★★★★★ The stars are Helene Hanff, played by Stefanie Powers and Frank Doel, played by Clive Francis. Hanff is a brusque, kind New Yorker – ‘a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books’ – who prefers to order her books from London than to try to find what she wants in New York.
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★★★★☆ The story begins with Cecily, her friend Mavis, and Cecily’s indomitable Auntie Lou-Lou preparing Cecily’ and Mavis’s flat for rent. Cecily’s fiancé is due back from three years in the Sudan, but Cecily, who yearns to travel and see the world, is uncertain about marrying Michael and settling down in a house in the country.
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★★★★★ Frankie Vah is an honest longform poem, of love and youth and faith and loss, all woven up in the politics of 1980s Britain. The poem strides out of a staid country vicarage, sprawls across the beds of council houses, and spews onstage in grubby clubs and pubs . . . this is more of the same brilliant, bloody and biting political satire that we all need.
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★★★★☆ An empty stage against a backdrop of black curtains. A single chair. Debs Newbold doesn’t rely on any props or staging to set her scene. She comes onstage and simply starts to address the audience. The house lights don’t fall. Instead Newbold looks at us, meets eyes . . .
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★★★★☆ There’s something about going to see one of Shakespeare’s comedies that is just so satisfying. You always know exactly what you’re going to get . . . All in all, this is a perfect play for a bit of escapism, so if you have a free evening this week, come in out of the cold Oxford night, and lose yourself in the magical Forest of Arden – it’ll do you good.
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