YOU WERE AFTER POETRY at the Alma, Bristol

YOU WERE AFTER POETRY at the Alma, Bristol

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The first play is about the break up of a relationship. It is cleverly staged; for example a couple are in bed, amusingly depicted by Scott holding a pillow behind his head as shown in the publicity photographs, and a duvet laid over a table became a bed. There are many clever one-line jokes. The play shows how a woman and a man, both very needy, find it difficult to give up on their relationship even though it is not ideal and they obviously don’t really understand each other.

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HAMLET at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford

HAMLET at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford

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The RSC’s new Hamlet is patently original. Gone are the cliché blond Nordic tresses so favoured by Olivier and others, gone are the wind-swept rocky battlements of Elsinore and in are the brightly coloured Afro fabrics and jungle drums of medieval Denmark’s first black royal family . . . I really liked Cyril Ni as the obsequious Polonius, always eager to please and smooth the troubled waters but, to my mind, the best performance came from Natalie Simpson as his daughter Ophelia.

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ENGLISH TOURING OPERA at the Everyman, Cheltenham

ENGLISH TOURING OPERA at the Everyman, Cheltenham

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Don Giovanni is one of the opera canon’s most dramatic works. You have hardly got your hat and coat off and taken your seat before there is a rape and a murder. It has one of opera’s most dastardly villains whose sole raison d’être is to lay as many women as possible in the shortest possible time and to hell with the consequences . . . All in all a hugely satisfying evening. English Touring Opera is a joy to behold and I genuinely look forward to every visit.

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THE HERBAL BED on tour

THE HERBAL BED on tour

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Peter Whelan’s successful 1996 play, which had its first outing as an RSC production and is here revived for a tour, takes the marital problems of the bard’s daughter, Susanna (Emma Lowndes), as it’s starting point. Susanna made an apparently enviable match with a certain, Doctor John Hall, a moderate Puritan, but an ecclesiastical court record of Susanna’s trial for adultery is enough to suggest that all was not well within the Hall’s marriage bed.

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TWELFTH NIGHT at the Birmingham Rep

TWELFTH NIGHT at the Birmingham Rep

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This production is unlike any other Shakespeare you are likely to see. There are great moments of audience interaction, and you feel that no performance would be exactly the same as the next – the performers all showing they are able to adapt and mould themselves to the situation and audience that day. With live musicians to complete the atmosphere this production of Twelfth Night is a fast, furious and raucous evening at the theatre which would be a great introduction to Shakespeare for teenagers and adults alike.

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TRAINSPOTTING – Tobacco Factory at The Loco Klub, Bristol

TRAINSPOTTING – Tobacco Factory at The Loco Klub, Bristol

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Trainspotting is, strangely, given its darkly comic depiction of utter depravity and tragedy, a play of hope. A hope that however lost a piece of humanity seems, there lurks within a yearning for choosing life over nihilism . . . Fans of the book and film will not be disappointed with this compelling example of ‘immersive’ theatre.

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