★★★☆☆ Anne Reid as the accidental activist has the last word, delivered as a speech direct to the audience, casting doubt over the familiar pro-fracking nostrums and having by now fully un-retired herself from public life. Fracked!, directed by Richard Wilson, is on tour from the Chichester Festival Theatre. It is easily digestible stuff, which last night provided plenty of laughs to keep the Theatre Royal audience chuckling along.

Last night we had a lesson in the value of an actor, that is, what an actor can bring to a script. Following the untimely death of Tim Pigott-Smith who was to play the lead role in Miller’s bitter bouquet to a lost way of life and filial love, Nicholas Woodeson has bravely stepped into the part with a mere two weeks to learn the lines. Unsurprisingly last night’s performance could only reach the heights of a well-rehearsed read-through with Mr Woodeson understandably some way from being ‘off book’.

★★★★☆ In Sasha Regan’s production, W S Gilbert’s story is told as a kind of midsummer night’s dream of a boy scout’s camp concert party in which all characters are played by young men in shorts (the women’s parts with their shorts rolled up) . . . This is as imaginative, clever, witty and unstuffy a production of Gilbert and Sullivan as you are likely to find and may be just the thing to tempt people who think comic opera is not for them.

★★★★☆ An anniversary is as good a reason as any for mounting a revival of a popular success. Willy Russell’s one woman hit is now thirty years old and re-emerges into a changed world that has made huge strides in some areas whilst stubbornly dragging its feet in others . . . Jodie Prenger delivers an impressive piece of acting that hints at much more to come.