The Doctor is an acclaimed drama from the pen of writer-director Robert Icke. We’re in a hospital run by a famous medic, Dr Ruth, whom the Cockney characters call ‘Dr Roof’. Two major problems beset Dr Roof who has to raise funds for a new private wing while grappling with her partner’s early-onset dementia. A
Clunk, clunk, clunk. John Gabriel Borkman opens with the obsessive footfalls of a disgraced banker as he prowls the attic of a shabby townhouse. On a beaten-up sofa lies Gunhild, his estranged wife, who guzzles Coke and watches TV game shows. The whole place stinks of stagnation and failure. The reclusive Borkman was once the
Eureka Day is a topical satire set in a woke school in America. An outbreak of mumps has led to calls for a vaccination programme that will prevent the school from being quarantined and shut down entirely. The script, written in 2018, has acquired new layers of meaning since the Covid terror. It opens with
Look at this line. ‘I’m 80 years old. I find that unforgivable.’ Could an actor get a laugh on ‘unforgivable’? Maureen Lipman does just that in Rose, by Martin Sherman, a monologue spoken by a Ukrainian Jew who lived through the horrors of the 20th century. In the opening sections, Lipman plays it like a
Rehab: The Musical opens with a boyband star, Kid Pop, getting busted for possession of cocaine. The judge sentences him to a course of treatment at the Glade which he attends with great reluctance. Giving up marching powder is the last thing on his mind. ‘I said no to drugs but they just wouldn’t listen.’
‘Trans people are sacred. We are divine.’ The first line of I, Joan at the Globe establishes the tone of the play as a public rally for non-binary folk. The writer, Charlie Josephine, seems wary of bringing divinity into the story too much, and he gives Joan a get-out clause to appease the agnostics. ‘Setting
The Angel of Prisons dramatises the life of the penal reformer Elizabeth Fry, who lived near Canning Town. She married a wealthy Quaker, Joseph Fry, who encouraged her philanthropic work which she managed to pursue while raising 12 children. Early in life, Fry had been a party girl who loved dancing, and this production shows
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run by a reckless entrepreneur, LJ, whose business bears her name. In real life, LJ’s bar would go bust within weeks. It serves vintage wines to a clientele of wealthy tipplers who chug back large tureens
Ian McKellen’s Hamlet is the highlight of Edinburgh’s opening week. In this experimental ballet, Sir Ian speaks roughly 5 per cent of the lines, accompanied by a hunky blond dancer, Johan Christensen, who offers a physical interpretation of the Dane’s melancholy. The other roles are played by a ballet troupe in olde worlde costumes. The
The Barbican’s big summer show is billed on the website as ‘the sold-out musical sensation, Anything Goes’. The term ‘sold-out’ is a strange way to describe a production that’s keen to get your business. You’d be forgiven for clicking away and hunting for a show with seats available. What the Barbican means is that this
Simon Godwin’s Much Ado About Nothing is set in a steamy Italian holiday resort, the Hotel Messina, in the 1920s. A smart move, design-wise. The jazz age was one of those rare moments in history when every member of society, from the lowliest chambermaid to the richest aristocrat, dressed with impeccable style and flair. The
Patriots, by Peter Morgan, is a drama documentary about recent Russian history. And though it’s a topical show it’s not entirely up to date. The central character, Boris Berezovsky (1946-2013), was a schoolboy maths wizard who went into academia and published 16 books before entering politics. His Jewish background excluded him from the leadership of
The Southbury Child is a comedy drama set in east Devon featuring a distressed vicar, Fr David, with a complex addiction history. Alex Jennings stars with his habitual urbane charm. Is there perhaps a credibility gap there? Jennings seems far too decent, clever and friendly to be a problem drinker who likes nothing better than
Roy Williams’s new play is a wonky beast. It has two dense and cumbersome storylines that aren’t properly developed. Dawn is a mother grieving for her eldest son who was murdered by a gang of white boys. Her younger lad is dating a white girl who used to hang out with the killers. It’s a
The Glass Menagerie directed by Jeremy Herrin is a bit of an eyeball-scrambler. The action takes place on a huge black platform flanked by 1930s antiques: a typewriter, a broken piano, a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a smattering of Anglepoise lamps. This cryptic setting suggests that the play is being developed in a Museum of
The Old Vic’s new show, Jitney, has a mystifying YouTube advert which gives no information about the play or the characters. If the producers paid for the marketing themselves, they’d do a better job. The advert fails even to mention that ‘Jitney’ is Pittsburgh slang for ‘taxi’ and that the action is set in a
Harry Hill’s latest musical traces Tony Blair’s bizarre career from student pacifist to war-mongering plaything of the United States. With co-writer Steve Brown, Hill has created a ramshackle, hasty-looking production that deliberately conceals the slickness and concentrated energy of its witty lyrics, superb visuals and terrific music. The last thing it wants to seem is
Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on 14 June 2017. The abandoned block stands, like a cenotaph, a few minutes’ walk from the social club where the show is presented. The local council never cared much for Grenfell’s 120 families. Plans to
Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed inside Caesar’s costume explode bloodily with each dagger blow and the conspirators are doused in dripping scarlet gore. During the assault, Caesar fights back and very nearly survives. Highly realistic. Afterwards, his statue is toppled
The House of Shades is a state-of-the nation play that covers the past six decades of grinding poverty in Nottingham. The action opens in 1965 with a corpse being sponged down by an amusingly saucy mortician. The dead man, Alistair, sits up and walks into the kitchen where he natters with his prickly, loud-mouthed wife,
