Covid-19 must have its say to start with, so off goes the season with Ralph Fiennes directed by Nicholas Hytner and delivering Beat The Devil, a monologue by David Hare.
‘It is all rather fabulous’: THE LION THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE – Bridge Theatre ★★★★
Everything is both spectacular and, importantly, also feels like something you could play at home with tablecloths and cardboard in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. If you can’t borrow any children to take, haul your own inner-child along.
‘If it doesn’t get bought up for a film I’ll eat my Santa hat’: THE SEASON – Touring ★★★★
I was step-sprung, charmed by this miniature musical, The Season, by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan.
‘A violently disturbing play & so it should be’: WHEN THE CROWS VISIT – Kiln Theatre ★★★★
Director Indhu Rubasingham spares us none of the rage and horror of violent mutilation as male anger rises against women who are educated in Anumpama Chandrasekhar’s play When The Crows Visit and – this makes you wince – of female complicity in the middle and oldest generations
‘Sharp eyed little gem about coupledom’: LUNGS – The Old Vic ★★★★
Lungs is a sharp eyed little gem about coupledom and the wary, fretful road towards parenthood in an age of easy contraception and illimitable expectations.
‘Gloriously staged’: BOTTICELLI IN THE FIRE – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
Jordan Tannahill’s play Botticelli In The Fire, premiered here after Canada, is gloriously staged under Blanche Macintyre’s direction.
‘The writing is excellent, naturalistic & usually pacy’: [BLANK] – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★
Alice Birch’s [Blank], about how our criminal justice system treats women, features tremendous ensemble work, physically expressive, verbally articulate, ripping off layers of smug delusion with elegant skill.
‘Tremendous, marvellouslly staged ensemble’: ASSASSINS – Watermill Theatre, Newbury ★★★★
Bill Buckhurst’s production of Assassins has all the necessary vigour and the human seriousness too: plus it helps having a stunningly gifted set of actor-musicians roaming the stage.
‘It holds you fast’: THE NIGHT WATCH – Touring ★★★★
While the seemingly desultory opening scenes may baffle a few strangers to the book, this stage adaptation of The Night Watch grows in clarity and drama to become a gripping piece of theatre, a testament.
‘There are some fabulous laughs’: THE WATSONS – Menier Chocolate Factory ★★★★
Thus Andrew Davies sexes up Jane Austen’s Sanditon for ITV with incest, brothels and Theo James leaping on coaches, and up from Chichester, adapted a bit, here’s Laura Wade taking on the earlier Watsons.
Absolutely superb’: A TASTE OF HONEY – Touring ★★★★
The National Theatre does not disappoint with A Taste of Honey. The production is absolutely superb, with some of the cleverest staging imaginable.
‘Visually spectacular, thrilling entertainment’: BIG THE MUSICAL – West End ★★★★
Big is smashing fun if you can cope with the fact that at the heart of it is a power-relationship dynamic raising slightly awkward questions. But not in a Big way.
‘Grief is the point of all’: HANSARD – National Theatre ★★★★
With Parliament in uproar upriver, the NT hit a luckily apt moment to stage Simon Woods’ first play Hansard and promote it as a “witty and devastating portrait of the governing class”. Just the night to hurl some fine invective at an audience fancying a torture-a-Tory session.
‘An updating perfect for our times’: THE DOCTOR – Almeida Theatre ★★★★
Arthur Schnitzler was, like Chekhov, a doctor; he was an Austrian Jew at a time when mistrust was rising. The Doctor belongs passionately to that time: but director Robert Icke’s very free adaptation belongs – urgently and exhilaratingly – to our own.
‘It draws you in all the way: what more do you want?’: GO BANG YOUR TAMBOURINE – Finborough Theatre ★★★★
It is always a pleasure to see a professional debut which not only shines in itself but reminds us that belonging to a 21st-century, loose-limbed-liberal post-Christian generation doesn’t stop a new actor from empathising and utterly containing a character from another age.
‘If you catch it, you won’t forget it’: SHACKLETON’S CARPENTER – Touring ★★★★
Gail Louw’s play Shackleton’s Carpenter and Malcolm Rennie’s tremendous, unforgettable performance, were directed by Tony Milner of the New Vic before his death. This production – which tours single nights through autumn and winter, is in his memory. If you catch it, you won’t forget it.
‘Edgy & interesting’: OKLAHOMA! – Chichester ★★★★
If the overall effect of Oklahoma! at Chichester Festival Theatre is more of a puzzle-play than a lollipop romp, so much the better.
‘Thrilled to have been there’: THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA – West End ★★★★
Clive Owen and Lia Williams do justice to the wild lush text of The Night Of The Iguana at the Noel Coward Theatre, rich in wonder and filth, corruption and beauty.
‘Pure pleasure, in energy and design’: JOSEPH & THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT – West End ★★★★
We love a starry debut, especially on opening night in a huge theatre: a 21-year-old not yet through drama school making a stonking, belting first professional appearance in a title role. So Laurence Connor knew what he was doing when he cast young Jac Yarrow in Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
‘Bonkers in a wonderful way’: PETER GYNT – National Theatre ★★★★
David Hare has made as much sense of Ibsen’s sprawling masterpiece Peer Gynt as seems possible.