The Signalman

by Charles Dickens (adapted by Francis Evelyn)

seen at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford on 7 March 2026

Michael Lunney directs Chris Walker as the Signalman and John Burton as the Traveller in a stage adaptation of one of Charles Dickens's most famous short stories "The Signalman". In an elaborately detailed set featuring the Signalman's cottage beside a tunnel's entrance on a remote branch line, the chance encounter between a Traveller curious to explore the burgeoning railways and the Signalman troubled by inexplicable occurrences near "his" tunnel takes place.

The original story is only thirteen pages long in an anthology of Dickens's short fiction published by Penguin in 1976; it originally appeared in the 1866 Christmas number of All the Year Round, a magazine edited by Dickens, which he called Mugby Junction. Naturally the story needed some expansion to justify its being turned into a play of decent length, and so there is far more circumstantial detail including an extended account of the Traveller's experiences in South America, and several references to a serious derailment of the boat train in Kent, in which, as it happened, Dickens was actually a passenger.

The impulse to expand the story is understandable, but some of the details were questionable. The Signalman is made out to be a Roman Catholic, and various noises and mysterious movements of items in his cottage (falling books, and eventually a fallen cross) are added to increase the spookiness, but I doubt that an author as talented as Dickens would have stooped to such devices to create "atmosphere". The strangeness of the story gains much of its power from being inexplicable and quite devoid of tropes of occultism and religiosity that are now all too familiar.

Also, the programme note explicitly sets the tale in 1880, which seems a bizarre choice since the story was written in 1866 and Dickens died in 1870; the only reason is to introduce the extraneous idea that the Signalman has spent years with PTSD after having been involved in the 1865 train derailment.

The effects were well managed, though the appearance of a spectre was perhaps gratuitous: again, in the story the Signalman's experience (narrated by him to the Traveller, who narrates the story) is perforce more enigmatic. In this it looks more to the ambiguities of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) rather than back to the more active ghosts of A Christmas Carol (1843). But part of the impetus for the stage version was to honour occult stage effects as they were practised in the nineteenth century; however, the spectre's manifestation within the cottage undercuts the fateful crisis of the story.

The acting was at times rather perfunctory; the Traveller in particular seemed more disengaged than he should have been; and there is definitely a problem when a realistic set places the fireplace to one side but the characters face away from it towards the audience. After the previous two outings reviews recently, this was far from a memorable experience. 

Dance of Death

by August Strindberg

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 4 March 2026

Richard Eyre adapted Strindberg's bleak play Dance of Death and directs Will Keen as Edgar, Lisa Dillon as his wife Alice and Geoffrey Streatfeild as Kurt her cousin in an intense and yet at times darkly comic production.

Edgar and Alice have been married for almost twenty-five years; he is a captain on an island which is enduring quarantine due to an epidemic (in this version, the 1918/19 flu epidemic, though the play was written in 1900, and in the original the couple's social isolation is entirely of their own making). The marriage is miserable, though one senses a weary sort of camaraderie beneath the constant sniping and bickering. It's all very well playing games of that sort (and it has become a sturdy theatrical tradition with echoes in the work of Albee, Pinter and others), but there is always a risk of overplaying one's hand, or of losing control due to unforeseen circumstances.

Cue the arrival of Kurt, whom Edgar purports to hold responsible for "trapping" him into marrying Alice, and who is uneasily drawn into the toxic atmosphere through sympathising with his cousin, unaware that his own now dissolved marriage has also been contaminated by Edgar's meddling. And furthermore, Edgar is actually unwell, though it is hard to tell whether he is using his illness as ammunition, or is genuinely running the risk of incapacitation. In this production Will Keen gives a mesmeric performance of draining physicality as he spasms with heart failure and veers between fighting for control with all his military experience of fierce disciple, and succumbing to the terror of dying. His grunts and facial tics are astonishing manifestations of years of repression as much as of physical decline, and it turns out to be foolish of Alice to imagine that now is the time to gain the upper hand.

Lisa Dillon's Alice, fluttering with self-deprecation but usually able to hold her own, exhibits mounting desperation while at the same time revealing a morbid dependence. At one level this is the classic dilemma of the victim of an abusive relationship, but paradoxically here she remains unbowed and in a strange way unbeaten. Kurt's stolid diffidence finally fails to protect him from the fireworks, but after he has left Alice and Edgar are still contemplating their approaching silver wedding anniversary.

At such close quarters the play could have been stultifying and melodramatic, but in the hands of these actors, and with Richard Eyre's inspired realisation that there is a disquieting vein of comedy running through the misery, it was thrilling to watch and horribly fascinating. 

Man and Boy

by Terence Rattigan

seen at the National Theatre (Dorfman) on 28 February 2026

Anthony Lau directs this revival of Terence Rattigan's 1963 play Man and Boy with Ben Daniels as Gregor Antonescu, Laurie Kynaston as Basil Anthony (actually Gregor's son Vassili), Phoebe Campbell as Carol Penn (Basil's girlfriend), Malcolm Sinclair as the financier Mark Herries, Nick Fletcher as Sven Johnson (Gregor's assistant), Leo Wan as David Beeston (Mark Herries's accountant) and Isabella Laughland as Countess Antonescu (Gregor's wife).

Basil and Carol, in a not entirely satisfying relationship, are unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of Basil's estranged father; his machinations turn out to be the primary focus of the play, presented here in an extraordinary production designed by Georgia Lowe. Rattigan's reputation for stolid settings (here, of a 1930s New York apartment) is blown away, replaced by an almost bare stage with a billiards-green baize carpet and functional tables and chairs such as one might find in a community hall. Furthermore the theatre has been reconfigured so that the stage is in the middle with banks of seats on either side. The acting style is also transformed. Gregor in particular slinks and prowls like a wild, not to say feral, animal, moving with a catlike grace that is at times extremely menacing. The tables are pushed and pulled around the stage and frequently mounted by one or more characters in moments of acute emotional stress.

Watching all this as the unsavoury plot unfolds - Gregor is shamelessly prepared to pimp his son out to a financier as a bribe to forestall the collapse of a business merger threatened because the accountant Beeston has found suspicious transactions in the Antonescu empire - is an intoxicating experience. The entrapment of Mark Herries, bamboozled by fast talking and fatefully corrupted by the tantalising offer of a young man's services (with no idea that Basil is related to Gregor), is a horrifying spectacle, while the level of exploitation involved seems too grotesque for the somewhat naive Basil to grasp.

But the irrepressible Gregor can after all be crushed: momentarily by Basil's excoriating put-down, and more fatefully by the unravelling of his business dealings (though not directly the affair elaborated in the first half of the play). As the background to Gregor's personality and his conflicted attitude to Basil becomes clearer we are on the more familiar Rattigan territory of strained relationships and family dysfunction. The mesmerising intensity of the first half perhaps slackens, and Basil's quixotic attempts to save his father despite his obvious flaws (because it is "the system" that is at fault, as Basil the good socialist maintains) is perhaps not entirely convincing. 

Ben Daniels puts in a superb performance as Gregor, ably matched by the rest of the cast whom he manipulates with consummate ease while his star is in the ascendant. When his world collapses his anguish is equally overblown; we may not be sympathetic after being exposed to his ruthlessness, but it ids easy to recognise his nihilism as the obverse of his frenetic energy.

 All in all this revival only serves to enhance Rattigan's reputation as a first-rate dramatist. 

David Copperfield

by Abigail Pickard Price based on the novel by Charles Dickens

seen at Holy Trinity Church Guildford on 14 February 2026

Abigail Pickard Price directs Eddy Payne as David, and Luke Barton and Louise Beresford playing all the other parts, in her own adaptation of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield for the Guildford Shakespeare Company, with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches assisting in the adaptation.

In an ambitious move, David both tells his own story and acts in it (reflecting the narrative voice of the novel) while the many characters he meets with are portrayed by the two supporting actors employing fast costume changes and prodigious feats of memory and energy. The extremely tall Luke Barton is a natural fit for the strong young fisherman Ham, but he also looms large as Peggotty, David's childhood nurse (as an adult remembered from infancy would seem large in recollection), a frightening Mr Murdstone rendered even more terrifying by being faceless, and a chilling Mrs Steerforth. In a more genial mood he makes a delightful Mr Micawber and an engaging Mr Dick amongst others. In the meantime Louise Beresford takes on the various more feminine parts - Mother, Aunt Betsey, Mrs Micawber, Emily, Dora and Agnes - but also the dangerous James Steerforth and the cringing Uriah Heep. Since many of the scenes cleverly required only three characters this is largely manageable, but there are extraordinary exceptions when it is necessary to have Emily and Steerforth dancing together, and later when Mr Micawber finally denounces Heep, achieved by an inspired sleight of hand with the costumes.

Dickens's characters are often thought to be verging on caricatures rather than 'real' people, but in an adaptation such as this, the broad strokes of his characterisations are ideally suited to the speedy appearance and re-appearance of familiar faces identified by particular postures or turns of phrase, and the sheer pace and skill required to keep the story rolling and the characters clear for the audience matches the headlong style for which Dickens was famous: even with only three actors the stage seemed to teem with characters just as the novel does. The childhood scenes veer from happiness to horror; the Micawbers survive by the skin of their teeth; the Trotwood household is suitably eccentric; David's marriage to Dora is cloying and disastrous as it should be without being over-sentimentalised; and the tragedy of the family in Yarmouth so disastrously introduced to Steerforth by the naive David is surprisingly poignant even if the tidying away of awkward consequences to Australia now seems too easy. Perhaps the long-suffering and patient Agnes does not get her due - but this is arguably a fault in the novel too.

By careful plotting and wise pruning the essential elements of the novel were all present, with only a few lesser characters excised in the streamlining necessary to present a coherent story even with such versatile resources - no Barkis being willing, no Miss Murdstone adding to the oppressive atmosphere in David's childhood home, no Rosa Dartle mysteriously scarred by Steerforth, no Traddles and only a fleeting vestige of Uriah Heep's even more 'umble mother. But in the full flow of action these would only have added needless complications, and what was presented was a hugely enjoyable entertainment.

Indian Ink

by Tom Stoppard

seen at the Hampstead Theatre on 30 January 2026

Jonathan Kent directs Felicity Kendal as Mrs Swan, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis as Flora Crewe,  Gavi Singh Chera as Nirad Das and Donald Sage Mackay as Eldon Pike in a revival of Tom Stoppard's play Indian Ink. Interestingly, when the play was first performed in 1995, Felicity Kendal played Flora Crewe; and poignantly this revival (continuing the Hampstead Theatre's custom of reviving Stoppard's plays) occurred at the time of Stoppard's death.

The play features a typical Stoppardian flair for interrogating human foibles by intertwining time frames and contrasting stories. In the 1930s Flora Crewe is travelling to India partly on account of her health and partly out of curiosity; she meets Nirad Das, a painter, and the two engage in a wary friendship characterised by many misunderstandings about culture and propriety. The action proceeds through direct dialogue combined with extensive quotations from letters Flora has written to her younger sister back in England. In the 1980s Mrs Swan is fielding enquiries from Eldon Pike, a would-be biographer of Flora, who was her elder sister; she has Flora's letters of course, and a considerable amount of knowledge which Pike wants access to, but she is cagey. She also meets Das's son who is able to clarify some details in Flora's life which have hitherto been somewhat mysterious.

The two timescales come and go on the stage counterpointing one another and occasionally producing some inspired comic effects, such as when Pike interrupts the flow of 1930s action with pompous "footnotes" explaining references - or when, by contrast, he is utterly baffled. In some ways the Indian scenes seem to be evoked or imagined by Mrs Swan - except that it is clear that she could not know all the details presented to us.

The set, designed by Leslie Travers, allows scenes from the two times to flow into one another without causing any confusion, just as Stoppard intended. The result is that we see things happening in the 1930s, and we see people in the 1980s trying to discover these things or recall them from memory, and the discrepancy between the lived life and the biographical enterprise is delicately presented: a wonderful achievement.

Lacrima

by Caroline Guiela Nguyen

seen at the Roslyn Packer Theatre Sydney on 23 January 2026

The Théâtre national de Strasbourg on tour for the Sydney Festival presented Lacrima, written and directed by Caroline Guiela Nguyen. 

A wedding dress has been commissioned for a (fictional) English princess; an atelier in Paris is to design and make the dress while an antique veil is to be taken from the V&A and repaired by the lacemakers of Alençon (successors to its original makers), and the train is to be embroidered with thousands of pearls in Mumbai. The complexity of the commission and the high-handed demands of the royal household collide with intense personal problems in Paris and emerging health issues in Alençon and Mumbai. The whole situation is increasingly tense as deadlines approach and impossible decisions have to be made.

The play was brilliantly presented in a set designed by Alice Duchange which principally evoked the atelier in Paris, with subtle changes for the other locations and a clever use of cameras to focus on particular characters or represent others not physically present (the dress designer, for example, a man-child wrapped up in self-glorification at the expense of all around him). The gradual emergence of the dress, created from swathes of cloth mounted on a mannequin, was almost like an evolving character in itself, a silent witness to the dramas surrounding it.  

The play was performed almost entirely in French, with some Tamil and English; luckily subtitles were shown on the screen used for the camera projections and matched by surtitles above the stage. Despite the added levels of concentration needed to follow the English text the audience remained completely attentive to an evening of high drama, a probing insight into all sorts of exploitation in the global rag trade and the human cost involved in creating a fabulously extravagant article of clothing which would only be worn once.

The Comedy of Errors

by William Shakespeare

seen in the Everglades Gardens, Leura (NSW) on 10 January 2026

Sport for Jove presented their annual outdoor summer Shakespeare production in various venues this year, including the atmospheric Everglades Gardens in Leura, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. On a perfect summer evening, mercifully made cooler by incoming breezes after an extremely hot day, Damien Ryan's and George Banders' production of The Comedy of Errors proved a delightful choice of play, its comic plot of mistaken identities and unexpected reunions bolstered by some inspired physical comedy and enhancements to the text.

In a timely reminder of the plight of refugees in the modern world, the directors decided to open proceedings with a speech that is rarely performed: the address to the London mob pleading the case of "strangers", delivered by Sir Thomas More from Act One scene 6 of the play of that name. Sir Thomas More is a collaborative play, but this scene is known to have been written by Shakespeare, and the speech asks the incensed Londoners to put themselves in the strangers' shoes - to imagine how they would feel if they were exiled - before condemning the influx of refugees.

This all adds weight to Egeon's long speech explaining why he, a merchant of Syracuse, has come to Ephesus, when the two cities are mutually excluding each other's citizens from visiting. The prospect of his imminent execution for transgressing this law hangs (lightly it must be admitted) over the increasingly manic proceedings of the day, to be removed only by the final twist of the plot when all the errors are explained away and Egeon's family is fortuitously made whole again.

Blessed with (unrelated) actors who, thanks to physical style and costume, could plausibly be mistaken for one another, and unexpectedly more prominent roles for the sisters Adrian and Luciana (the latter fantastically fit and clearly a force to be reckoned with), the production proceeded to milk the play's comic confusions with great verve and energy, providing a wonderful evening's entertainment.