Wife

by Samuel Adamson

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 26 June 2019

Indhu Rubasingham directs Richard Cant, Karen Fishwick, Pamela Hardman, Joshua James, Calam Lynch and Sirine Saba in this inventive and intriguing family saga starting in 1959 and looking forward to 2039.

But 'family saga' is only part of it. The play opens with perhaps the most notorious slammed door in theatre history, marking the departure of Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, being performed in 1959. We see glimpses of other performances of this play at crucial moments in the story in 1988, 2019, and another generation later; the challenge Nora poses as she insists on personal autonomy at the expense of conventional marriage, and even of motherhood, is the central concern of Wife, and it's fairly clear that there is still no satisfactory accommodation between the demands of self-fulfillment and the compromises needed to survive a relationship.

The Damned (Les Damnés)

by Bart Van den Eynde based on Visconti's film

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 24 June 2019

Ivo van Hove directs members of the Comédie-Française in this sobering tale of a German industrialist family's descent into collaboration with the Nazi party and their consequent degeneration and destruction. It is the first visit of the Comédie-Française to London in about twenty years; once more Ivo van Hove has chosen to re-imagine a celebrated film.

While the Sun Shines

by Terrence Rattigan

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 18 June 2019

Paul Miller directs this sparkling revival of one of Rattigan's most successful and popular plays, written in 1943 and set in London - indeed in the celebrated chambers of the Albany off Piccadilly - during the Second World War. In a great ensemble cast Philip Labey plays the Earl of Harpenden, John Hudson his manservant Horton, Julian Moore-Cook the American Lieutenant Mulvaney, Sabrina Bartlett the Earl's fiancée Landy Elisabeth Randall, Michael Lumsden her father the Duke of Ayr & Stirling, Jordan Mifsúd as the French Lieutenant Colbert and Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Mabel Crum.

Bitter Wheat

by David Mamet

seen at the Garrick Theatre on 17 June 2019

David Mamet directs his own new play with John Malkovich as Barney Fein, a powerful and lecherous Hollywood producer, Doon Mackichan as his PA Sondra, Ioanna Kimbook as a young actress Yung Kim Li, Alexander Arnold as Roberto the intern, Teddy Kempner as Dr Wald, Matthew Pidgeon as a writer and Zephryn Taitte as Charles Arthur Brown.