★★★★☆ As with any Laurence Boswell production we enjoy the interplay of characters. Rubin looks daggers and spits blended scotch – being a malt man – and like any halfway decent spider knows exactly where the prey is in his web. Considered in his movements, Mr. Abraham is an actor who knows exactly what his body is doing and when and how to use it; there’s no waste and nothing lacking.

★★★★☆ This is comedy of manners toughened up for the twenty first century. The tone is set by Jean Chan’s bleak modernist set against which, like animals pacing out their neuroses in an old fashioned zoo, the characters are paraded for our amusement . . . The Ustinov has done it again in presenting us with outstanding European theatre that deserves and ought to get, wider public recognition.

★★★★☆ Non-conformists everywhere, here is a show dedicated to you! . . . The RSC have recently gone into collaboration with Intel to produce high-end computer generated graphics to enhance their latest production of The Tempest. Carpet and Llewellyn prove that a cardboard box, a hand-written sign and an antique keyboard can make just as effective theatre. It’s the storytelling that counts.

★★★★☆ Fred is intrepid. He wants to be like everyone else, just a regular sort of guy. In this he is exhorted by the show’s director, Ben Pettitt-Wade, to “be his own puppet”. But being made of fabric and stuffing, and well, just being a puppet, makes attempting a ‘normal’ life pretty tricky.