A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare – Wilton’s Music Hall, London Henry Maynard’s Flabbergast Theatre is an unapologetically physical theatre company, building a reputation for staging Shakespeare in a style that owes a lot more to Grotowsky than it does to the Globe. Flabbergast’s Macbeth, seen last year at the Southwark Playhouse, delivered energy and imagery at the expense of the text. They have followed it up with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, staged in the much-loved Wilton’s Music Hall. The result is the same, only more so. There are things to like about the production. T ..read more

Roger Evans and Michael-Sheen. Image by Johan-Persson Nye by Tim Price – National Theatre: Olivier, London Tim Price’s new play about Aneurin Bevan, directed by Rufus Norris on the Oliver stage, is a political biography told from the hospital bed which Nye will not be leaving. On morphine, his terminal cancer kept from him by his wife, fellow MP Jennie Lee, he relives a hallucinatory, often surreal version of his life, from the son of a Tredegar miner to Britain’s most successful left wing politician. As Bevan, Michael Sheen puts in a performance that the whole play revolves around ..read more

Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson. Photo by Johan Persson. Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill – Wyndham’s Theatre, London Eugene O’Neill’s most famous and successful play has a reputation as a gruelling watch, spanning nearly three and a half hours, and tracking the misery inherent in a family which closely resembles that of the author. But the best stage actors cannot keep away, drawn by two leads that are among the best parts available. The latest in the long line are Brian Cox as James Tyrone and Patricia Clarkson as Mary Tyrone, who are not an intuitive pairing but turn out to ..read more

Sarah Richardson. Photo by Jacob Cox. Sun Bear by Sarah Richardson – Park Theatre, London Published by Plays International. ‘Sun Bear’, written and performed by Sarah Richardson, is an excellent piece of writing. Richardson, playing Katy, has nothing but an office desk and chair, and a pot of pens, and she is focused on the latter. At first, she seems amusingly furious with her work colleagues over small things – pen stealing, lunch orders, social invitations. This makes a lot of sense – after all, who hasn’t wanted to tell their colleagues what they really think of them. But we soon begin to ..read more

Alys Williams. Photo by Ant Robling The Light House by Alys Williams – Park Theatre, London Published at Plays International. The Light House is written and performed by Alys Williams, who trained at the École Jacques LeCoq clown school. It is her debut play, developed through a programme at Leeds Playhouse, and shows considerable promise. The piece is highly personal, dealing with the suicidal depression of someone close to her, and leaves some of the audience in tears. However, Williams’ achievement is to make her experience of trying to care for her friend and navigate hostile healthcare s ..read more

Player Kings by William Shakespeare, adapated by Robert Icke – New Wimbledon Theatre, London Warming up for the West End, Sir Ian McKellen’s appearance as Falstaff in Robert Icke’s compressed Henry IVs created real excitement on a Wimbledon Friday night. Some actors seem fated to play the fat knight, Michael Gambon or Desmond Barritt for example, while for others, notably Antony Sher, the role comes as a surprise to both actor and audience. McKellen is in the latter category. As they await his first entrance, everyone is silently wondering whether such a lean, vulpine actor can really carry o ..read more

Photo by Marc Brenner. Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith – National Theatre: Lyttleton, London While ‘I Capture the Castle’ remains much-loved, Dodie Smith’s stage work is rarely revived. Emily Burns’ production at the Lyttleton demonstrates why, but also shows the value in revisiting a play that is very old-fashioned, but is also dominated by excellent parts for women. The play, set during a weekend reunion of the Randolph family for the golden wedding of Dora (Lindsay Duncan) and Charles (Malcolm Sinclair), is on many levels very uneventful. People resolve sometimes fraught relationships, with th ..read more

Angus Wright, John Heffernan and Dorothea Myer-Bennett. Photo by Ellie Kurtz. Nachtland by Marius von Mayenberg – Young Vic, London Translated by Maja Zade, Marius von Mayenberg’s play is a brutal satire on the hypocrisy and racism of the contemporary German middle-classes. Brother and sister Philipp (John Heffernan) and Nicola (Dorothea Myer-Bennett), who have a difficult relationship, come together to clear their recently deceased father’s house. In the attic, they find a painting, wrapped in brown paper which, on examination, appears to by Adolf Hitler. This provides a more than sufficient ..read more

Chris Thorpe. Photo by Andreas J Etter. A Family Business by Chris Thorpe – Omnibus Theatre, London The Anthropocene Era, the Age of Humans when the future of the planet is geologically determined by the actions of our species, is now widely agreed to have begun at 05:29:21 on July 16, 1945, with detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico. Since the dawn of the nuclear era, nothing has been the same, bombs have increased in power and number. There are now around 13,000 nuclear warheads in existence, belonging to the world’s nine nuclear states, and most have the explosive p ..read more

Clarke Peters and Danny Sapani. Photo by Marc Brennan. King Lear by William Shakespeare – Almeida Theatre, London Yaël Farber’s directs King Lear on simple but very effective set by Merle Hensel – a round, black circle backed by a curtain of chains. With dramatic lighting by Lee Curran, it is the perfect space for a hard-edged, menacing production that brings out the violence that courses through the play. Danny Sapani’s Lead is a big, intimidating man. His anger cows those around him, and he rules through physical presence. But Farber suggests that this is also the basis of his relation ..read more