Gloriously surreal monologue about everyday anxieties in extraordinary circumstances: welcome back the glittering dark!
THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE – Hampstead Theatre
The Slaves of Solitude is set in the winter of 1943. We are in the Rosamund Tea Rooms boarding house, in Henley-on-Thames.
OF KITH & KIN – Bush Theatre
A new baby is like an alien invasion: it blows your mind and it colonises your world. For any couple, parenthood can be both exalting and devastating, with the stress hugging the relationship so tightly that eventually all its lies and evasions pop out.
THE PHILANTHROPIST – Trafalgar Studios
One good reason to visit the theatre is to see stars in the flesh. And some of the biggest celebs are familiar to us from television. So what should a savvy producer do? Well, put on a popular play and stuff it with television actors.
CHINGLISH – Park Theatre
Chinglish was first staged in on Broadway in 2011, and is set in Guiyang (pop four million). Daniel Cavanaugh, an American who heads a firm of Ohio sign-makers, wants to secure a deal with a local cultural centre, whose public signage has been rendered ridiculous by gross mistranslations into English: “Deformed Man’s Restroom” instead of Disabled Toilet.
LOVE IN IDLENESS – Menier Chocolate Factory
The rehabilitation of playwright Terence Rattigan has surpassed even the stage when not only are his best plays regularly revived, but also his less good work now reaches a large audience. So last year his masterpiece The Deep Blue Sea was at the National Theatre, while the enterprising Kenneth Branagh revived Harlequinade for the West End in November 2015.
LOVE IN IDLENESS – Menier Chocolate Factory
The rehabilitation of playwright Terence Rattigan has surpassed even the stage when not only are his best plays regularly revived, but also his less good work now reaches a large audience. So last year his masterpiece The Deep Blue Sea was at the National Theatre, while the enterprising Kenneth Branagh revived Harlequinade for the West End in November 2015.
UNREACHABLE – Royal Court Theatre
Anthony Neilson’s newly devised piece is both a comic masterpiece and a disappointingly unbalanced work.