It hasn’t even been two years since Jamie Lloyd’s calamitous adaptation of literature’s most famous love story concluded its run at the Duke of York’s Theatre and yet, just five minutes away from the scene of that monstrous crime, a new take on the material has already rolled into town. However, given the quite urgent need to scrub Lloyd’s production from the nation’s collective consciousness, I’m inclined to think the eponymous lovers deserve this shot at redemption, not least because theirs is an unfairly maligned story (in no small part thanks to its presence on the GCSE English Literature curriculum) and one that deserves to be retold by somebody who actually understands it.

Enter director Robert Icke, who boasts an enviable track record with regards to successful twists on classic texts. In recent years he has reimagined Arthur Schnitzler’s tale of medical ethics and mob mentality, Professor Bernhardi (rechristened as The Doctor), for the era of social media show trials, toyed with perspective and interpretation in a production of Mary Stuart that left the casting of the two lead roles to chance each night, and offered a modern spin on Oedipus in which the titular tragic hero is a populist politican on the cusp of a great election victory. In all of these cases and more, Icke has adapted, contemporised and played with place, time and even narrative, but he has always done so with a real cognisance for the emotional and thematic core of the stories he’s telling, thus ensuring their hearts never stopped beating.

The same is true of his spin on Romeo & Juliet, and impressively with barely a syllable changed or excised from the text. With a rigour that awards him the chance to be playful when he wants to be and sombre when he needs to be, he blends the lyrical pace of Shakespeare’s poetry, which propels the protagonists towards disaster over the course of just a few days, with a sharp, focused directorial vision that is singularly his own. Scenes in which he takes a more interpretive approach to the text - a nightmare sequence in which Juliet foresees the bloodshed that will befall them all, for example, or moments in which snippets of scenes are repeated or interleaved with one another to create a sense of cascading inexorability - do not detract from Shakespeare’s words but instead enrich them as Icke laments the star-crossed lovers cruel destiny.

A production rich with stark visual motifs of the implacable nature of finiteness and finality, Icke’s Romeo & Juliet feels like a distillation of all of the fate and inevitability that is so central to the tragic impetus and impulse of the text. The set, so cleverly designed by Icke’s regular collaborator Hildegard Bechtler, ominously looms over the protagonists. A digital clock emblazons the walls behind them, emphasising the haste of their romance while simultaneously counting down to their deaths, while there is a fluidity to the set, with its constantly shifting parts, that quickens the momentum and drags us ever closer to their final kiss. All the while, Icke ponders the text’s ‘sliding doors moments’, desperately willing the characters to make different choices but ultimately unable to prevent or even delay the play’s violent ends.

It is in these almost insignificant moments - in the what-ifs and the what-could’ve-beens - that the tragedy becomes all the harsher and more galling. What if Capulet had given the nurse, rather than Peter, the guest list for his feast? What if Juliet had been wooed by Paris at said feast as planned? What if Romeo had received Friar Lawrence’s letter in time? What if all of this could have been avoided somehow? Minor changes to events that are as much the consequences of simple misfortune as of fate are briefly considered before a blinding flash of light “corrects” the narrative and sets the characters back on the path of their misadventured, piteous overthrows, compelling them back into each other’s arms and each other’s death beds. It’s a clever notion that Icke never overuses or luxuriates in, and one that plays with the structure of the text without ever sacrificing its emotional essence.

Yet Icke also understands the bones of Romeo & Juliet, which is, at least until the moment of peripeteia when Mercutio and Tybalt are slain and the tone shifts drastically, a bawdy comedy about two lovestruck, awkward teenagers who make foolish choices and are unable to see further than each other’s bodies. This is a play of horny innuendo and ribaldry; it’s all incessant penis jokes and gags about sex; it’s two libidinous adolescents who disregard a multigenerational family rivalry to fuck each other, consequences be damned. Sure, it’s a tragedy but without all of the humour and the frivolity, the foreshadowed deaths land with a thud, and Icke recognises that, far from being overly dour and solemn, the first three acts are hilarious and goofy and full of lust and yearning.

Under his direction, the performances are also superb. Noah Jupe does the impossible and makes a character as naive and narcissistic as Romeo not just likeable but charismatic, albeit in a delightfully ungainly way. Romeo lacks finesse, clumsily brigading Juliet with earnest poetry and kissing her “by the book”, and Jupe plays him as what he is: an overexcitable and rash young man driven by instinct and rarely in control of emotions that he never once takes a moment to process or understand. Sink, likewise, plays Juliet as frenzied, perhaps even neurotic, but not without cause. She’s a character trying to take ownership of a narrative that is almost entirely happening around her. When the two of them are together on stage, their chemistry is electrifying, not because they are mature, confident lovers but rather because they exude all the giddiness and ineptitude of first-time sweethearts overcome by hormones.

Though there are some missteps in the wider ensemble - Aruna Jalloh’s Tybalt has little presence and Eden Epstein’s Lady Capulet feels undernourished - the production also boasts a barnstorming turn by Kasper Hilton-Hille as Mercutio, who is portrayed as an insufferable but unerringly loyal architect of his own senseless demise. Hilton-Hille dominates but does not overwhelm his scenes; he is lewd and lively, which juxtaposes nicely with the sensitive demeanour of Jupe’s Romeo and makes Romeo’s sudden descent into a violent rage against Tybalt all the more shocking. The ever-reliable Clare Perkins, similarly, has exquisite comic timing as Juliet’s nurse and brings a low-level cynicism borne of experience to the role that exacerbates just how integral she is to the events that unfold before us.

This isn’t a perfect production: acts four and five are unevenly paced (Shakespeare’s fault mostly, though Icke struggles to navigate the issue) and some of Icke’s choices, while always interesting, feel a tad underdeveloped. Nonetheless, it’s still a very good production that captures not just the miserable lows but also the impossible highs of the titular lovers’ story. Noah Jupe and Sadie Sink are both excellent - far better, I must admit, than I expected them to be - and Icke’s direction is confident and compelling, taking a text we all know and offering a fresh perspective on it without seeking to undermine it.

See what’s possible when a director does something radical like reading a play before directing it?

Tickets for Romeo & Juliet are available here.

Director: Daniel Raggett

Writer: David Hare

Cast: Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Michael Fox, Phil Daniels, Roman Asde & Aysha Kala

Rebecca Lucy Taylor, better known as musician and songwriter Self Esteem, is something of a revelation in Daniel Raggett’s revival of David Hare’s Teeth ‘n’ Smiles. As Maggie Frisby, the nihilistic, alcoholic frontwoman of a rock band that is in the process of spectacularly imploding over a single night in the dying embers of the late-sixties, she is pugnacious and pitiable, and she tears through the play’s numerous songs with all of the ferocity and raw talent one might expect. It is in the quieter moments, however, when the music fades and all that’s left are the recriminations and regrets of the various characters on stage, that she properly shines.

Set during a gig at end-of-year May Ball at Jesus College, Cambridge, Teeth ‘n’ Smiles follows the band as they try to navigate Maggie's increasingly chaotic and harmful behaviour, while also conspiring, albeit reluctantly, with their manager, Sarrafian (a superlative Phil Daniels, who is clearly having the time of his life on stage) to have her sacked. As events spiral out of control and the relationships within the band become ever more fractured, the play explores how the great promise of the post-war consensus and the cultural revolution of the 1960s began to buckle and how disillusion leads so easily to ennui and, eventually, surrender.

There’s a rueful nostalgia and gruelling dissatisfaction with the present pulsing through Teeth ‘n’ Smiles that pierces and stings. Though written in ‘75 and set in ‘69, the notion of the promised land collapsing beneath the feet of the zealots who no longer believe feels as pertinent now as it ever has. Remember when we were teenagers? We were going to change the world and fix the mistakes of the previous generation, right? A better future was ours for the taking. We just had to make it matter, make it count. The music we listened to, the artists we admired, they were going to start a fucking revolution - the inevitable, long-awaited revolution, after all those years - and things would be so much different. Except… they weren’t, or at least not in the way we hoped. And nor will they be. Indeed, as the play so solemnly concludes, “the ship is sinking but the music remains the same.” Or, as the great philosopher of our time, Edina Monsoon, once said:

Though the more intimate and personal drama between Maggie, the band and Saraffian does pack some emotional weight, it’s in this cruel but depressingly honest idea of a better future ripped from the hands of yet another generation that Teeth ‘n’ Smiles is at its most affecting. The lyrics of the songs, including a song specially written by Taylor for this production, don’t just capture a band in freefall but a world crumbling and spiralling far beyond our understanding, and the way Taylor and the ensemble perform them - passionate, erratic and desperate - heightens the sense of hopelessness that the characters feel beneath all of their facades and their egos.

It's also a text rooted in class. Hare takes aim at both the Cambridge elites who have hired the band and the band members themselves, who have long surrendered any pretence at authenticity, instead acquiescing entirely to a comfortable, easy hedonism. In this respect, it's somewhat less successful. Whether a flaw in Hare’s script or merely in this particular production, outside of Maggie and Sarrafian, the band morphs into a homogenous blob with the individual members never really anchored in anything real. They tend to merge and collapse into one another and though this might be by design, the effect is to alienate them from the audience in a manner counterintuitive to the play’s universal ideas of shared national decline.

Furthermore, whenever Taylor and/or Daniels aren’t at the centre of the drama, the play’s archaicisms become quite distracting and its momentum stalls. Hare’s script is, for all of its melancholic insight, a little too chauvinistic and cynical, even by the standards of the seventies, and the comedy is somewhat hit and miss, despite the best efforts of the rest of the ensemble to embrace the text’s more anarchic, slapstick streak. Nonetheless, it remains an entertaining and emotional production that, thanks to Daniel Raggett’s stylish direction and Chloe Lamford’s superb set design, both of which effectively portray the punky mileiu of the late sixties, when the revolution was collapsing, the future was fucked and the acid dream was well and truly over.

This is a good production with flickers of greatness, and Rebecca Lucy Taylor is magnetic as Maggie. It's a little dated in its portrayal of “troubled” women but Hare still awards Maggie the agency to make and own her mistakes, and her despondent view of the world and her role in it is worryingly relatable. When she stumbles around the stage, damning everybody and clutching a bottle of Johnnie Walker like a child clings to its favourite teddy, it's hard to escape the thought that maybe she's right - maybe none of it matters - and this is largely a result of how convincingly Taylor plays her.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

The similarities between Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production of A Doll’s House and Ibsen’s classic text essentially begin and end with the title. Sure, the characters have the same names and the plot generally treads the same, well-worn path but it is, for all intents and purposes, an entirely different play. Though not quite at the level of ChatGPT slop, it does feel as though writer Anya Reiss sat at a computer and thought to herself “do you know what Ibsen needs? Instagram” and then proceeded to forge a tiresome path through TikTok songs and c-bombs, cocaine and finance bros, threesomes and WhatsApp messages and reflections on the follies and evils of Western military interventionism, all while never really concerning herself too much with passé things like dramatic realism or complex characters.

Without wishing to sound like some unreconstructed traditionalist who thinks works of literature are sacrosanct and untouchable or that theatre peaked in the late 19th century, I do think that if contemporary retellings of classic texts are to be worth anything at all, they should be radical. Not superficially radical, in the sense of throwing in a few “fucks” or “cunts” here and there, or setting a dance sequence to a viral tune, but narratively and thematically radical. They should massacre sacred cows, upend and subvert the consensus, and challenge the audience to think in ways that threaten and undermine their cozy middle-class comfort. And, if they do nothing else, they should at the very least draw meaningful parallels between the zeitgeists of then and now.

This production - this “revival”, if we must - does none of that. It’s tame, perfunctory and lacking in emotional heft. It denudes the text of all of its nuance and poetry and, in doing so, reduces these characters to crass, exaggerated stereotypes whose decisions are dictated by an adherence to Ibsen’s essential plot beats rather than by any logic or impulse that constitutes an essential part of who they are. Ibsen’s text is timeless because his characters are complicated. He does not hold them to his own moral standards or judge their actions because he crafts them as real people with real feelings, desires and layers. They do not act in accordance with the story but rather the story is guided by them and all of their contradictions.

By contrast, Reiss’ versions of these same characters are simplistic, bordering on caricaturish. Their behaviour never feels true to who they are because she does not define them much beyond how they compare with Ibsen’s creations. Nora’s decision to leave in the final act - a decision so provocative and revolutionary in 1879, but one that always felt inevitable and true to her character - here feels like some trite afterthought, as though Reiss has been forced to push the character down this path because that’s what the narrative demands. There is no sense of a real woman making a real choice but rather of a writer trying to finagle her way to the conclusion the audience expects. Again, where’s the radicalism? Where’s the sense of newness or subversion? What is the point of this?

There are some pockets of decent work, of course. Romola Garai does all that she can to try to capture what little essence there is to this take on Nora, and her anxious, jittery performance is effective at capturing a woman whose control of her own life is rapidly slipping away from her. The width and breadth of the stage, which is nicely decorated with the shallow symbols of an obscenely capitalist Christmas, well mirrors the chasms that develop between the central characters as the plot progresses, and the final confrontation between Nora and Thorvald, though sloppily written, is well performed by Garai and Tom Mothersdale, both of whom are consistently more convincing than the rest of the ensemble, who struggle to get any real grip at all on their characters or their motivations. Unfortunately, none of this is enough to make the production work.

It is perfectly possible to recontextualise and relocate classic texts without butchering the dialogue or sacrificing who the characters are; just ask anyone who’s ever directed a modern take on Shakespeare. It’s also possible to rewrite and update a classic text without losing its essence. A Doll’s House at the Almeida, alas, fails to do this. Reiss’ script is juvenile and facile and the direction lacks originality. It’s Netflix does Ibsen via the Jamie Lloyd School of Missing the Point, and though it’s sometimes funny and very (very) occasionally thought-provoking, it has nothing to say that Ibsen didn’t say with much more insight and courage almost 150 years ago.

A real shame, this.

Director: Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu

Writer: Chadwick Boseman

Cast: Jayden Elijah, Selina Jones, Elijah Cook, Aminita Francis & Imani Yahshua

Though best known for screen roles like Jackie Robinson in 42, James Brown in Get On Up and Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Chadwick Boseman began his career in the creative industries as a stage actor, theatre director and playwright. Like many who try to pursue these lines of work, particularly off-Broadway, Boseman’s successes were, with one notable exception, relatively unknown and minor. That one exception is Deep Azure, an avant-garde play written in lyrical verse that premiered in Chicago in 2005, earning a nomination for Best New Work at the Jeff Awards (or Joseph Jefferson Awards, which celebrate excellence in Chicago theatre), and which is now in its final week at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, having been extended by a fortnight due to high demand.

The Globe is an apposite venue for this revival of Deep Azure because for all of his script’s vernacular and modern cultural references, Boseman was a real classicist at heart. The form and structure of the piece comes straight from the annals of Greek tragedy, with its chorus, its fallen heroes and heroines and its recurrent themes of fate, vengeance and the conflict between justice and injustice. The script fizzes with an eagerness and a desire to experiment with the form that is sometimes messy but never boring; even when things don’t quite work, they’re always compelling.

With so much happening on stage and in the script, Deep Azure sometimes loses focus but Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu’s gorgeous direction and the performances do a stellar job of honing things back in on the emotional core of the story, which keeps it rooted in an often gruelling and heartbreaking authenticity. Boseman’s approach to the two central themes of the play - police brutality and disordered eating - is sensitive and intelligent, and his ability to weave all of these ideas into a text written and performed entirely in verse is impressive, not least because it imbues it with a sort of ceaseless momentum as the narrative careers towards tragic inevitability.

It’s a shame that Boseman didn’t write more because this is full of promise. It’s a little overwhelming and needs a bit of a trim but it’s also an emotive and sincere work brimming with all the rage and passion that these subjects deserve. It’s like a sermon, not in that it lectures or hectors the audience but in that it is as much about indescribable feelings and the search for truth and meaning as it is about the story of another black man murdered in cold blood by somebody sworn to “protect and serve”. I just hope more people get to see it because it’s a work of real rigour and intensity.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Danya Taymor

Writer: Kimberly Belflower

Cast: Sadie Soverall, Dónal Finn, Molly McFadden, Holly Howden Gilchrist & Lauryn Ajufo

John Proctor is the Villain’s reputation precedes it and then some. Its exponential growth in popularity and acclaim over the past four years has been remarkable: from humble beginnings at the Studio Theatre in Washington D.C., it soon transferred to Boston and then Broadway, where it featured Sadie Sink (presently starring in Robert Icke’s adaptation of Romeo & Juliet) and received seven Tony Award nominations. It is currently in its final week at the Royal Court in London, where it forms part of the theatre’s impressive 70th anniversary season. A 12-week transfer to the West End has already been announced for 2027 too, so it’s showing no sign of slowing down just yet.

Now, the name John Proctor will be familiar to anyone who knows, or even has a tangential awareness of, Arthur Miller’s seminal and divine indictment of McCarthyism, The Crucible. For decades, students right across the globe have read and analysed and reanalysed and overanalysed the play, and it is generally considered (rightly, in my view) to be one of the greatest dramas of the 20th century. In the text itself, Proctor, who is very much an avatar for Miller, refuses to succumb to the madness of the witch trials around which the plot unfolds or to sign a false confession, instead opting to be hanged; in other words, he is the undisputed hero - albeit a tragic one, as most of Miller’s are - of the piece… right?

Wrong!

Well, at least according to Kimberly Belflower’s electrifying and riveting interpretation of the text anyway. Told through the lens of high schoolers no older than Abigail Williams is in Miller’s text, John Proctor is the Villain uses a discussion about Proctor’s character flaws as a catalyst to explore sisterhood, feminism, sexual politics, assault, the justice system, grooming, education and so much more. Throughout, Belflower remains conscious of the parallels between her work and Miller’s, both stylistically and in terms of content, but is never beholden to them, instead crafting a text that is uproarious and uplifting with a real richness and complexity of its own.

Plays about plays - though as already stated, John Proctor is the Villain is so much more than that - are a little like movies about movies in that there’s often a tendency towards pretention, in-jokes and self-satisfaction. John Proctor is the Villain avoids almost all of these pitfalls because it is really no more about The Crucible than The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials. Both texts are allegories about something much more urgent and contemporary; John Proctor is the Villain is just the next link in this allegorical chain, and there’s an inherent pressure in being so - after all, Belflower is essentially slaughtering a sacred cow on stage - but it’s a pressure that the text relishes.

However, this isn’t a literature essay, it’s a play, and so what matters most is the extent to which Belflower and director Danya Taymor (who also directed the show on Broadway) are able to use the form to create drama, tension and humour. In this respect, their play is a triumph; the writing is perceptive and intelligent, with some remarkable character work that captures all of the contradictory anxiety and confusion of girlhood while also being delightfully funny. The script has a thrilling bouyancy to it that allows it to traverse that finest of lines between comedy and tragedy, and it never surrenders to oversimplification or eschews a challenge.

It’s also subtle, not necessarily as an allegory - John Proctor’s name is in the title, it’s not meant to be a subtle allegory - but in how all the quiet moments of unease, rage, fear, hope, friendship, betrayal and disbelief are handled, and so much of this is down to the note-perfect performances and Taymor’s clever but unobtrusive direction. The representation and portrayal of these teenage girls isn’t just authentic, it’s also empowering in a way that feels true to who these characters are. The development of each character feels genuine because Belflower respects them as people and Taymor and her cast do such excellent work in getting to the heart of them.

Towards the end of the play, I was reminded of a quote often attributed to Emma Goldman:

John Proctor is the Villain feels like a revolution with dancing, and one that must be had. It’s a guttural scream against the abuse of young women, sure, but it’s also a joyous tale of female friendship and solidarity that is wickedly entertaining and brimming with a depth and insight that crescendoes in one of the most spectacular final scenes I have seen in some time. Believe the hype. This is a superb play and you must rush to see it when it transfers next year.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Marianne Elliott

Writer: Christopher Hampton

Cast: Lesley Manville, Aidan Turner, Monica Barbaro, Darragh Hand & Gabrielle Drake

There was a minor shitstorm recently when Lesley Manville asserted that the use of phones and cameras during curtain calls is “insulting”. Though of course I would never deign to disagree with one of our greatest stage and screen actors (though she is wrong, and profoundly so), having now seen this revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in which Manville is currently starring, I’m much more sympathetic to her desire for there to be as little photographic evidence of the event as possible…

Premiering in 1985, Christopher Hampton’s play is an adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel of the same name about two nobles, Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, who take great pleasure in inflicting cruelty on others through the use of sexual games and manipulation. If this sounds familiar, it might be because you’ve seen the 1988 film of the same name, also written by Hampton, or Cruel Intentions, Roger Kumble’s deliciously silly and modern take on the story. Most recently staged in London at the Donmar Warehouse a decade ago, with Dominic West and Janet McTeer as the leads, the play now resides at the Lyttelton Theatre in a mediocre and listless revival, directed by Marianne Elliott.

Little works here. The staging and design of the show distract from, and in fact often undermine, Hampton’s script. Drab period costuming is blended with a bizarre attempt at minimalism that strips away much of the interior and replaces it with large mirrors that line the back wall like a dance studio. Every design decision is dichotomous with another, which creates a sense that Elliott, whose work in the last decade on shows like Angels in America and Company has been spectacular, has no real grip on what this particular show is meant to be and what she wants this take on the material to say.

It all feels shapeless and unfinished, which is also evident in the performances. Manville is prickly and uneven, with a take on Madame de Murteuil that is neither devious nor camp enough. There are flickers of magic when she and Aidan Turner are alone together on stage, and the two of them have a disappointingly underutilised chemistry, but she, much like the production itself, often appears lost and aimless. Turner is fine but, alas, “fine” isn't enough to sell his character's exploitative wickedness, and so he too is left floundering, grasping at nothing on a stage that is much too large and open for a text as intimate and interpersonal as this. Barbarro, who was excellent in A Complete Unknown, is likewise unable to capture anything concrete or tangible in her character, again because she hasn’t been directed effectively.

It’s rare that a show boasting such talent both on and off stage flubs things quite like this but Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a major disappointment. Were it shorter or kitschier it might have at least been more entertaining but there’s a dull seriousness to it all that just exacerbates how sterile it is. Given how sexually charged so much of the narrative is, and given how charismatic and, let’s be real, hot the cast is, it’s extraordinary how little energy and vitality this production has, with everyone trundling around a vast, barren stage desperately trying, and only rarely succeeding, to inject some passion into it.

Save yourself the decision as to whether to take a photo at the end by skipping this entirely.

Score: ⭐⭐

Director: Michael Longhurst

Writer: Michael Frayn

Cast: Alex Kingston, Damien Molony & Richard Schiff

Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, September - or perhaps it’s October - 1941. Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr and his wife Margrethe, both of whom are Jewish, receive a visit from old friend and fellow physicist Werner Heisenberg. Heisenberg, who is German, is working on nuclear fission for a Nazi regime currently rampaging through vast swathes of continental Europe. The purpose of his visit and the specifics of his discussion with Bohr that night have been the subject of much debate and disagreement in the decades since and Frayn’s text attempts to construct something resembling an explanation of what might well have been one of the most consequential conversations in all of human history.

Framed as the reflections and memories of the long deceased ghosts of the sole individuals who might truly know what occured on that fateful night, all three of whom have gathered to provide an answer, or rather their interpretation of an answer, Copenhagen explores issues of relativism, whether moral or scientific, collaboration, whether with allies or enemies, and the impossible nature of truth. The metatextuality of the three characters talking to each other in both the past and as spectres who exist outside the mundane confines of time and space allows for a further consideration of the influence of personal experience and beliefs on our perceptions of events, and Frayn takes great delight in attempting to bamboozle the audience with all of these hypotheticals and contradictions.

As with the major theories of the two scientists themselves, there is a fundamental conflict between complementarity and uncertainty in the text. Truth and memory are both obscured when seen through the lenses of hindsight and history, akin to how the behaviour of particles changes the moment we try to observe them, and the perspectives of the different characters become increasingly entangled and confused as they are unable to reflect on the past without being unduly influenced by their understanding of what happened afterwards, as well as their stubborn adherence to their own hypotheses and ideologies.

From the verbose and often abstruse back and forth about quantum physics and mathematics to the stage design, which positions the characters on a perfect circle that rotates beneath dim lamps hanging from the ceiling, there’s more than an echo of Carrie Cracknell’s recent production of Arcadia reverberating through this revival of Copenhagen. Indeed, Frayn’s script, which was first written and performed in 1998, feels very Stoppardian in how it blends the personal and the intimate with the philosophical and the theoretical, in how it repeatedly replays and recontextualises moments and conversations of historical significance - a la Travesties - and in how the rational language of science and scientific endeavour is poetically applied to the seemingly irrational emotions and behaviours of human beings. At almost 165 minutes (again, Arcadia would like a word) the play occasionally feels like a trudge through some cerebral battle of the wits, and the first act in particular is rather stodgy in both its exposition and its somewhat cumbersome metaphors.

Alex Kingston, as Margrethe, is given little of anything to do in act one except watch as the two men reminisce, debate and argue, and her performance stumbles as a result, though she thrives in act two when she is finally allowed to confront Heisenberg and, to a lesser extent, Bohr, about their staggering inability to actually understand the world, despite dedicating their lives to trying to do just that. Schiff and Molony are much more consistent throughout because their characters are centered from the very beginning, and act two is a much more astute and accomplished piece of writing than its predecessor, with Frayn effectively wrangling with notions of mortality and of how the greatest minds can so often accomplish the greatest evils. The references to Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project and the rapid eradication of entire cities on a hitherto unfathomable scale feel more than apt than ever right now, and the production’s occasional subtle fourth wall breaks are rather striking.

I wish act one was either as successful as act two, or at least significantly abridged, and I wish Kingston was given a more prominent role throughout, but there’s far more to commend than to criticise here. Copenhagen poses grand questions about life and death but is never arrogant enough - or perhaps never brave enough - to attempt to provide closure or finality to them, and it’s a thought-provoking play with some moments of real power. It’s also superbly designed by Joanna Scotcher, who deserves real credit for managing to make the stage appear at once minimalist and impossibly grand.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Director: Georgia Green

Writer: Nicholas Wright

Cast: Niamh Cusack, Jeroen Frank Kales, Amber van der Brugge, Rawaed Asde & Ayesha Ostler

First performed in 2002, Nicholas Wright’s predominantly fictionalised account of Vincent van Gogh’s visit to Brixton in 1873 is a quaint and mild-mannered affair, and so too is Georgia Green’s safe revival. With the obvious caveat that this is the Orange Tree, a fabulous little theatre but one to which adventure and radicalism are somewhat anathema, everything from the set design to the staging to how Green directs her performers feels a little too cautious and tame, even though the script’s ruminations on loneliness and depression are never twee nor glib. Given the intentional anachronisms in the text and how blasé with the truth Wright is, it’s a shame that Green plays things so economically.

There is, however, much to commend in this production and in the text itself. Wright’s bleak and incisive exploration of the ultimate futility of both art and companionship in the face of such all-consuming melancholy is well done, and the decision to project the mental health issues we most associate with van Gogh, who took his own life at the tender age of 37, onto another character entirely is intriguing. Interesting too is the romantic relationship between the youthful, charismatic van Gogh and the older, sullen landlady with whom he boards, and the chemistry between Jeroen Frank Kales and Nimah Cusack as these two characters is a delightful mix of tender and giddy.

Though there is a stiffness and an inconsistency to some of the performances, Cusack is as reliable as always. She has excellent comic timing and a real lightness of touch that enhances the emotional impact of her character’s more maudlin episodes, and she is very much the glue that holds the piece together throughout. In her hands, lines that flirt a little too intimately with triteness are instead profound and witty, and she tempers some of Frank Kales’ excesses with a performance that is anchored and nuanced. Where he gets laughs with his eagerness and his silliness, she achieves them with a mere glance or dry aside, and she imbues the play’s more emotional moments with real maturity.

This is an enjoyable and passable production of a play that is perhaps a little darker and more callous than Green allows it to be. It is, for better or worse, perfectly suited to the Orange Tree Theatre (I saw it two days after turning 35 and was still by far the youngest person in attendance) and it survives on the strength of Cusack’s performance and the intricacies of Wright’s script, which is painted in broad strokes but nonetheless captures some fundamental truths about love and the isolating contradictions of both aging and youth.

Also, the ice cream at the Orange Tree is banging.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Director: Katie Posner

Writer: Karis Kelly

Cast: Julia Dearden, Caoimhe Farren, Andrea Irvine & Muireann Ní Fhaogáin

When four women from four generations of the same clan gather in Belfast to celebrate foul-mouthed matriarch Eileen’s 90th birthday, decades of transgenerational traumas soon surface, threatening to tear the family in two. Domestic arguments about the characters’ childhoods, relationships and various mental health issues are endlessly derailed and subsumed by something much larger that is seemingly rooted in both the Great Famine and the Troubles. Writer Karis Kelly, who won the Women’s Prize for Playwriting for Consumed in 2022, posits that only by confronting the demons of the past as opposed to burying them, as generations of Irish women were and remain so wont to do, can anyone overcome what seems to be a genetic predisposition to suffering, which manifests for these characters variously as OCD, hoarding, alcoholism, anxiety, bigotry and disordered eating.

With plays that try to tackle the grand sum of trauma across generations there’s always a danger of them being overwritten or overwrought, and this is certainly an issue in the earlier stages of the play. Lines about Gen Z’s foibles land with a thud, and some of there’s a crassness to the humour that feels forced and uneasy. However, as things progress, the text develops a real depth and sophistication as Kelly draws links between the deep-rooted trauma of the past and what these women are experiencing in the modern day, resulting in an explosive final act in which the past is all but literally excavated in front of us on stage.

The stage itself, meticulously designed by Lily Arnold, too becomes a symbol for the traumas of the past. What appears to be an almost picture perfect image of a nice family lunch hides secrets on every surface and in every cupboard, the rot slowly consuming everything. As the relationships between the characters break down, so do does the stage: it first becomes disordered and messy and then, by the end, effectively destroyed, strewn with the detritus of the past with all of the order and certainty upended. In a space like the Park Theatre, with the audience so close to the action, this is particularly effective, as it feels like everything is being dismantled around us.

The performances, likewise, are strong, though bear with them at the start as, like the text, they too feel forced. However, it’s all a fiction that cannot be sustained; everybody is putting on their best face and their best behaviour, straining to be pleasant and jovial because that’s just what you do. When things deteriorate, however, the performances feel much more rooted in reality, and all four of the women on stage manage this delicate balance and shift with considerable skill. Andrea Irvine in particular, as Eileen’s daughter and the host of the party, does excellent work capturing how her character is barely holding things together and will feel instantly recognisable to anyone who grew up with an older Irish mother trying to solve every crisis with offerings of more food.

This took a little bit of time to click for me but, once it did, I thought it was superb. There’s some real intelligence in the writing and the characters, though ultimately serving as avatars for different traumas, had evolved well beyond their archetypes by the end. It’s also, for all of the misery and pain, often laugh out loud funny, and the darker and more distressing the situation becomes, the funnier it gets.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Jason Robert Brown

Writer: Jason Robert Brown

Cast: Rachel Zegler & Ben Platt

Jonathan O’Boyle’s 2021 production of The Last Five Years at the Garrick Theatre will take some besting, and though this concert performance, which celebrates the musical’s 25th anniversary, boasts some fabulous vocals and a wonderful orchestra, it lacks some of the emotional heft required to make this work soar. Given the intricacies of the narrative, which sees the two leads unpick their relationship from their own perspectives, one in chronological order, the other in reverse, and given that their timelines intersect just once, it is essential that we believe and invest in their story.

Though this is an effective and impressive showcase of the songs, the music and the two leads’ vocals, it doesn’t quite capture the full intensity of the drama. Zegler’s performance is rich and perfectly pitched - she’s understated when she needs to be and can belt out a ballad on demand - while Platt is solid, though I must confess that his voice often grates on me for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Between them, they imbue the production with ample heart and character, and in Zegler’s hands songs like “A Summer in Ohio” and “I Can Do Better Than That” take on a quite magical quality.

The orchestra, likewise, is excellent, and their brief interactions with the stars give the production a pleasant sense of humour that complements its more emotional and dramatic trajectory. They are strategically placed on the stage, as though part of the set itself, and the musical direction has a real fluidity to it. Alas, there’s something a bit sterile and unimaginative about the rest of the set design, which detracts from some of the production’s more whimsical moments.

This is a solid production that is elevated by Rachel Zegler in particular, who seems to thrive at the Palladium. It doesn’t come close to the 2021 production and I just can’t get on board with Platt’s vocals, though I acknowledge I’m in the minority on that. Still, as a celebration of a fantastic musical, this is worth a look if by some miracle you’re still able to nab a ticket. It also reminds us that Zegler is a real star of the stage and deserves to be given many more leading roles for years to come.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Directors: Crystal Pite & Kameron N. Saunders

Cast: Performers from the English National Ballet

I possess neither the knowledge nor the technical vocabulary to properly review ballet but when has ignorance ever been a barrier to commentary? I confess I can count the total number of ballets I’ve seen on my two hands but I admire it greatly, even though I think Timothee Chalamet’s (admittedly very poorly expressed) opinion on it possesses more than a ring of truth. There’s no doubt that the formal control and physical prowess required to be able to perform in such a gruelling and complicated artform is just extraordinary, and the ability to tell stories through mere music and dance alone is one that I find compelling and baffling.

Body & Soul, which comprises two distinct pieces - Body and Soul (Part 1) and Proper Conduct - that are linked by ideas and themes of conformity, freedom and love, is spellbinding and rich with emotion. The first, and better, of the two pieces explores love, loss and conflict and is accompanied by an echoey narration in French that appears to “direct” the dancers’ movements. Light and its absence are used to attract and repel the performers like magnets, as though their movements and stories are guided by inevitability. A sequence in which the ensemble mimics waves crashing into a shore is uniquely captivating, and the piece buzzes with an evocative beauty.

Proper Conduct is a little blunter in its messaging, with the narration doing too much of the work and detracting from the poeticism of the dance, though it’s still impressive and, at times, riveting. In this piece, an unspecific race of beings, dressed in futuristic, possibly alien, white suits, rails against the “rot” of human sexuality and freedom, prioritising a drab conformity which is symbolised by the slow transformation of the stage into a blank white box. The dancers, likewise, transform, their colourful outfits and individualistic movements replaced by a homogeny of costume and choreography, until all that remains is a white void.

Both of these works are gorgeous in their own ways, and Body and Soul (Part 1) in particular feels like a real statement of intent from Crystal Pite. Proper Conduct is less poignant but is still a work of real talent and skill, and though, as already stated, I am far from an authority on ballet, I do think that these two shows are two of the best I’ve seen and are well worth a look if you get the chance, and particularly if you are a ballet virgin looking to experience what it’s all about for the first time.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Robert Hastie

Writer: Maxim Gorky

Adapted by: Nina Raine & Moses Raine

Cast: Sophie Rundle, Alex Lawther, Doon Mackichan, Paul Ready & Peter Forbes

Well, at least I now know what the emergency evacuation procedure at the National Theatre is like…

About half an hour before Summerfolk was due to start, the fire alarm - which consists of a blaring sound followed by a genuinely intimidating recording a man ordering everybody to leave via the nearest available exit playing on a loop - went off due to, I’m reliably informed, an errant fag end. Just under an hour later and all was fine, with this 165 minute long play now starting at 8:05 in the evening. The things I do for theatre, eh? But hey, anybody who knows me knows I love a bit of metaphor and allegory, so please indulge me while I now strain myself to link this alert of potential impending doom to the narrative of Maxim Gorky’s 1904 play, which was written mere months before the First Russian Revolution…

Adapted by Nina and Moses Raine, this production of Summerfolk leaves the action in early 20th Century Russia but updates the translation so that it better befits and reflects the audience of 2026. The narrative follows a group of these titular Summerfolk, a slur for upper middle-class tourists who descend on the Russian countryside for the summer months to frolic and relax while the servant class waits on them and cleans up after them, as they wile their days away. The characters consist of authors, poets, doctors, industrialists and housewives, all of whom obsess over their emotions, their love lives and their inheritances, while just in the distance, never visible but often heard and alluded to, Russian society is fizzing with a febrile rage that threatens to boil over and destroy them all.

With its vast cast of characters, all of whose narratives intertwine and all of whom are brought together for an explosive confrontation in the final act, Summerfolk recalls the great Russian novels of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, even though it is much more spatially and temporally restrained. Much of the text feels like a satire of its own genre, with Gorky (and, in turn, the Raines) taking aim at the sensibilities of the Russian epics and their melodrama and hysteria. The men in particular are portrayed as frivolous and absurd, their exaggerated ruminations on sex and love played for laughs rather than genuine drama, emphasising just how out of touch these people are with the material reality of the country they profess to love so very much.

Permeating the play is this sense that the concerns of the petty bourgeoisie are just that: petty. Russia is on the cusp of violent revolution, people are starving, workers are exploited and undervalued, the wealth gap is obscene (sound familiar…?), yet all the while the facile Summerfolk bicker about poetry and sermonise about the nature of romance. They are the complacent liberals and arrogant conservatives who ignore the increasingly deafening alarm (callback!) ringing in the distance and presaging their doom, instead focusing on insular arguments about nothing. Yet throughout, the dialogue is a compelling mix of dry humour and careful foreshadowing.

This idea of a world on the brink of vast social change is also apparent in the staging, which is vast, open and overwhelming. There is a makeshift element to the staging, a mass of wood that operates as both a house and, later, part of a forest, emphasising its impermanence, while the characters move about the stage as though wafting through a hazy dream. The performances are uniformly strong, with special mention to Alex Lawther, who does a worryingly good job playing a lovelorn, pathetic wannabe poet, and Paul Ready, who is delightfully wretched as the “man of the house”.

Though it is over 120 years old, this production of Summerfolk has a feverishly contemporary edge and Robert Hastie’s staging is magnificent. The exploration of issues of economic and social injustice is insightful and timely, and the performances are both playful and emotional, particularly during the intense confrontation in the final act. Though it ran until nearly 11:00pm due to the delay, the production is nonetheless pacy and consistently entertaining, and I’m delighted to see it has been revived on such a big stage with such a stellar cast.

Race to get a ticket before they’re gone.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Diyan Zora

Writer: Anna Ziegler

Cast: Anastasia Hille & Erin Kellyman

“It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing.

And it was going to snow.”

So goes the final stanza of Edward Stevens’ ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’, the 1917 poem from which Evening All Afternoon takes its title. This idea of time as having in some way frozen - or at the very least constricted - when all there is to look forward to is more of the same, is intrinsic to Ziegler’s text, the latter half of which is set during lockdown, when life took on a sort of stale numbness. Prevalent too in both the poem and play are ideas of perspective, or “ways of looking”, with ideas of grief and motherhood explored through the lenses of two characters whose outlooks on life often clash.

Ziegler’s text centres Delilah, a younger half-American woman in mourning for her recently deceased birth mother, and Jennifer, Delilah’s new, older, stuffier British stepmother. The two women clash regularly, particularly when thrown together at the height of lockdown, with Zora staging them on a circle that rotates to symbolise how entwined in each others’ lives they have become. When not directly interacting with one another, the two characters soliloquise, reflecting on their experiences and feelings about each other and about both the global situation and their much more domestic and intimate preoccupations.

Hille and Kellyman are both excellent and they breathe authenticity into characters that are often drawn in the broadest of brushstrokes. Hille is a bundle of reserved British nerves and jitters, her anxious energy instantly recognisable and relatable, while Kellyman is a mass of quiet rage and frustration indicative of a woman struggling to understand her own place in the world. The two of them bounce off each other well, their clashes and conflicts fraught with a simultaneous desperation and reluctance to understand each other, and both of them are able to draw out the humour in a script that has a tendency towards inert melodrama.

The text itself, alas, is awash with inelegant attempts at profundity. Clichés are stacked upon clichés so that the stellar work Hille and Kellyman do to generate some emotional potency is constantly undermined. Conversations are laboured and ideas about death and loss start to feel trite as Ziegler stumbles in her quest for something resembling poetry. A few moments that are genuinely affecting are drowned out by moments that are contrived and hopelessly overwritten, and though it does tie some of its themes together quite successfully at the end, the journey is quite strained.

Score: ⭐⭐

Director: Neil Bettles

Writer: Tim Foley

Cast: George Naylor, Oliver Baines & Paul Hilton (voice)

Horror is very tricky to get right on stage. Too much of a reliance on jump scares and stage trickery can lead to accusations of gimmickry, while not enough can kill the atmosphere stone dead. It Walks Around the House at Night, a touring production from ThickSkin that is currently in residence at Southwark Playhouse Borough, is an admirable and likeable effort that manages to strike the balance just about right, creating an atmosphere of low-level fear that persists throughout the whole show, even as the narrative starts to unravel when the secrets and mysteries of what is happening begin to reveal themselves.

a (mostly) one-man show about a young man who recounts his experience of taking an acting job playing a ghost for a wealthy landowner, manages to

, though the narrative does unravel a little as the truth of what’s happening starts to reveal itself.

George Naylor, who serves as both the narrator and main performer, is a charismatic, engaging lead, and he is able to straddle a fine line between a sort of jaded millennial cynicism and genuine fear.

…

…

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Director: Tania Azevedo

Writer: Finn Anderson

Cast: Frances McNamee, Rebecca Trehearn, Sydney Sainté, Kirsty Findlay & Ally Kennard

If this transfers to the West End - and I suspect it might - it’s going to be huge. With its soundtrack of catchy songs, its righteous feminist politics and a narrative that eschews neatness but is nonetheless simple and accessible, Ballad Lines is ripe for a larger audience in a larger theatre somewhere in the centre of town. Like the folk songs that form its soundtrack, it’s a story about storytelling; specifically, how women’s stories shape and influence - but pointedly do not define - their descendants across generations, and how women must forge their own narratives in a world determined to prevent them from doing so.

The timeliness of the narrative, which focuses on three women hundreds of years apart all contending with issues of pregnancy and childbirth, imbues Ballad Lines with some salience, and adds pathos to the characters’ individual journeys. In the present, Sarah, a queer woman living with her partner Alix, listens to the stories of two of her ancestors, both of whom underwent traumatic pregnancies, and concludes that she wants to carry on their story and have a child with Alix, who is much less certain. The notion of choice is extrapolated beyond the obvious binary of abortion to include the choice that queer women now have to conceive and raise a child, which makes it a more compelling story, and allows Azevedo and Anderson, as creators, to craft a narrative that doesn’t always provide the closure or neatness that the audience might expect.

Though Southwark Playhouse Elephant is a larger space than its Borough counterpart, the stage is still restrictive and so some of the choreography feels constrained, particularly in relation to the bombastic, crowd-pleasing mood of the songs. The musicians are on stage but partially hidden, and certain spaces sometimes have to double (or even triple) up as other locations, which is a distraction. Nonetheless, there is a seamlessness to the way in which the performers move across timelines, which gives the production a lilting fluidity, and it is very well paced and structured.

There is a lot to like here and I think, with some tweaks, Ballad Lines could grow to be a real smash. The vocals are decent and the show has real emotional heft as each character’s journey reaches its climax, while the manner in which it tackles questions of choice and legacy is thoughtful. A few of the songs will burrow into your head and keep you humming along for days, and the whole thing has a quiet charm. If last night’s audience is anything to go by, Ballad Lines is on the cusp of creating a legacy all of its own.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Director: Jordan Fein

Writer: Arthur Miller

Cast: Pearl Chanda, Eli Gelb, Alex Waldmann, Nancy Carroll & Juliet Cowan

Brooklyn, 1938. Syliva Gellburg, an otherwise healthy Jewish woman, is suddenly and inexplicably paralysed from the waist down. She spends her days at home, anxiously obsessing over news stories about Kristallnacht and the ongoing persecution of Jews across the ocean. Meanwhile Phillip, her emotionally and sexually distant husband, employs the help of Dr. Harry Hyman, a fellow Jew, who theorises that Sylvia’s paralysis is not physical but rather psychosomatic and attempts to cure her on this basis. What follows is one of Miller’s most personal and self-reflective plays, in which he examines what it meant, and what it still means, to be a Jewish-American, with all of the complexities and contradictions entailed within such an identity.

Like most people, I associate Miller with the 40s and 50s. For me, it’s Marilyn Monroe, McCarthyism, and the eight-year period when he wrote his four great masterpieces: All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge. Though all of these works tackle, to varying degrees, ideas of fallen men, persecution, the complicity of bystanders and the immigrant / refugee experience, none are as explicitly about Jewishness or as autobiographical as Broken Glass, which was first performed in 1994 and feels like a late-life guttural exorcism for Miller. Indeed, early in the text, a reference is made to the dybbuk - a spirit from Jewish mythology believed to possess people - and Broken Glass can be interpreted as Miller’s attempt to expel his own, metaphorical dybbuk, which here manifests as a combination of shame and inadequacy.

There are lots of knotty ideas at work here, though the most profound, and certainly the most timely for this particular production, is the notion of Nazism as some paralysing contagion. Sylvia’s condition is an enigma, and no real closure is ever given with regards to its cause, yet it is clear she is morbidly terrified of the march of fascism across Germany and beyond. She is afraid also of Phillip’s apparent indifference to these events and of his desire to assimilate into middle class American society and to conceal, as much as possible, his Jewish identity, which she suggests renders him complicit and no different to the bystanders who watched as their Jewish neighbours had their livelihoods destroyed by looting mobs.

The extent to which Phillip is an avatar for Miller himself is debatable, but it is clear that the trope of the ‘self-hating Jew’ is more than just an archetype here. Phillip’s refusal to contend with what is happening in Germany, which to him is just so far away, feels a little like Miller reflecting on his own failures, and on the failures of the world in which he became famous and successful, to properly and proudly defend Jewish people and Jewishness. Though there are clear parallels in his previous works between, for example, the persecution of those in Salem and those in Nazi Germany, or between the experience of Marco and Rodolpho and the experience of Jewish people betrayed and abandoned by their own neighbours, this is the first text in which Miller is explicit and forthright about his Jewishness and his feelings about what happened.

As a result, Broken Glass lacks some of the poetic nuance and sophistication of Miller’s greatest works, in part because he uses the play to express something that has dwelled within him for almost eighty years. It isn’t subtle - though nor is the persecution against which he rails - and the dialogue is often blunt rather than sharp, but there’s still a fire and a rage to the text, particularly in the latter stages as Miller tries to unpick feelings of emasculation and inaction in a loveless marriage that resembles a microcosm of a much wider conflict between different Jewish people and identities. There is a delightful, low-level contempt for Hyman and his quasi-Freudian attempts to psychoanalyse Phillip and Sylvia’s sex life, and some great humour in Phillip’s tactlessness and desperation not to be perceived as one of those Jews, though the dialogue itself is, at times, also rather tactless and overwritten.

Stylistically, Jordan Fein’s production of the text is interesting. It runs for two hours without an interval, and much of the action takes place with the house lights up so that the audience is an active, complicit observer. The production is staged on a narrow thrust stage, as though the characters’ identities are under a microscope (there is even a goldfish in a bowl on the stage throughout, just to emphasise the point), while stacks of newspapers - some old, some modern - litter the sides. The back wall, meanwhile, resembles a thirties radio studio. The effect is to posit the characters, and Phillip in particular, who Eli Gelb plays, through his voice and mannerisms, as though he is a radio announcer, as people performing their Jewishness and trying to latch on to a firm identity of who and what they are.

Fein’s choices, however, don’t elevate the text - though nor do they detract from it - and there’s little sense of cohesive stylisation here, so the occasionally leaden dialogue is left to do most of the work. The performances are decent - Pearl Chanda is very good - though the decision for Phillip to enunciate the way he does is a little strange, as his style doesn’t change in conjunction with his character, and although the production has a quite fiery energy, at two hours without an interval it does occasionally sag. There are issues with pacing, too, with an overload of exposition at the expense of the more human drama that comprises the latter stretches of the play.

Broken Glass is far from seminal Miller but it’s still a curious piece with lots of ideas bubbling away beneath the surface, albeit ones that sometimes feel disparate from one another. Fein’s production is solidly entertaining and piques the audience’s interest with its stark staging, and it is fascinating to see Miller try to unpick his own identity. For its faults, it’s still a piece with some beautiful lines about the nature of prejudice and the inefficacy of man in the face of his own mortality, and I’m pleased to see a theatre like the Young Vic stage it, if only so everyone gets to experience even more of Miller’s wit and insight about the world we’re still living in today.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐

Director: Carrie Cracknell

Writer: Tom Stoppard

Cast: Isis Hainsworth, Seamus Dillane, Leila Farzad, Prasanna Puwanarajah & Angus Cooper

Though he penned, even at the most conservative estimate, at least half-a-dozen bona fide masterpieces in his time, when Stoppard died in November one work in particular was referenced and fondly remembered in obituary after obituary: Arcadia. Indeed, so influential was Stoppard’s 1993 modern classic that Michael Baum, Professor Emeritus of Surgery at University College London and one of the country’s leading breast cancer specialists, credits his seeing the play, and its examination of chaos theory, as a critical factor in the advent of “adjuvant systemic chemotherapy”, which has since saved countless lives right across the world. Quite the legacy, eh?

Last staged in London in 2009 at the Duke of York’s, starring Samantha Bond and Dan Stevens, Arcadia is one of Stoppard’s most philosophical, profound and rarely produced plays. Carrie Cracknell’s production at the Old Vic was announced in October, just a month before Stoppard’s death, and it feels apt that, with the exception of Indian Ink at Hampstead Theatre, the first major posthumous production of his work is of one of his most celebrated and complex pieces. Poetic, romantic but rigorous, it is a work about the relationships and conflicts between order and chaos, free will and determinism, science and art, and life and death. However, like so much of Stoppard’s work, all of these grand ideas and concepts are mere vessels through which he can explore the most abstract, metaphysical riddle of all: the relationships and conflicts between people in love.

Set in the same manor house across two different timelines two centuries apart, Arcadia centres on academics in the present day studying the history of the manor, its inhabitants and its guests, many of whom we observe locked in fierce debates about poetry, philosophy, religion and mathematics in the early 19th century. Threaded through the different narratives and timelines are recurrent motifs of sex and love, both of which threaten to destabilise everybody’s preconceived notions of how the universe operates, with nobody spared from the consequences of “the attraction that Newton left out”. As is customary with Stoppard’s plays, the dialogue is sagacious - sometimes overwhelmingly and bafflingly so - and compelling, which allows all of these dichotomies, most of which modern playwrights wouldn’t dare tackle independently, never mind collectively, to dazzle.

In the past, we follow the precocious, intellectual daughter of aristocrat Lady Croom, Thomasina Coverley, who, under the tutelage of Septimus Hodge, demonstrates an astute capacity for mathematical analysis that far exceeds that of her elders. Septimus, meanwhile, has been caught in a “carnal embrace” with the wife of a rival, the unsuccessful poet Ezra Chater, whose work Lord Byron - regularly mentioned but never seen - derides. In the present meanwhile, Hannah Jarvis, an academic studying Lady Caroline Lamb, Byron’s mistress, conducts research into an elusive hermit who resided in the grounds of the manor in the early 19th century. When not clashing with Professor Nightingale, who is also at the manor trying to prove that Byron duelled with and ultimately killed Ezra, she and Valentine Coverley, a mathematics graduate and descendant of Lady Croom, become engrossed in the mystery of Thomasina’s scribblings.

Written in two acts, each scene shifts from past to present and back again, slowly revealing pockets of truth to both the audience and the characters, until the final scene blends the two worlds together, the barriers between them collapsing into a chaos that paradoxically precipitates order as the events of the past impact those some two hundred years later. Props and artefacts from the past litter the stage of the present, their contexts and meanings sometimes misconstrued, while the scientific knowledge and insight of the present manifests itself in the past, not fully or sometimes even remotely understood but nonetheless pivotal to how the characters think and behave. Indeed, as Valentine states in the present:

This aphorism applies equally to characters in both timelines. Their understanding, or lack thereof, of the world is shaped by what came before, and what came before seems ignorant and primitive to them. Yet as the drama progresses, Stoppard ponders how the influence of the past shapes the present and how accepted contemporary ideas must have existed in the past, doing so through the dual lenses of chaos theory and the theory of thermodynamic equilibrium, which posits that the ultimate fate of the universe is its “heat death”. Safe to say, it’s not a text for those looking to switch off at the theatre…

Cracknell’s production of this knotty text dispenses with the pomp and grandeur of the manor in which it is set, instead being staged in the round upon a perfect circle that is patterned with a geometric design and slowly rotates, at once suggesting finality and infinity. Lit from above by twenty orbs and two ellipses, it has a magical, mystical quality to it that heightens all of the intimacy and profundity of Stoppard’s text. Characters move on to and off the stage as though visitors from another time or place, the choreography reminiscent of a beautiful dance, occasionally appearing to stumble into the wrong era, while one - Gus / Augustus - serves as a bridge between the two.

So much of the play’s success rests on the extent to which we believe in its verbose and querulous characters, who talk in metaphors yet constantly seem unable to express their true feelings. Thankfully, the performances are uniformly strong, and so it is easy for us to invest in these people. Though Stoppard’s script has a tendency to resort to monologues and lectures, these never feel out of character; indeed, it is easy to imagine such people getting into ferocious arguments about the nature of existence. Particular mention must go to Isis Hainsworth, who captures all of Thomasina’s intelligence and yearning so beautifully, and also to Prasanna Puwanarajah, who is perfectly insufferable as the egotistical Nightingale.

There’s no denying that, at three hours long, Arcadia is a little flabby, and there are occasional lulls in the drama that undermine its momentum. Nonetheless, Cracknell’s production is a minor marvel, full of affection for the material, and everyone involved does justice to Stoppard, who would no doubt have loved this staging. At its best, it is a soaring, swirling romance that has an intimate understanding of human relationships, and is so unapologetically intellectual and forensic in its study of what it means to live and to die in a world as predictably chaotic and chaotically unpredictable as our own.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Christopher Luscombe

Writer: Noël Coward

Cast: Janie Dee, Alexandra Gilbreath, Richard Teverson, Christopher Hollis & Sarah Twomey

With its frank and open discussions of sex out of wedlock, female desire and adulterous behaviour, it’s little surprise that Coward’s Fallen Angels fell foul of the prudish censors when it debuted a century ago. Set over the course of 24 hours, the play centres on Julia and Jane, two old friends who receive notice that an ex-lover of both of theirs is in town and wishes to visit them. Now both happily comfortably married to their husbands, the pair of whom have gone away on a golfing weekend, the two consider how to deal with Maurice’s sudden and unexpected return, all while drinking heavily and trying not to let their insatiable lust get the better of them.

Though tame by today’s standards, it’s remarkable just how attuned to the needs of his two protagonists Coward is, and though his play is bawdy, laugh-a-minute silliness, he treats their desire and their rightful dissatification with their sexless marriages seriously. For all of the deft wit and playfulness, Coward respects these two women, which heightens the comedy. Janie Dee and Alexandra Gilbreath play to the audience marvellously in a style reminiscent of Edina and Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous, and Luscombe directs with a real sense of theatrical space and comic timing. The two leads are camp, catty and full of vigour, and when their friendship starts deteriorating in a gloriously drunken argument towards the end of the first act, it is some of the most hilarious theatre I’ve seen so far this year.

Unfortunately, this run of Fallen Angels is now finished and I doubt it will transfer (though a different production is playing Broadway soon), so I can’t exactly recommend it. Nonetheless, I wanted to get some quick thoughts down to acknowledge what a delightful time it was and to sing the praises of Dee and Gilbreath, both of whom are excellent. If it does transfer, or ever returns to the Menier, particularly with this cast, it’s a must see.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Anthony Lau

Writer: Terence Rattigan

Cast: Ben Daniels, Laurie Kynaston, Phoebe Campbell, Malcolm Sinclair & Nick Fletcher

This cynical tale of financial malfeasance, though written in the sixties about men in the thirties, feels remarkably contemporary and fresh. Eerie parallels exist between the play’s protagonist - corrupt, sinister financier Gregor Antonescu - and Jeffrey Epstein, and there is more than a flicker of Ghislaine Maxwell in both Antonescu’s confidante, Sven, and his wife, whose “Countess” title Gregor bought for her. References are made to the catalogue of totalitarians, fascists and Nazis with whom Antonescu has made deals and investments, while he keeps a dossier on his rivals, friends and even his own son, Basil, which he uses to blackmail and exploit them.

In Anthony Lau’s revival, all of these parallels take centre stage, and quite literally: the production is staged in the round as though it is an actual theatrical performance designed to expose how deep the rot of corruption and perversion has set in an economy entirely beholden to the whims of monstrous men. The cast list adorns the back wall, their names in lights whenever they are present on stage, and the minimalist, anachronistic set is slowly dismantled and stripped away while the lights descend from the ceiling to draw our attention to the fact that this - all of it; all of the sleaze and the grubby dealing - is all just theatre distilled to its purest form. It’s a show trial, not of a man but rather of a system that is devoid of humanity.

This system is personified in Antonescu, who Ben Daniels plays like some ageless, tireless vampire. He stalks the stage like a vast shadow, his presence dominating over everyone and everything. He is sleazy, depraved and inescapably charming, and Daniels’ performance is magnificent. His demeanour is heightened, almost frenzied, yet there is a real subtlety to how he portrays Antonescu’s conflicted feelings for his son, Basil, and in how he shifts seamlessly from ecstasy to rage and, ultimately, resignation as the dizzying high of act one, when he appears to overcome the most insurmountable challenge, surrenders to inevitable downfall in act two.

Given Daniels’ sheer forcefulness of presence on stage, it is difficult for the rest of the cast to wrest control or attention away from him, but both Laurie Kynaston and Nick Fletcher, as Basil and Sven, do excellent work meeting him. Basil is a pitiable wretch who is unable to disown his father, no matter how cruelly he is treated, and Kynaston portrays the complexities of his relationship with his father with considerable aplomb. He is nervy and full of hatred for his father, yet he just cannot abandon him. Fletcher, meanwhile, plays Sven as an apprentice learning from a great master. He is loyal, quiet and deeply calculating, and his shift to self-preservation in the final stretch works so well because Fletcher’s performance is, save for a brief and brilliant moment of unfettered mania, so calm and considered.

This is, so far, my show of the year. Rattigan’s script, which is so unlike so much of his other work, is intelligent and perverse, and Lau’s production imbues it with a real tricksy energy. Daniels, Kynaston and Fletcher are excellent, and the timelessness of the characterisation is handled with appropriate subtlety. Act two isn’t quite as captivating or interesting as act one, and a couple of the performances fade into the background when Daniels is so dominant and, indeed, domineering, but these are minor quibbles: this is a superb production of a fantastically knotty play, and I fully recommend experiencing just how nasty it is.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Director: Jeremy Herrin

Writer: Luke Norris

Cast: Robert Aramayo, Rosie Sheehy & Lena Kaur

One of the hardest things about grief is how unexceptional it is. It eviscerates you; it rips you asunder and leaves you to pick at the husk; you are but a speck of dust beneath its glare. But neither it nor you are special. Nothing you think or feel or experience is original. It renders you trite and mundane as you try to navigate a path back to some semblance of what life was like before all of the despair and rage but you are stuck in its aftermath, left to wander in some awful wilderness, desperately trying to keep your composure, to mask your pain, to feel another emotion - to feel any other emotion. Well, so what? You and everyone else, buddy. Why don’t you just grow the fuck up?

It’s this idea of grief as simultaneously all-consuming and entirely pedestrian, perhaps even immature, that Luke Norris’ Guess How Much I Love You? manages to capture with such meticulous insight and empathy. Starring Robert Aramayo and Rosie Sheehy, the play follows the lives of a couple forced to make, and then live with the consequences of, an impossible choice when a 20-week scan reveals that their unborn son has “profound” open spina bifida. Together, we watch as the couple grieves for the live they once had, the future they imagined, the healthy child they wanted, and their own relationship. As she brands herself and her own body - her own flesh and skin - a failure, he wrestles with the wretched truth that his grief is, and always will be, secondary to hers until their resentment erupts and threatens to eradicate them both.

Norris’ dialogue is sometimes poetic and often barbed, and the two protagonists use it to slice each other wide open. Their grief festers and rots, their wounds raw with a callousness that they turn on each other. They profess to despise each other, to wish each other dead, yet through it all we never once doubt their love for one another. There are no clichés here. Their words are poisonous and bitter, and on more than one occasion do they express thoughts and feelings that are all but unforgiveable, but the love between them is always authentic. No matter how vicious or hateful they are, we believe, wholly and fully, in them and what they are experiencing. In an instant, they switch from love to loathing and back again, and not once is it ever not crushingly, desperately honest.

The dramatic structure of the text - five scenes and a short epilogue - intensifies its power. Each scene unfolds with a slow, careful precision. Characters and moments are given space to breathe, so that the audience can invest in these people and attempt to fathom, if just for a moment, the scale of their pain. As each scene progresses, its grip tightens and a wave of panic and claustrophobia descends and we want to be anywhere else. All five scenes then end with a blackout as the stage is quickly rearranged, and we are left to sit with what we have just seen. Indeed, much like the characters we are forced to process it: there is no other option.

Guess How Much I Love You? caps a remarkable twelve months for Aramayo. From starring in Annemarie Jacir’s timely dramatisation of the Great Palestinian Revolt, Palestine 36, to playing the lead in I Swear, Kirk Jones’ highly-acclaimed British drama about the life of Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson, he starts 2026 as the recipient of not one but two BAFTA nominations and as the winner of Breakthrough Performer of the Year at the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards. His performance here is just further evidence of his incredible talent. He is gangly and awkward and riven with anger and anguish, and he imbues the play with the most extraordinary potency.

Rosie Sheehy, who received a much-deserved nomination for Best Actress at last year’s Olivier Awards for her performance in the wickedly odd Machinal at the Old Vic, and was also the highlight of the recent revival of Conor McPherson’s The Brightening Air, also at the Old Vic, is likewise sensational here. She plays her character with such a broken physicality, as though if she were to release her grip on the world for just a second she would be catapulted into some infinite abyss, and is a powerhouse of inconsolable fury. Alongside Aramayo, she embodies all of the cruelty of grief and how it consumes and corrupts you, while adeptly capturing how it also leaves you listless and empty, as though your insides have been stolen.

Helming the play is Jeremy Herrin, whose recent directorial hits include The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, which I thoroughly enjoyed, Duncan Macmillan’s remarkable People, Places and Things, and Tony Kushner’s English language adaptation of The Visit, or The Old Lady Comes to Call, which had its 2020 run at the National Theatre cut short by the end of the world. His direction here is taut and unobtrusive, with the characters and the dialogue are left to do much of the work because it is through them that all of the truth of the drama spills out. That Herrin is also able to find humour and warmth in a story so gutwrenching is a testament to his directorial prowess.

Those of you who have followed this blog since its nascency (seven of you, I believe) may recall that four Royal Court productions featured in my countdown of the 20 best plays of 2025. If Guess How Much I Love You? is anything to go by, this little theatre, which is celebrating its 70th birthday this year, and its run of radical and exciting shows are in no danger of stalling anytime soon. This is a powerful and pensive work that boasts exquisite performances and is deftly written, and I would be stunned if this didn’t transfer to the West End in the near future.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐