves Me has a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and takes its story from Hungarian play Parfumerie, about hate turning to love in the titular shop. Georg (Mark Umbers) is the perennially single deputy store manager who's resorted to a lonely hearts column, and has fallen for a woman he's been exchanging letters with. When one of the shop clerks leaves, her replacement Amalia (Scarlett Strallen) instantly annoys him by selling a music box he'd bet would be unsellable, and their relationship is fractious from then on. Needless to say, Amalia is actually the "Dear Friend" he's been writing to, and she feels the same way about his letters.

Theatre review: Hedda Gabler

Having played a part in Lazarus existing, Ivo van Hove has a chance to redeem himself with the classic reinterpretations he does best. He brings a production he originally staged at his own theatre to the National, as Ibsen's Hedda Gabler gets a new translation by (inevitably) Patrick Marber, and Ruth Wilson plays Hedda, married for six months and already deeply regretting it. The daughter of a celebrated and wealthy general, she grew up the centre of attention, including from numerous male suitors. After telling a series of seemingly innocuous lies, and in a sudden moment of paranoia about getting older, she agreed to marry the academic Tesman (Kyle Soller.) By the end of their extended honeymoon she's realised she'll never care about the esoteric subjects her husband fixates on, while he'll never be able to keep her in the style she's accustomed to unless he gets a professorship.

Dance review: The Red Shoes

Time for one of my very occasional dips into the world of dance - this year my mum decided she'd like to be taken to the ballet for Christmas, and when she heard that Matthew Bourne had adapted a film she remembers fondly, The Red Shoes, into a new ballet that decided it. Bourne's also looked to the cinema for his music, choosing the work of Bernard Herrmann - best known for scoring Hitchcock films, although most of the music used here predates that collaboration. In many ways the story is a natural fit for a ballet as it's about ballet: Victoria Page (Ashley Shaw) is a dancer in the Ballet Lermontov who's never really caught the attention of its conductor Boris (Sam Archer,) and so has never got further than background roles. That's until prima ballerina Irina (Michela Meazza) is injured on tour.

Theatre review: "Art"

Florian Zeller is the French playwright who's all the rage in London at the moment, but in the nineties that title belonged firmly to Yasmina Reza. A few of her plays got West End runs but it was "Art" that brought her to public attention and became a big hit. Matthew Warchus' production ran for eight years, its gimmick of replacing the three-strong cast every couple of months keeping it in the public eye and ticket sales going strong. With Warchus now in charge of the Old Vic he's seen an opportunity to revive the play for its 20th anniversary. In fact he may well be said to be reviving the same production - I saw that twice, with one of the early cast changes at Wyndhams* and then a few years later when it had moved to the Whitehall Theatre (before it became Trafalgar Studios.) And though it's been a while this feels familiar: The latest trio to play the 40-something men who've been friends for 15 years are Rufus Sewell, Tim Key and Paul Ritter.

Theatre review: Saint Joan

When other actors have had Hollywood commitments this year, Gemma Arterton's turned them into opportunities: When Gugu Mbatha-Raw couldn't make the transfer of Nell Gwynn she stepped in, and now that Cush Jumbo's one-season stint on The Good Wife has turned into a spin-off, she's left another juicy lead free for Arterton to grab with both hands, taking over as Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan at the Donmar. Following Henry V's military success, much of France is ruled by England, and though they fight back the odds always seem to be against the French army. That's until Joan's combination of guileless charm and forcefulness makes them take the gamble of letting a young girl who claims to hear the voices of saints, take command of the military. She quickly does everything she promised, getting the Dauphin (Fisayo Akinade) his overdue coronation, and control of much of his country. But with her job done, Joan is a liability.

Theatre review: Platinum

Martha (Siân Thomas) was a legendary protest singer in the 1970s, but she retired both from music and from public view. Simon (George Blagden) is a music academic doing his PhD on protest music and Martha in particular, but he's hit a brick wall and only speaking to the elusive singer herself will give him the details he needs. In a last-ditch attempt, he contacts her estranged daughter Anna (Laura Pitt-Pulford,) a commercial pop singer who's had some success with her first album, and is now struggling to put together a follow-up. Confronted with Simon's questions about her mother at a time when she's feeling vulnerable about her own work, Anna lets slip Martha's big secret: Her biggest, most influential hit was so different from her other songs because she didn't actually write it. She now lets Simon know where he can find her mother so she can give her side of the story, as writer Hannah Patterson returns to Hampstead Downstairs with her short play Platinum.

Theatre review: Wild Honey

Nobody could accuse Ed Hall's Hampstead Theatre of wild programming, but the word itself is one they're very fond of - we've had Wildefire, Wild and now Wild Honey, Michael Frayn's version of Chekhov's unfinished Platonov. This revival was due to be directed by Howard Davies, who sadly died at the beginning of rehearsals, and his replacement should be well-versed in the play: Jonathan Kent directed a different version of Platonov as part of his Young Chekhov trilogy at the National only a few months ago. There's another connection to that day-long epic, as Geoffrey Streatfeild returns to the one play out of the three that he didn't appear in this summer. Frayn's play is a shorter, broader version of the story of Platonov (Streatfeild,) a provincial schoolteacher who's spent the winter in virtual hibernation with his wife Sasha (Rebecca Humphries) and their baby son.

Theatre review: All the Angels

New plays in the Swanamaker have tended to have a classical music theme to tie in with the venue's concert series - Farinelli and the King has so far been the big hit. Nick Drake's All the Angels is a returning show from the Dominic Dromgoole era, with a look at a particularly famous piece of music: Handel (David Horovitch) was best-known for opera but had had some embarrassing flops when the libretto to Messiah came his way. A religious choral work seemed a welcome change from opera, an art form he felt had betrayed him, while an invitation to do a residency in Dublin got him away from the scene of his humiliation, as well as a much-needed paycheck.

Theatre review: Dreamgirls

Not every Broadway hit makes a quick move to the West End but Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger's 1981 show Dreamgirls taking until 2016 to make it to London must be one of the longest delays. The film adaptation a few years ago can't have hurt it finally making the trip, as it now has an enthusiastic audience ready for it, so the vast Savoy is the venue for Casey Nicholaw's production of a story set in the 1960s and '70s, about black music making a play to break out of its "specialist" niche and into the pop mainstream. Girl group The Dreams are childhood friends Effie (Amber Riley, doing this to supplement her income because her day job as a Dream Ghost doesn't pay so well,) Deena (Liisi LaFontaine) and Lorrell (Ibinabo Jack,) who sing original songs composed by Effie's brother C.C. (Tyrone Huntley.) Shifty producer Curtis (Joe Aaron Reid) convinces them to take a job as backing singers as a stepping stone to their own career.

Theatre review: Rent

I have my own theories as to why one of Broadway's biggest-ever hits only ever had modest success in the UK, and although I've seen Rent twice before, this is the first time I've seen what could be called a "straightforward" production in this country: I saw the notorious Rent Remixed, which must still serve as the gold standard of "so bad it's good," and the one time I have seen it played straight was the 2011 off-Broadway revival, in which the audience could be described as... very much what you might imagine an American audience to be. So it's interesting to see this 20th anniversary touring production played more or less as written to a British crowd, although clearly one made up largely of established fans. Technically an adaptation of the Puccini opera La Bohème, Jonathan Larson's rock musical is an ensemble piece set in New York's "alphabet city" in the mid-nineties, with the AIDS crisis still in full swing.

Theatre review: Aladdin (Lyric Hammersmith)

For the fifth year running it was a big group outing to the Lyric Hammersmith's pantomime, where last year's director Ellen McDougall and set designer Oliver Townsend are back, as is Cinderella's Prince Charming Karl Queensborough in the title role of Aladdin. It's all change elsewhere though, most notably in the script where, after three years, Tom Wells has left (probably because he had two new plays of his own this year to worry about) and former co-writer Joel Horwood has returned without his writing partner Morgan Lloyd Malcolm. Panto of course always has a bit of a topical edge and so here the story's introduced by the villain - Nigel David Donald Theresa Boris Abanazer (Vikki Stone,) who lives in Fulhammerboosh, where the rich have all the power and the poor are vilified.

Theatre review: Once in a Lifetime

It's fair to say my past experience with director Richard Jones' work hasn't been stellar; at least I didn't leave his last three shows at the interval, but that is partly down to the fact that they didn't have intervals. I've liked a couple of his shows though so went along to his return to the Young Vic, and though it's lacking in some crucial ways at least I wasn't tempted to take an early bath. Once in a Lifetime is a product of the ten-year playwrighting partnership of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, who had numerous Broadway hits, in a version restructured for 12 actors by Hart's son Christopher. (Not that 12 is a tiny cast, but it seems as if the original required so many bodies it became prohibitively expensive and nobody wanted to revive it.) It's obvious why extravagance might have been on the playwrights' agenda though as their subject is Hollywood, and the particular excitement after the first talking picture was released in 1927.

Theatre review: Dr Angelus

"Ah well, you did your best and it wasnae very good... And that's a fair epitaph for most of us." Obscure mid-20th century plays really are delivering the best lines at the moment, this one courtesy of the Finborough's current alternate show, James Bridie's Dr Angelus. Set in 1920 and inspired by a true crime story, it follows recently-qualified Dr George Johnson (Alex Bhat,) who's moved to Glasgow to take a too-good-to-be-true partnership with the eccentric Dr Angelus (David Rintoul.) His gratitude and respect for the older man let him overlook some suspicious behaviour - like the fact that his heavily-insured mother-in-law only gets sicker the more Angelus treats her, and when she finally dies he insists Johnson sign the death certificate. George keeps his silence even when Angelus' wife (Vivien Heilbron) starts exhibiting the same symptoms her mother did.

Theatre review: Sheppey

I'd always thought of Somerset Maugham as a novelist and short story writer who'd also written the odd play, but it turns out in the early part of his career he was quite a prolific and successful playwright. He did give up the theatre for the last three decades of his life though, and 1933's Sheppey was his final play. It's a satirical, political comedy on issues that are sadly timeless, and starts in a barber's shop where Sheppey (John Ramm) is assistant to Mr Bradley (Geff Francis.) His sense of humour makes him popular with the customers and his ability to sell Bradley's various potions to pretty much anyone is legendary. He's always said he was born lucky and it's proven when he wins the £8,500 jackpot in the sweepstakes. But this financial fortune comes at the same time as a health scare, and when he recovers from what might have been a mini-stroke, he's significantly changed his mind about what to do with the money.

Theatre review: The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales

"Candles are so much better than electricity, aren't they?" Emma Rice's family Christmas show for Shakespeare's Globe opens with a gag about her drive-by Artistic Directorship of the venue, and the row over a lighting rig that'll see her leave in 18 months. Things don't stay quite as meta for the rest of The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales, in which Rice and Joel Horwood adapt three Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, held together by the story of the titular sinister puppet. The homeless matchgirl meets Ole Shuteye (Paul Hunter,) who says they can warm themselves up not just with the matches but also with stories - for every match they strike, Shuteye and his troupe of actors will act out a story, starting with "Thumbelina" (Bettrys Jones, cast against type as an adult woman, admittedly a very small one.) I don't think "Thumbelina" was a story I heard or read particularly often as a child because I didn't really remember much of what happens in it.

Theatre review: Nice Fish

It seems like "whimsy" is the word of the week - a couple of days ago it was a particularly Welsh brand of it, now it's an American version brought to life by Mark Rylance, himself very much an English eccentric (in fact this play only makes me find more plausibility in Weez' theory that Rylance isn't actually an actor, but a collection of small woodland creatures standing on each other's shoulders in a coat,) who actually grew up in America. Nice Fish is by US writer Louis Jenkins, whose poems Rylance has a habit of reading out in lieu of acceptance speeches for his many awards, and it definitely feels like what it is: A collection of existing writings strung together, rather than a narrative. Erik (Jim Lichtscheidl) has gone out onto a frozen Minnesota lake to fish through the ice, and brought with him Ron (Rylance,) who'll be keeping him company but has no interest in fishing himself.

Theatre review: The Children

After the large-cast, continent-hopping Chimerica, Lucy Kirkwood scales things down to a story about three retired nuclear scientists, in a single scene that plays out in real time. But looked at another way The Children is Kirkwood's take on a disaster movie - albeit a look at the behind-the-scenes emotional devastation behind the explosions. There have been explosions - in an event literally described as The Disaster, a freak earthquake off the English coast caused a tsunami that hit a nuclear power station, triggering a meltdown. Hazel (Deborah Findlay) and Robin (Ron Cook) met while they were both working at the nuclear plant, and even after their retirement they stayed in their home nearby. Their house is now in the quarantined exclusion zone, and while work goes on to make the plant safe again, they've moved to a small holiday cottage further down the coast. This is where Hazel is surprised by a visit from their former colleague and friend Rose (Francesca Annis.)

Theatre review: The Duke

Shôn Dale-Jones is the creator and performer behind "emerging performance artist" Hugh Hughes, but for his latest show The Duke he's making a point of performing as himself. He also runs all the sound effects from a laptop on his desk, something that's practical as he can't afford to pay a sound engineer - the show is, by definition, not going to make any money. This is because the story itself touches on the refugee crisis, and in a more tangible sense the show is an attempt to help in some way: Tickets are free, and instead the audience are asked to make a donation to child refugee charities on the way out. It might be Shôn on stage rather than Hugh but it's still an hour of storytelling, and the starting point is a porcelain figurine of the Duke of Wellington on horseback, bought by his father in 1974 as an investment. Ten years after his father's death, Dale-Jones gets a distraught call from his mother to say she's accidentally broken the Duke while dusting.

Theatre review: After October

"I can't imagine ever being able to laugh about any of this," says Rodney Ackland's author substitute. Which is actually one of the evening's better gags as After October is a play that does exactly that. Ackland ended up becoming one of the most popular West End playwrights of the mid-20th Century before falling back into obscurity, but this autobiographical play goes back to before his success: Clive Monkhams (Adam Buchanan) is a young writer who occasionally makes a living out of magazine articles, and has published three novels that nobody bought. But his big hopes lie with a play that's actually found a producer willing to stage it in a small West End theatre. It's 1936, and Clive lives in a basement flat with his mother Rhoda (Sasha Waddell,) a former actress who fostered a bohemian spirit in her children but, after her husband died penniless, can't actually afford for them all to maintain their lifestyle.

Theatre review: The Tempest (RSC & Intel / RST & Barbican)

At some point during rehearsals at the RSC the following conversation must surely have taken place:
"You know how we've marketed this production of The Tempest as being especially family-friendly and a good first Shakespeare for younger kids? Well there's a scene coming up that's basically a 25-minute information dump where the whole plot gets described and nothing happens visually. So you know how this production uses some of the most sophisticated projections ever seen on stage? Maybe we could use some of those to illustrate that scene?"
"... Nah."
That's right, I'm getting my usual gripe about Prospero's Basil Exposition speech out of the way early this time, and no, except for one moment Gregory Doran's production doesn't use its theatrical toolbox to make it any less dry.