★★★★★ A gripping version of these rarely performed histories. Mark Quartley shines out with his subtle portrayal of King Henry. Playing a man who is both weak and unassertive, he nevertheless holds the stage with his quiet slender presence and engaging humanity

★★★★☆ Shakespeare’s allegedly problem play bursts onstage to a thunderous clap of percussion. Literally. Two motor-cyclists roar out of a large box into leather clad world of Greeks and Trojans, made ever urgent and eerie by percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s score.

★★★★☆ Even in Michael Boyd’s version, patience and concentration occasionally need prompting. Yet as the action concludes on a bare stage with a whip-cracking Tamburlaine driving a chariot drawn by captive kings, a mesmerizing vision of Hell is created, a Hell on Earth that can only occur when abuse of power goes unchecked.

★★★☆☆The soccer stimulus over, the BREXIT debate rumbling eternally on: I’d love to distil a little feel-bad atmosphere with another rapturous review of Sam Kenyon’s musical about titan of theatre, director Joan Littlewood. Sadly – and it’s hard to take a minority view, it left me more exasperated than enlightened.