Backstroke

by Anna Mackmin

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 6 March 2025

Anna Mackmin directs Tamsin Greig as Bo, Celia Imrie as her mother Beth with Lucy Briers as Carol and Anita Reynolds as Jill (two nurses) and Georgina Rich as Paulina (a consultant) in her own play about a complex mother-daughter relationship further complicated by the mother's advancing dementia and physical incapacity after a stroke.

After a brief depiction of the medical emergency that brought Beth to the hospital, she is immobilised and apparently unconscious as the panicky Bo tries to deal with the consultant's overworked briskness and Carol's old-style nursing approach (that one does what is best for the patient even if the intervention is said to be unwelcome). Unfortunately without the legal authority to impose end-of-life preferences Bo is immediately in a false position in attempting to assert her mother's views on the subject.

The situation is rendered more fraught by Bo's other responsibilities: her daughter is evidently causing disruption at school, and the drive to visit Beth takes several hours, so Bo has to keep appealing to Ted (her partner or husband) to interact with the school. Everything rapidly becomes a burden because too much is happening at once.

Fortunately Celia Imrie is not bed-bound for the entire performance. The often harrowing hospital situation is frequently interspersed with flashbacks in which she is a lively if wayward and self-obsessed single mother, having emerged at some point from communal living to bring up Bo according to her less than conventional principles. But there is an unhealthy co-dependency as it is impossible for Beth to be left alone: clearly many school days were missed (or perhaps Bo was entirely home-schooled), and as Bo prepares to leave for university the emotional blackmail is turned up several notches until she takes her mother with her.

Unsurprisingly Bo is exasperated nearly all the time, and almost unable to cope with her mother's sudden decline. The suffocating constrictions of her upbringing range from being forbidden to call Beth 'mummy' or 'mum' ("I have a name!" Beth insists), to being utterly unable to reach out to her physically in this current emergency. Bo's hand hovers above Beth's shoulder or face without daring a caress a painful number of times during her rushed hospital visits, a mute manifestation of her inner torment.

In an all-purpose setting (designed by Lez Brotherston) the hospital room is at the back of the stage and slightly raised, while in front is the memory room of Bo's adolescence and younger adulthood: a table and chairs to one side and an Aga to the other. Through the flashbacks we learn of the prickly relationship between the two women, usually involving snarky banter but occasionally exploding in rage or frustration. Bo's daughter, it transpires, is adopted, and the action is punctuated with short videos of her night terrors and tantrums. The indications of Beth's dementia creep in as they do, with increasing fumbling with words and repeated comments. The end cannot be anything but sad, despite Bo's extraordinary eulogy of her mother.

The title of the play seems to be connected to one flashback to a happier time in which the half-scared half-excited six-year-old Bo was taught by her mother to swim; this is linked to a gentle gesture (at last) of letting go which, while satisfying in its moment, is perhaps just a shade unlikely as a resolution to a lifetime of frustrated love.

The two central performances are extremely good, but the overall structure requires considerable concentration, and the minor characters are not deeply drawn. The decision to present Bo's own role as a mother largely through projected videos makes for clunky interruptions to the main matter of the play, which is so finely observed between the two women.

Churchill in Moscow

by Howard Brenton

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 3 March 2025

Tom Littler directs Roger Allam as Churchill and Peter Forbes as Stalin, with Julius d'Silva as Molotov (Soviet Foreign Minister), Alan Cox as Archie Clark Kerr (British ambassador to the USSR), Tamara Greatrex as Svetlana Stalin, Jo Herbert as the British interpreter Sally Powell and Elisabeth Snegir as the Russian interpreter Olga Dovzhenko in Howard Brenton's play concerning the meeting Churchill had with Stalin in Moscow in August 1942. (The main characters are historical, but the two interpreters are fictional).

The principal reason for Churchill's journey was to inform Stalin personally that the Allies had decided that it was impossible to launch an invasion of western Europe immediately: it would have to wait until at least 1943 (in the event, the D-Day landings and the invasion of Italy did not take place until 1944). He felt that a face to face meeting was essential to deliver this bad news in good faith, rather than relying on telegrams or telephone calls. But it was of course a delicate matter, as the German invasion of the USSR had begun and the battle of Stalingrad actually began while Churchill was in Moscow.

Brenton makes good use of the interpreters he has chosen to invent. At the opening of the play Stalin speaks in Russian, requiring the audience to wait until Olga translates into English before understanding. In an inspired move, Churchill then speaks in complete gobbledygook, so that once again we must wait for Sally to interpret before we understand his response. This technique is used sparingly; most of the time English is spoken throughout, though the business of interpreting continues unobtrusively except when either Station or Churchill mistrusts what is being said or requires (or impatiently dismisses) immediate clarification. The interactions of the wider delegations are suggested b y the occasional presence of Molotov and Kerr, while the teenage Svetlana wanders around practising her English by reading David Copperfield until she is briefly introduced to Churchill during a late-night confab between the two leaders.

This was of course an extremely consequential meeting; the seriousness of the issues is always before us even as the outsize personalities of both the leaders dominate the stage. Wisely neither actor simply imitates the historical character. Roger Allam has something of Churchill's awkward gait and rhetorical flair, and his curious dress sense (for much of the time he is in a boiler suit, except for being in a nightshirt one evening and formal wear for the reception the next). Stalin, in his usual military style dress, speaks with a West Country accent, cleverly indicating the Georgian provincialism sneered at by the urban Russian elites.

The presence of the interpreters not only provides some comic relief arising from their tasks. They also have a brief interaction outside their official capacities injecting a slight nod to the anxieties and prejudices of the ordinary people enduring the war and the volatile political tensions surrounding them. And Brenton uses the idea of interpretation and the responsibility of the translating staff to be accurate - whether literally or thematically - as an intriguing emollient to the fractious and potentially disastrous rift which otherwise seems impossible to bridge. Despite their qualms, it seems that the interpreters saved the day.

A thoroughly enjoyable insight into what to many (myself included) is a little-known meeting.

The Girl on the Train

by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 28 February 2025

Loveday Ingram directs this adaptation from Paula Hawkins's novel and the subsequent film, starring Giovanna Fletcher as the troubled Rachel Watson, a divorced alcoholic still obsessed with her husband Tom (Jason Merrells) who is now married to Anna (Zena Carswell).

When Megan Hipwell (Natalie Dunne), a near neighbour of Tom and Anna, disappears, Rachel's propensity to loiter near her old house, and to leave increasingly incoherent messages on Tom's phone, inevitably leads to her being questioned. It becomes clear that she has seen the neighbour when travelling by train, and in her befuddled state imagines that she has some sort of connection with her, leading her to introduce herself to Scott Hipwell (Samuel Collings) as a 'friend' of his missing wife.

The situation is increasingly claustrophobic, with Rachel's misery spiralling out of control and potentially compromising any attempt to solve the mystery of Megan's disappearance, particularly as Rachel has been seen near where Megan was last seen, but she has no clear recollection of what she was doing at the time. The gaps in her memory provide a convenient means of heightening the tension and frustration surrounding the police investigation, and alienating her ex-husband, his new wife, and also Scott.

Much depends on Giovanna Fletcher's skill at portraying Rachel as an unreliable and deeply distressed woman; at times the misery and confusion seem to exist only on one aggrieved note, but on the whole her gradual movement towards clarity and responsibility (though agonisingly slow) is believable. The supporting cast fulfil their roles despite some melodramatic moments, and it takes some time before the true course of action on the fateful night becomes clear. A couple of flashbacks to Megan's session with a psychologist help to fill in her troubled backstory.

As a variation of the theme of a bumbling amateur helping to solve a mystery, Rachel's incapacity to remember clearly what would immediately solve the problem is a clever device which allows for a satisfying pace in revealing to the audience all the relevant information. The result is a highly entertaining thriller. The technical production, envisaging several locations both indoors and out, provides an excellent physical background to the developing story.

 

Richard II

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 27 February 2025

Nicholas Hytner directs Jonathan Bailey as the eponymous king with Royce Pierreson as Henry Bullingbroook (sic.) in a production designed by Bob Crowley and lit by Bruno Poet.

This is the fifth production of Richard II I have seen since beginning this blog and, true to form, it is quite different from all the others: proof, if any were needed, of the capacity for intelligent reinterpretation afforded by many of Shakespeare's greatest plays.

Performed on a long thrust stage initially bare, but with parts of the floor able to be sunk in order to set and remove furniture as required, the production is in modern dress, entirely subdued in greys and blacks. Stripped of the gorgeous medieval finery often used in honour of the Wilton diptych (which features a portrait of Richard II as a sacral king), all attention is on the language and on how the characters relate to one another in political and personal terms. The result is fascinating, the power plays surprisingly modern, and Richard's self-absorption entirely credible, rarely descending into self-pity.

Jonathan Bailey is a superb Richard, speaking the verse with unerring musicality, and he is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast even if none of the others quite rise to his level of delivery. Bullingbrook is something of a cipher, not obviously irritated with his cousin's theatrics in the deposition scene, but instead impassively prepared to indulge him. But he upholds his rights earlier in the play with conviction and hence gains the support he needs to press his claims and ultimately to become the new king.

Two of the major scenes involving women have been cut: the dialogue between John of Gaunt and his widowed sister-in-law the Duchess of Gloucester; and the famous "gardener" scene in which Queen Isabel overhears commoners discussing the disaster befalling her husband. This streamlines the play, and puts heightened emphasis on the poignant but brief scene in which Richard and Isabel are parted. The only other woman featured is the Duchess of York (Amanda Root); her frantic support for her errant young son Aumerle (Vinnie Heaven) is beautifully staged, providing some light relief from the increasing tension without tipping over into parody. (The Bishop of Carlisle here was female, the only concession to gender-blind casting, which in the modern context was effective.)

The staging was excellent; from the gallery to one side I never felt that I was being deprived of good views of the actors or being presented with a badly skewed vista of the production - indeed it would be interesting to see the play from the front as it were, to gauge whether there was a significantly different effect: in the deposition scene, conducted like a commission of enquiry or a court hearing, Bullingbrook sat for some time with his back to those sitting at the 'front', rendering him even more inscrutable at this point.

In the modern setting there were some clever adjustments. The joust between Bullingbrook and Thomas Mowbray is prepared for in all its formality, but rather than being a cumbersome affair in full armour (possibly on horseback) it is re-imagined as a bare-knuckled fight - bare-chested too - in a pit conveniently created in the versatile stage floor. The visceral rivalry between the two noblemen is thus given a macho physicality barely contained when Richard intervenes to stop the fight.

Richard himself speaks with authority but comes dangerously close to losing face as he interrupts the 'joust'. His fitness to rule is more seriously put into question for us in the scene with his favourites, who are lounging together and snorting cocaine, a very modern but all too plausible indication of their unfitness to govern the realm. They and Richard are obviously still high when visiting the dying John of Gaunt, so that the king's assumption of Gaunt's revenues is enacted in a drug-fuelled haze as the king lolls on the old man's vacated sickbed. Yet despite the hedonism, the king is for the moment still the king and none can gainsay him.

Richard in his last scene is contemplative and vulnerable. As part of the editing of the play for this production, his murderer was evidently Bagot (a former crony) rather than the named new character Exton, but nothing was made of this being a final example of betrayal. At least this was a more credible directorial choice than having Aumerle (a cousin of the two kings) perform the deed, as has been done elsewhere, something that would have been beneath him. Shockingly the corpse was presented to Henry IV in a body bag, undisclosed but a fateful reminder of the guilt which would overshadow the new king in the subsequent plays.

 

Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of)

by Isobel McArthur

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 15 February 2025

Isobel McArthur directs a revival of her own irreverent adaptation of Pride and Prejudice featuring a cast of five actresses purporting to be 'the servants' narrating and acting out the story for us while occasionally being interrupted to perform their daily drudgery. (The programme lists eight actresses, but only five appeared on stage: perhaps there are rotations.)

It's an amusing variation on the perennial desire to adapt Jane Austen's novels, and in the wrong hands it could have all come unstuck. Happily we were in the right hands: the comedy is far broader (and often earthier) than anything Austen would have attempted, but the energy is fizzing and the seriousness beneath the satire still comes through, with convincing evocations of the attraction between Charles Bingley and Jane Bennett, and the far more complex dance of interest and repulsion between the proud Elizabeth Bennett and the prejudiced Fitzwilliam Darcy. There is also an intriguing and somewhat melancholic take on the career of Lizzie's friend Charlotte Lucas, who in this version marries the unctuous Mr Collins in despair of ever having her true feelings for Lizzie recognised by her oblivious friend.

With five actors taking all the parts there is plenty of opportunity for lightning costume changes (often a matter of swapping overcoats or shawls over all-purpose servants' dresses). The most clever is the minor adjustment to change from the engaging but dim Charles Bingley to his snobbish sister Caroline; the most brilliant is the transformation of one actress from the hysterical Mrs Bennett to the repressed Mr Darcy. In the meantime Mr Bennett is portrayed simply as a newspaper visible in a comfortable chair which always has its back to the audience: hysterically it proves possible to light a pipe for this non-presence. The device sacrifices some of Austen's best lines, but perfectly indicates the frustrating distance this father keeps from his whole family.

Spicing up the action and providing a brilliant commentary on proceedings is the liberal use of modern pop songs to underscore the narrative. Lizzie sings Carly Simon's "You're so Vain" to Mr Darcy, which perfectly sums up her initial reaction to his hauteur, while later in desperation he takes the microphone to sing the Partridge Family's classic "I Think I Love You!") to her. Meanwhile Mr Collins is more than happy to extol his patroness Lady Catherine de Burgh (suitably costumed) with a version of "Lady in Red", mischievously ascribed to a 'distant relative' of hers, one Chris de Burgh.

There's another sneaking anachronism when Mr Darcy first appears in Pemberley to the consternation of Lizzie and the delight of her aunt Gardiner: the servants are mystified that he appears to be quite dry. No-one can now resist a reference to the famous 1995 TV adaptation in which Colin Firth's Darcy appeared to Jennifer Ehle's Lizzie having just swum in Pemberley's lake.

Karaoke-singing servants, snappy narration, inspired impersonations, and wonderful high spirits: all in all a great entertainment.

Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

live performance from the Donmar Warehouse (2024) screened on 11 February 2025

A chance to revisit the excellent production directed last year by Max Webster featuring David Tennant as Macbeth and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth, with a supporting cast refreshingly speaking almost universally with Scottish accents (except for the children Fleance, the young Macduff, and the young Siward).

In the auditorium the audience was provided with headphones to listen to the entire play, which was performed without an interval to maximise the ongoing tension. In the cinema we heard the text through the normal speaker system, but it remained intimate and happily devoid of the jarring effect of listening in a different medium to voices projecting for the stage. The eeriness of the encounters with the weird sisters, and Macbeth's terror at witnessing Banquo's ghost, remained powerful; indeed the soundscape in general transferred well.

There were some aspects of the production that I had forgotten, but which the camerawork reminded me of. In particular a generic young boy was occasionally visible throughout the play, though generally not on stage - the back wall could be opaque or transparent as the lighting changed. This pointed up the unresolved question of whether Macbeth had a son or not (the textual evidence seems contradictory on this point); or perhaps it signified that he was betraying his personal innocence by pursuing his ambition. This culminated in a brief moment when Macbeth held the boy, perhaps MacDuff's son, in his arms only to pass him on to a murderer; and later, in grappling with the young Siward, there was another embrace in which the king broke the boy's neck.

As in the production at the Almeida, it appeared that Lady Macbeth was discussing Macduff's absence with Lady Macduff (it is the thane Ross in the text); but the link to Lady Macbeth's mental distress so powerfully evoked at the Almeida, where she actually witnessed the massacre of the Macduff family, was not pursued here. 

I had also forgotten the updated speech of the porter, who knowingly engaged with the audience, making some disparaging remarks about London audiences (as perceived by those north of the border), and complaining that he didn't have headphones so he couldn't hear what was being said. This was a clever adaptation of a long speech which, though vital to the dramatic shape of the play, often runs the risk of being tedious for a modern audience, since its references are 'topical' to the sixteenth century rather than our own.

All in all, this was a fine opportunity to revisit an outstanding production of the play.

(See also my review of the Almeida production from October 2021, and a paragraph in the "seen in 2024" post, to see how differently the two directors approached this plays problems.)

Firebird

by Richard Hough

seen at the King's Head Theatre on 8 February 2025

Richard Hough's play is inspired by the film Firebird, and both play and film are based on Sergey Fetisov's memoir The Story of Roman. Owen Lewis directs Theo Walker as Pte. Sergey Serebrinnikov, Robert Eades as 2nd Lt. Roman Matvejev, Shorcha Kennedy as Luisa Jannsen, and Nigel Hastings as Col. Alexei Kuznetsov.

The play is more stripped down than the film, with the narrative altered to intensify and simplify the story, but the result is extremely effective, with less circumstantial detail to allow the piece to be performed by only four actors. The basic shape of the story, the illicit affair between Roman and Sergey, and Roman's divided loyalties (he marries Luisa), remains the same. The link to Stravinsky's Firebird is pointed by the use of feathers rather than flowers as social gifts at significant points, and by Roman's explanation that the firebird is desirable despite bringing bad luck as well as good luck to the one who finds it.

The King's Head theatre's been transformed since my last visit in 2022 to see a highly adapted version of La Bohème. Now, rather than being in the back room of the King's Head pub, it is in a larger space adapted in the basement of the building behind the pub, allowing for more acting and audience space and more sophisticated lighting and sound. This chamber version of Sergey's story was well suited to the space, employing versatile scene setting to propel the story from army barracks to a Moscow flat.

The danger threatening the two men, since homosexual affairs were illegal in the Soviet military, was perhaps less immediately felt than in the film: talked about rather than shown. However, the personal predicament triggered by Roman's decision to marry was brought to the fore, and the denouement remained poignant and guardedly hopeful.

The cast were excellent, the three young people believable friends despite their different ranks (Luisa is also in the military at the beginning of the play), and the older colonel a somewhat crusty but intriguingly humane presence in both their military and later civilian lives. Robert Eades's Roman was perhaps a little too declamatory for the space, but it suited the character's deflection of his feelings into military service.

 

A Man for All Seasons

by Robert Bolt

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 1 February 2025

Jonathan Church directs Martin Shaw as Sir Thomas More in this revival of Robert Bolt's 1960 play, with Edward Bennett as Thomas Cromwell and Gary Wilmot as the Common Man.

The play concerns the last years of Thomas More's life, concentrating on his promotion to be Lord Chancellor after Cardinal Wolsey's downfall, and his subsequent crisis of conscience over the king's 'great matter' (his proposed divorce and remarriage), brought to a climax when king Henry VIII declares himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and requires his subjects to swear the Oath of Supremacy. More attempts to avoid the issue by maintaining a strict silence on the matter, relying on the king's assurances of protection given in earlier days, but he is ultimately condemned through the perjury of a witness, and inevitably executed.

The story is by now familiar after decades of exposure to Tudor politics in novels, films and TV series, and this version of it alone may possibly have encouraged the fashion, particularly when it was turned into a successful film starring Paul Scofield in 1966 (he had originated the role on stage). The exposition is important, however, and it is still salutary to hear the ringing words of conviction about religious faith, the importance of law, and the dangers of special pleading or of setting expediency above strict adherence to legal principle. Martin Shaw delivered the lines with power and conviction, ensuring that More's integrity remains utterly convincing, as it must for the play to work.

Gary Wilmot portrays the Common Man (not present in the film), a bridge between the high and mighty figures of Tudor politics and the modern audience; frequently he addresses the audience directly, providing both narrative details and some comic relief, while taking part in proceedings as servant, boatman, jailer, juryman, and finally executioner. It's a strange device, but a welcome contrast to the excessive high-mindedness of More's stand.

It is fascinating to see this play in the light of Hilary Mantel's trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, and their stage and television adaptations, since in Wolf Hall Thomas More is by no means a sympathetic character; whereas here he is the hero of the piece, a man of utmost integrity brought down by the determination of others who are corruptible. The deviousness of Cromwell is perhaps tinged with knowledge of Mantel's portrait, rather than being simply villainous - but if anything this adds richness to the whole enterprise as it places More in a context of real people rather than cardboard figures. Interestingly also, More's own failings may now seem more obvious through our awareness that he could be characterised in a different way. His concern to protect his family by refusing to explain to them what he is doing is all very well in legal terms, but there is also a heartlessness there, and he is all too obviously the authoritarian patriarch in his household.

The revival was well worth seeing; the conflict of conscience and high politics has not gone away, even if it seems hardly possible in today's climate that such stands as More's would be so prominently taken.

Summer 1954

by Terrence Rattigan

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 24 January 2025

James Dacre directs two one-act Rattigan plays, Table Number Seven (from Separate Tables) and The Browning Version, in a double bill, unifying the plays by emphasising their setting in the early 1950s, though actually The Browning Version was written in 1948. (Usually the first play is shown together with Table by the Window set earlier in the same hotel, while the latter is performed with the light-hearted Harlequinade.) 

In both plays Rattigan displays his mastery in examining and exposing the threat to genuinely humane feelings posed by the rigid social niceties of his time; in each he offers a glimmer of hope that some characters at least will escape the suffocating pressures that have so far blighted their lives.

The separate tables are in the dining room of a residential hotel in Bournemouth, a perfect microcosm of faded and repressed middle-class gentility. The permanent residents are dominated by the fearsome Mrs Railton-Bell (Siân Phillips), but even more dominated is her fragile daughter Sybil (Alexandra Dowling). Major Pollock (Nathaniel Parker) provides the most colour, but he is revealed to be a fraud when Mrs R-B spots an account of a trial in the local newspaper. The machinery of middle-class morality, amusingly satirised by George Bernard Shaw in plays such as Pygmalion, is here more vitriolic, but the good graces of the hotel manager Miss Cooper (Lolita Chakrabarti) encourage a rebellion whereby the formidable Mrs R-B is the character finally isolated by her prejudice. Thus in microcosm, with finely observed social dynamics, a plea for tolerance is made.

In the second play Nathaniel Parker and Lolita Chakrabarti take the roles of Andrew and Millie Crocker-Harris, a desiccated schoolmaster on the verge of early retirement due to ill-health and his far more vivacious wife, who have long ago fallen out of love with each other. Again the world of a minor boys' public school provides the perfect setting for Rattigan's cool examination of thwarted hopes and desperate remedies; it is extraordinary that the gift of a book from a schoolboy uninterested in classics to a dry and rule-bound master can be so affecting, and a single slap to the face can be so shocking, but in a play where turbulent emotions are almost impossible to express, these are highly charged moments.

The production is smart and well-designed on the open-thrust stage (Mike Britton responsible), and the supporting characters - down-at-heel hotel residents in the first play, an odious headmaster, a compromised colleague, all-too-eager newcomers and a boy with finer feelings than might be expected in the second - provide a rich environment for the central dilemmas to play out. Rattigan, once central to the English theatre, then sidelined by younger playwrights in these very 1950s, is more and more shown to be well worth revisiting.

Cymbeline

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 18 January 2025

Jennifer Tang directs Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's late plays, which is full of incident, misunderstandings, disguises, and an almost absurd number of resolutions: a description of the plot on the page makes it seem utterly chaotic and implausible, but in performance (if well done) it can be fun, exciting, distressing and moving by turns - even though it is still implausible.

So it proves in this production in the intimate candle-lit space of the Sam Wanamaker theatre, the second time I have seen the play produced here (see the review of 12 March 2016). Cymbeline, a contemporary of Caesar Augustus, is facing a Roman invasion (not actually historical in Augustus's time), while his daughter Imogen (or now more commonly Innogen) has earned his wrath by marrying a commoner (of Roman extraction to boot); and his consort is the classic wicked stepmother with an uncouth son of her own (the aptly named Cloten, played by Jordan Mifsúd) who has designs on the hapless princess.

Here, in an ingenious twist to the political opposition between Britons and Romans, the whole society is imagined as being a matriarchy, and Cymbeline (Martina Laird) is the Queen rather than the King of Britain. Furthermore, Innogen's unapproved marriage is to a woman, an arrangement not remarked on in any way apart from the fact that it does not have the Queen's blessing (and is an obstacle to Cloten's desires). All the rituals of the court, and its religious rites, are female-oriented, with all references to Jupiter in the text replaced with prayers and invocations to Gaia. It's a remarkably effective idea to soften the effect of some significant 'gender-blind' casting, and it proves an intelligent way of creating a 'British' culture in preference to stereotyped Druidism.

Innogen (Gabrielle Brooks) and Posthumus (Nadi Kem-Sayfi) are parted almost as soon as they are married, and Posthumus gets involved in a rash wager that Innogen is chaste and faithful, which the scheming Iachimo (Piero Niel-Mee) apparently disproves by smuggling himself into her bedchamber and taking an inventory of its design and of Innogen's distinctive mole. The masculine aura of this shoddy wager is preserved even with Posthumus being female, and it is the trigger for much of the subsequent plot development.

Soon many of the characters are in Wales, well away from the court; the setting should be the wild hillsides, which is of course impossible in the playhouse. Nonetheless the verve of the production encourages indulgence on this point as on so many others, not least the propensity for several characters to adopt or be given false names and disguises which delay any chance of untangling all the cross-purposes. Even though the fact that Innogen mistakes Colton's headless body for that of Posthumus, simply because Cloten is wearing Posthumus's clothes, is rendered doubly implausible since one was a man and the other a woman, in the rush of events and the momentary revulsion inherent in the whole scene the confusion is allowed to pass.

In a series of revelations and explanations which provoke delighted hilarity in the audience, everyone finds out everything they need to know. With just the right amount of seriousness in the cast, these denouements pass muster, and all is as it should be - even the conniving Iachimo has a chance to reform. As Oscar Wilde much later had it, "the good end happily and the bad unhappily: that is the meaning of Fiction" .

Seen in 2024

 I thought I had seen a lot in 2023 (26 plays in the previous post) but it turns out I saw 40 productions in 2024:

Masterclass by Brokentalkers and Adrienne Truscott on 12th January 2024 at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Skewering any number of tropes - toxic masculinity, intrusive interviewing, inappropriate behaviour while devising a show, and so forth - this rather weird piece originally seen at the Edinburgh Festival starts with a chat-show interview in which the interviewer is plainly wearing a ridiculous wig and the interviewee ("the perennial Mr Nasty of American theatre") is plainly a woman in drag. A scattergun approach left me somewhat bewildered.

Northanger Abbey by Zoe Cooper (based on Jane Austen's novel) on 25th January 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. A high-spirited adaptation of an early Austen novel which satirises the craze for Gothic novels by imagining its heroine attempting to navigate Bath society with only their conventions to guide her. Some of her back story is filled in with earthy detail (not at all Austen-like) and all parts are played, often with little attention to gender, by two women and one man (he plays Catherine's mother, including in a hectic birth scene). The high spirits complement the cool amusement of Austen's original tale.

Cold War by Conor McPherson (based on Paweł Pawlikowski's film) on 27th January 2024 at the Almeida Theatre. A poignant rendition of a very poignant film. Though some of the larger set-pieces of the film (the folkloric extravaganzas which essentially betrayed the authentic folk traditions at the behest of the Polish Communist Party) are inevitably not so splendid on a small stage, the overall storyline of betrayal and ultimate disillusionment is powerfully portrayed.

Othello by William Shakespeare on 30th January 2024 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Othello here is reimagined as taking place in a modern police state, and the lead character is played simultaneously by two actors, one almost entirely silent representing his subconscious impulses and feelings. The action takes place as a police procedural, emphasising the racism besetting this modern Othello, and also the general misogyny of the culture. A very striking interpretation of the play.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare on 8th February 2024 at the Donmar Warehouse. In order to emphasise the interiority of Macbeth's degeneration from trusted Thane to tyrannous King the audience was provided with headphones and the entire performance was delivered aurally through them - both the exterior dialogue and the powerfully intimate soliloquies. This device also enables the weird sisters and other supernatural events in the play to be present without being seen; furthermore members of the cast could be seen seated behind a screen where the musicians were also placed, on the occasions when the screen became transparent. The play was performed on a pristine white floor, slightly raised from its usual level, with almost no props. In the banqueting scene the guests sat around the edges of this floor as if it were a huge table. The murder of MacDuff's children was made more visceral by having Macbeth catch one of them as if in appalled regret at being childless himself, but still handing him over to be killed. It was notable that the violence in the play was almost entirely suggested until the final dispatch of the beleaguered Macbeth - only then was the white floor of the stage stained by an ever-spreading pool of blood.

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster  on 22nd February 2024 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The play and the playhouse suit each other (it was written for indoor Jacobean performance) and this production made good use of the Sam Wanamaker's candlelit atmosphere, though perhaps the play's innate savagery was at times too much undercut by pointing up the comedy often so close to horror.

Player Kings adapted and directed by Robert Icke from the two parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV on 6th March 2024 at the New Wimbledon Theatre. Condensing two full plays into one long evening as a vehicle for Ian McKellan to tackle the role of Falstaff is ambitious and very demanding (later, in the West End run, the final performances had to be cancelled after McKellan actually fell off the stage into the front row of the audience). Played in modern dress, with Falstaff seedy from the start and transforming himself from wheeler-dealer to cynic to music hall turn, and making use of a cleverly versatile set including huge brick walls, the play sacrificed the historical sweep of the two plays (inevitably) and lessened the importance of Prince Hal's development, but gave full scope to Falstaff in all his grotesque glory.

The Human Body by Lucy Kirkwood on 14th March 2024 at the Donmar Warehouse. The inauguration of the National Health Service is the background to a domestic drama strongly reminiscent of Brief Encounter strongly linked to a political drama as the woman involved, a doctor like her husband, prepares to stand in the 1945 general election - having an affair thus imperils not only her marriage but her potential political career. The period was beautifully evoked, and the clash of social expectations and political idealism (and the husband's growing antipathy to the whole idea of the NHS) make for an invigorating drama.

Nye by Tim Price on 23rd March 2024 at the Olivier Theatre (National). A second play dealing with the foundation of the NHS, this time through the reminiscences of Aneurin Bevan (the architect of the service in the postwar Labour cabinet) as he lies in hospital dying of a stroke. Here, the political manoeuvring and  an insight into Bevan's past, including the dire state of medical provision in Wales during his childhood and adolescence, and his later career as both a local councillor and an MP. The slightly weird effect of Nye's appearance in all his scenes clad in hospital pyjamas emphasises the flashback structure of the play, but there is just too much material in Nye's life to be squashed effectively into a single play: too much exposition at the expense of a fully satisfactory dramatic shape.

Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov on 11th April 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. Trevor Nunn, at 84, directs this play for the first time and once again the Orange Tree proves its superb suitability for late nineteenth century domestic dramas - it is particularly apt for the claustrophobic ennui afflicting all the characters on this provincial Russian estate. By the time I saw the production the actor playing Vanya had had to withdraw, and we were warned that his replacement would be using a script - but in fact he had been playing the part for a fortnight or so and had it completely under control, while the rest of the cast had adjusted accordingly. It was fascinating to see the play done with a full cast, and in period dress, only a few months after witnessing Andrew Scott's bravura solo performance in Vanya.

Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare on 25th April 2024 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford-upon-Avon. A fizzing but very wordy early Shakespearean comedy given a cleverly updated twist by setting it on a Pacific island (rather than a non-realistic "Navarre") - there is an intriguing undercurrent of resentment on the part of the ladies as they clearly are part of the local aristocracy whereas the ridiculous boys are foreigners on holiday. The modern setting allows the potentially tedious wordplay and Elizabethan stock comedy characters to take on new life, with some judicious songs and a fabulous revolving set.

Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill on 15th May 2024 at Wyndhams Theatre. A powerful version of this often gruelling play with Brian Cox as the overbearing father and husband and Patricia Clarkson as his morphine-addicted wife. Though I have found the fraternal tensions more harrowing in other productions, Clarkson's portrayal of Mary here is the most devastating I have seen.

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov on 16th May 2024 at the Donmar Warehouse. Where the Orange Tree's Uncle Vanya had its audience on all four sides witnessing a period setting, here at the Donmar the audience on three sides was almost part of the action in a less realistic set - the floor and back wall were apparently one gigantic richly red patterned carpet, and actors sat amongst the audience when not required on stage, while some members of the audience "became" props or items of furniture. The demise of the family estate in the play's last act was rendered not by the sound of cherry trees being cut down, but rather by the destruction of this rich visual backdrop and floor. Yet further proof of Chekhov's brilliance as a playwright.

Bluets by Margaret Perry based on Maggie Nelson's book on 22nd June 2024 at the Royal Court Theatre. Katie Mitchell directs in her trademark style of creating a live movie projected onto a screen as her actors (in this case two women and a man) manipulate themselves, their props and a video camera each. In this production, the three never interact on the stage: each is in a separate booth, and assisted by anonymous stage hands when props need adjusting or to be moved about. The overall effect is somewhat disjointed; my attention shifted from being interested in how the effects were made to watching the final result on the screen, making it hard to concentrate on the text (itself non-dramatic and often very poetic). The technique was startling in Mitchell's early productions (for instance The Oresteia in 2000 or Waves in 2006) but is perhaps wearing a bit thin.

The Caretaker by Harold Pinter on 28th June 2024 at the Minerva Theatre Chichester. Ian McDiarmid stars as Davies with Jack Biddeford as Mick and Adam Gillen as Aston in this bleak yet often comic play by Pinter. Although it is one of his most famous, this is the first production that I have seen and it was very impressive; McDiarmid always a joy to watch, and the other two excellent foils for him and for each other. Aston's long monologue explaining himself was mesmerising, and the dingy flat in which all three were jockeying for dominance was horribly seedy.

Suite in Three Keys by Noël Coward on 4th July 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. Three short(ish) plays intended by Coward to be viewed as a trilogy have been split into two and one; I saw then in a matinee and evening on the same day. Four actors take all the parts; each play set in the same hotel suite concerns two women and a man (with a recurring waiter) and in each a marriage is under serious strain. Dark comedy veers towards poignant tragedy as Coward ranges over all sorts of deceptions, social hypocrisies and devastated lives: wonderful stuff.

Miss Julie by August Strindberg on 6th July 2024 at the Park Theatre (Finsbury Park). A bruising 75 minutes of heightened and transgressive emotions as the young lady of the house takes up with the ambitious and resentful valet while his fiancée has to witness the liaison. In a small acting space there is nowhere to hide but the heated emotions were perhaps not as overwhelming as they need to be to satisfy Strindberg's intention to shock.

Mnemonic by Simon McBurney on 6th July 2024 at the Olivier Theatre (National). Not content with being in London for such a short play at Finsbury Park in the afternoon, I bought a ticket for Mnemonic on spec having read a review. It's a re-imagining (not directly a revival) of McBurney's 1999 play in which the puzzle of a missing lover is blended with the excitement of finding an ancient corpse buried in the Alpine ice. Complicité's house style of extraordinary visual and aural effects is deployed to maximum effect, which just about manages to tie the two storylines and the more rarified disquisitions on the nature and perils of memory together.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare on 11th July 2024 in various locations around Guildford. The Guildford Shakespeare Company presented another innovative summer production by staging the first half of the play in various locations around and in Guildford High Street, and the second half in the Castle Gardens. As I attended a matinee one of the scenes usually staged in a shopping mall was relegated to the street, but ordinary shoppers and passers-by were a little surprised to discover the famous balcony scene occurring across the breadth of the (pedestrianised) high street. The company had also called on the services of several school drama groups (in rotation) to supply members of the Montague and Capulet gangs who enjoyed themselves mooching around street corners and spoiling for fights.

Present Laughter by Noël Coward on 23rd July 2024, a screening of the Old Vic's 2019 production. I decided to see this again having enjoyed it so much in the theatre five years before (see the review of 31st July 2019). It is a wonderful production, but the histrionics pitched so accurately for a stage performance were perhaps too over the top in a cinema. Also, very few people came to see this screening, which meant that the collective laughter of an audience was almost entirely lacking.

The Promise by Paul Unwin on 27th July 2024 at the Minerva Theatre Chichester. A third play looking at the momentous change of government in 1945, this time concentrating on the left-wing firebrand Ellen Wilkinson and the general challenges faced by the incoming Labour government after the war years. Once again the sheer quantity of significant and dramatic events threatens to swamp a play trying to do too many of them justice, but there were powerful moments and many resonances with the current situation in Britain. On an open thrust stage the many set changes were managed with an inventive use of projections on a back wall punctured by several doors, and a series of platforms which emerged and disappeared bearing the relevant furniture (and characters).

Richard III by William Shakespeare on 31st July 2024 at Shakespeare's Globe. With arguments floating around as to whether Richard should now be played by an actor with the relevant disability, this production was bound to raise eyebrows by casting women in most of the parts, including Michelle Terry in the lead. As so often, the hectic online discussions (beginning with the announcement of the cast, not the actual staging of the play) could be safely ignored in favour of actually going to see the production to judge for oneself. The interesting thing was not the disability (hardly mentioned or emphasised) but the shifting dynamic of having all the parts except the ultimately victorious Richmond played by women. It worked well and created a satisfying version of the play.

Red Speedo by Lucas Hnath on 1st August 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. Partly staged now with an eye on the Paris Olympics, this 2013 play deals with the fallout when performance enhancing drugs are found in the swimming club where Ray, an Olympic hopeful, is being coached. Sparks fly between Ray's brother/manager who is also an over-articulate lawyer, the Coach, Ray's ex-girlfriend, and Ray himself, and there are surprising revelations in store as the situation is clarified for the audience. In the unsparing space of the Orange Tree a small part of the swimming pool is installed, and Ray throughout wears only the titular red speedos, a perhaps daunting demand for the young actor's stage debut. A climactic fight scene therefore requires expert choreography.

Oliver! by Lionel Bart based on Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist on 2nd August at the Chichester Festival Theatre. A new revival of the classic 1960 musical, scaling down somewhat from the previous more extravagant version of a few years ago, even though still overseen by Cameron Mackintosh. A welcome chance to revisit a musical with memorable melodies and sparky lyrics, the first half in particular full of energy and delight. It's noticeable that in the second half the character of Oliver himself fades into the background with little to do except be a victim in the emerging dark tale of Nancy and Bill Sykes. In a non-proscenium theatre the staging made excellent use of concentric revolves and a huge clutter of stuff.

Hello Dolly! by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart based on a play by Thornton Wilder, on 7th August 2024 at the London Palladium. Another revival of a famous 1960s musical (this time from 1964, with a memorable 1969 Barbra Streisand film probably fixed in many people's memories), here presented as a vehicle for the indomitable Imelda Staunton. Having missed her celebrated performance in Gypsy a few years ago, and never having been to the famous London Palladium before, I decided I needed to see this, and I was not disappointed. It was cleverly staged and thoroughly entertaining. But the Palladium is vast and a seat in the centre of a stalls row awkward to reach and constricted to sit in.

The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard on 30th September 2024 at the Old Vic. Stoppard's fizzy play about relationships, trust, art and passion from 1982 is here revived with some modifications (apparently) toning down a few remarks that would now seem distractingly objectionable. Even so, Henry, the principal character, is often pompous and verbose, but engaging in James McArdle's hands. Some of what would have immediately raised a laugh in the 1980s now sounds rather dated and must have been incomprehensible to younger audience members, which meant that there was more respectful silence than I expected as the play got going, but Stoppard's theatrical skill soon won the audience over.

Here in America by David Edgar on 2nd October 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. The painful and immensely damaging impact of the red scare in 1950s America broke friendships, ruined careers and damaged minds across the board. The artistic community was as much a victim as any other, with the result that there were high-profile hearings and subpoenas involving the Hollywood community, and many articulate people to brood on the affair for years afterwards. In this instance, Elia Kazan and Arthur Miller, once friends, reacted differently under pressure from the HUAC, and now argue and have to face their consciences and each other's criticisms. The play is very wordy and there's too much initial exposition delivered by ostensible friends who would never have such conversations, but the issues are important, and the characters complex. However, one feels that these issues have been so much more powerfully rendered in the work of Miller particularly (famously in The Crucible), and there is a slight sense of the theatre feeding on itself (see also The Motive and the Cue).

Oedipus by Sophocles in a version by Robert Icke on 26th October 2024 at Wyndham's Theatre. Mark Strong and Lesley Manville - a power couple if ever there was one - deliver stunning performances in this modern take on a drama that has dazzled for 2500 years. Here Oedipus is a powerful political leader, not a king, and the drama unfolds in his campaign room on election night. The more one knows the original story the more disquieting is the behaviour of the family (acting of course in all innocence, but, to us, presaging future trouble). With Robert Icke's trademark brilliance at revisiting the classics, this was an electrifying production with the horror at its heart still viscerally convincing.

Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph on 31st October 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. The director Adam Karim is this year's JMK Award winner; the play is an intriguing two-hander about two young men, lifelong friends, employed as guards during the building of the Taj Mahal (they are lowly, so only at the outer precincts) who are then tasked with chopping off the hands of all the workmen so that nothing so beautiful can be constructed again. (This is a myth, and so perhaps an odd basis on which to build a play ostensibly realistic). The easy chatting of the friends, and the riffs of the more imaginative one, buckle under the horror of what they have felt obliged to do; the poignancy of their friendship is beautifully evoked amidst the carnage.

Bellringers by Daisy Hall on 2nd November at Hampstead Theatre. Curiously, another play about two lifelong friends in an impossibly stressful situation, this time as bellringers in a small Oxfordshire village whose turn it is to ring the bells in the face of an approaching thunderstorm (apparently, this will mitigate its savagery). The peculiar intensity of their situation places the story uneasily between modern climate catastrophe and medieval folk legend - the two are dressed in cassocks, but have mobile phones; the efficacy of bellringing seems even to them be unlikely, yet they convince themselves that they must perform their task despite the fact that others before them have been electrocuted with no effect on the weather. It's a bit weird, but the friendship is powerfully portrayed.

Birdsong by Rachel Wagstaff based on the novel by Sebastian Faulks, on 5th November 2024 at the Chichester Festival Theatre. A young man researching his great-uncle's role in the First World War; a young businessman comes to rural France and begins an affair with his host's wife (cruelly treated by all) in the early twentieth century; the horrors of the Western Front, particularly for the sappers mining under the trenches and hoping to avoid counter-mines bay the Germans: it's a heady and at times sprawling brew. Though it's a compelling production, I thought that the adaptation of a novel into a play had once again not entirely worked (I haven't read the novel): too much was being shoe-horned into one evening.

The Fear of 13 by Lindsey Ferrentino on 7th November 2024 at the Donmar Warehouse. An opportunity for the American screen actor Adrien Brody to make his West End debut, this play explores the real-life predicament of a man sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, who then spent over twenty years on death row until finally he was exonerated and released. Nick, the unfortunate inmate, narrates much of the story, and we gradually become aware that he is fatefully a gifted storyteller who learned early to disguise trauma with deflecting explanations, but did not learn to know when these would be damagingly inappropriate. Set largely in his prison, with visits from an increasingly sympathetic lawyer whom he eventually marries while still incarcerated (it doesn't last: a reminder that this is not a feel-good story), the play doesn't entirely succeed in convincing us of the timespan involved, though Brody's performance increases in power as more and more of the characters backstory becomes clear.

Coriolanus by William Shakespeare on 9th November 2024 at the Olivier Theatre (National). David Oyewolo gives a commanding performance as Caius Martius who becomes the titular Coriolanus during the course of the play; he is matched by his imperious mother (Pamela Nomvete). In a temporally indeterminate setting making full use of the large Olivier stage the drama of his stubborn refusal to play the political game even though he wants political office veers between elitist arrogance on his part and sly dealing on the part of the cynical tribunes. The violence threatened by Rome's enemies is a constant backdrop forgotten by the politicians until Coriolanus himself defects. The production traced these developments with assured stagecraft, and the verse was compellingly and clearly spoken.

Giant by Mark Rosenblatt on 14th November 2024 at the Royal Court Theatre. John Lithgow puts in a formidable performance as the writer Roald Dahl, revealed here to be a monster when it suits him, though occasionally playful and sympathetic as well. It is 1982 and he has written an explosive book review in passing condemning Israel for its actions in Lebanon (he often drew attention to the plight of the Lebanese and Palestinians). His publishers - in particular his American publishers - see the need for a damage limitation exercise, but he is in no mood to apologise; his patrician evasiveness when accused directly of anti-semitism only lasts so long, and after the interval he becomes increasingly vituperative and manipulative. It's a hard hitting play, rendered all the more provocative in the face of the current crisis in Gaza and Lebanon, and the emotional power of the various confrontations led to palpable shock and muted silence in the auditorium even during the interval. How does one deal with a beloved author who is revealed as being extremely unpleasant?

All's Well that Ends Well by William Shakespeare on 23rd November 2024 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. A 'problem comedy' in which Helena extracts a promise from the French king that he will allow her to choose her husband if she successfully cures him, and then selects Bertram, the son of her benefactor, who only regards her as little more than a servant favoured by his mother. There is an 'impossible condition' by which he will recognise her as his wife: she must sleep with him and wear his ring, neither of which he will allow to happen; he goes off to the wars. By means of a bed trick, Helen wins her man - but is this satisfactory? How can it be with such distaste on his part and such manipulation on hers? Generally, Bertram looks irredeemably callow and Helen too singleminded. There is a fellow soldier Paroles who is worldly-wise and later revealed to be utterly cowardly: how is this a comedy? Intriguingly in this production complexities in all the characters abound, allowing both sympathy for and reservations about all of them - even Paroles; even Bertram. The ending remains ambivalent, as perhaps nowadays it must, as we no longer assume that marriage is a happy end.

The Forsyte Saga: Part 1 Irene and Part 2 Fleur by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan based on John Galsworthy's novels, on 28th November 2024 at the Park Theatre (Finsbury Park). Two substantial plays to encompass six lengthy novels (and one short story) in which Galsworthy developed a family saga over a forty-year period (the1880s to the 1920s) famously adapted in a 26-part TV serial in 1967 (and a shorter serial in 2002). These authors, who created a radio adaptation more recently, have devised a stunning theatrical version. Where the leisurely older TV series evoked the period(s) replete with furnishings, even though on what even then was a small budget, on the stage in Finsbury Park everything was evoked by costume and lighting alone with a few chairs occasionally in use. Nine actors took all the parts, relying on visual cues to keep clear who was who. As a framing device, it is the vivacious (not to say intensely annoying) Fleur who provides the necessary exposition as it is imagined that she is researching family history to try to discover the causes of the great Forsyte feud. (A good many tangential stories are quietly passed over.) It was all brilliantly done, and immensely satisfying to see the two parts on one day. Complete strangers in the audience could be heard announcing their loyalties either to Irene or to Soames, just as occurred almost sixty years ago when the 'man of property' asserted his rights on television.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde on 29th November 2024 at the Lyttleton Theatre (National). A very famous play, with some lines indelibly associated with a very famous actress: how will a revival work? With a stunningly unexpected opening scene in which Algernon (Ncuti Gatwa) appears in drag, raising all sorts of misgivings about the likely trajectory of the production as a whole, matters soon settle into a more orthodox late Victorian setting and Oscar Wilde's cut glass dialogue unfolds beautifully, with only a few unwelcome tweaks to create modern in-jokes which are not really required. With Ncuti Gate hugely enjoying himself as Algernon, Jack Skinner as a suitable earnest Jack, and Sharon D Clarke as a memorable Caribbean Lady Bracknell, the comedy is hugely entertaining.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare on 5th December 2024 at the Orange Tree Theatre. Set just after the Second World War, so that it can be imagined that Olivia is mourning the death of her brother in wartime action (the cause of his death is never specified in the play), this production beautifully evokes the melancholy against which romantic feelings once again burst forth. In the small acting space everything looked potentially even more constrained by the presence of a baby grand piano in the centre of the stage; during the performance this slowly revolved while Feste sat and provided all the musical accompaniment in addition to renditions of the songs in the text (Stefan Bednarczyk composed the music as well as performing it and taking the part of Feste). Everyone else circled the piano, occasionally leaning on it; for the gulling of Malvolio the conspirators sat among the audience. There was recognition that not only Malvolio is disheartened at the end (both Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Antonio are disappointed too) though he remains the most intransigent. A lovely production.

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy on 14th December 2024 at the Donmar Warehouse. Taking just the short episode from Tolstoy's War and Peace in which Natasha Rostov disastrously breaks off her engagement to the now-absent Prince Andrei in favour of the cad Anatole Kuragin, this high-energy musical mixes modern dress and slang with early nineteenth-century Russian domestic drama to invigorating effect - but the richness of Tolstoy's vision, and his pitch-perfect evocation of the aristocratic society to which he was an heir, both suffer somewhat under the assault. It is wise to have concentrated on only a small part of the epic, but even so there is a lot of ground to cover, and the arrival of the comet seems to be an afterthought simply to allow there to be a slightly kooky title. The opening number, introducing the characters, was to my mind the most successful, but clearly I am still steeped in the melodiousness of the musicals of my childhood; in this play there were no memorable tunes.