The Leisure Society

TNT

Making her stage debut, supermodel Agyness Deyn more than holds her own against the seasoned thesps in French Canadian François Archambault’s short and rather unpleasant four-hander. She plays Paula, free-spirited 21 year old fuck buddy of Mark (swaggering John Schwab), the recently divorced friend of Peter (Ed Stoppard – a bit too loud for this small space) and his wife Mary (an acerbic Melanie Gray) who, somewhat bizarrely, have invited him over for dinner to tell him they don’t want to see him anymore.

But with their own relationship definitely in need of some spicing up – they can’t give up the booze and fags, but their unfulfilling sex life is virtually non-existent - things don’t go according to plan when the youthfully seductive Paula proves happy to have a threesome.

Far from the perfect couple they present to the world, these well-heeled thirty-somethings (who ignore the escalating cries of their young son issuing from the child monitor but plan to adopt a little Chinese girl – so much cuter) are self-indulgent, self-obsessed and really not very nice. Like this rather dated 2003 satire, they look stylish, but the appeal is all on the surface.

Trafalgar Studios 2Whitehall, SW1A 2DY Tube: Charing Cross Until 31st March (£26.50-£32.50) atgtickets.com/trafalgarstudios

Going Dark

TNT

Sound&Fury’s immersive theatre technique plunges us – thankfully only temporarily – into the world of blindness in their moving and engrossing collaboration with Hattie Naylor.

Max (excellent John Mackay, alone on stage) is a single dad and astronomer whose lectures at the planetarium revel in the excitement of being able to see the stars light years away. But for him, this seemingly limitless vista is about to change drastically as the peripheral flashes of a routine eye test go unseen, the first indication of a degenerative condition which will turn the simplest of tasks into a challenge and deprive him of his vision.

In the intermittent pitch-black darkness, the confusing surround-sound cacophony of traffic bombards his (and our) our senses, whilst the patter of rain is gently evocative. The Milky Way, projected overhead, casts a gentle glow and shadowy photos develop and distort like magic, mirroring the hallucinations which Max begins to experience.

And as he attempts to explain to his precocious 6 year old son Leo (a disembodied voice we never see) why his daddy will no longer be able to see his face, an extra layer of poignancy is added to an already devastating prospect of diminishing horizons and a journey into a frightening unknown.

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 8LZ Tube: Southwark / Waterloo Until 24th March (£15) youngvic.org

Farewell to the Theatre

TNT

Elegant and subtly acted, American playwright Richard Nelson’s new play borrows its title from a work by its central figure, the influential English actor-manager, critic and playwright Harley Granville-Barker.

It’s 1916 and ( out of funds, distressed by the war raging in Europe and on the verge of divorce from his first wife) Granville-Barker is on the Massachusetts’ leg of a financially necessary lecture tour and one of a handful of disillusioned Brits staying at the boarding house run by another ex-pat, Jemma Redgrave’s sad widow, still wearing black years after the death of her errant spouse.

Jason Watkins’ superficially jovial Frank, worrying about his sickly wife whilst he’s reciting Dickens on the circuit, Tara Fitzgerald’s married former actress conducting a semi-clandestine affair with a young student, Louis Hilyer’s humiliated academic – none of them are living the lives they hoped to lead.

Roger Michell’s sympathetic production reflects Granville-Barker’s own desire to write a play not about what people do, but who they are. And although the almost plotless result is more meditative than dynamic, on its own terms it exerts a poignant, understated Chekhovian power, particularly in Ben Chaplin’s convincing portrayal of the Edwardian dramatist at a time of weary emotional crisis.

Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EU Tube: Swiss Cottage Until 7th April(£22-£29) hampsteadtheatre.com

Hay Fever

TNT

Superficially attractive they may be, but the bohemian Bliss family make terrible hosts in Noel Coward’s slight comedy of manners which premiered in 1925. Howard Davies’ enjoyable production turns their Berkshire home – to which, without informing the others, all four have simultaneously invited a different weekend guest – into a kind of converted barn-cum- artists’ studio.

Here Jeremy Northam’s progressively discomfited diplomat, a young flapper completely out of her depth, an eager hunk, and even a sophisticated vamp (miscast Olivia Colman) are just entertainment fodder for the melodramatic Bliss’s.

Lindsay Duncan plays the theatricality of retired actress Judith Bliss to the hilt, and her peevish, precocious offspring (Freddie Fox’s Simon and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Sorel - who has inherited her mother’s love of histrionics but not her calculated allure) know exactly the self-dramatising games she and their novelist father David are up to.

All sympathy, then, to Jenny Galloway’s door-slamming Clara (Judith’s former dresser turned housekeeper) faced not only with her employers’ eccentricities but also the prospect of having to accommodate double the usual number without prior warning.

Noel Coward, St. Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4AU Tube: Leicester Square (£16 - £53.50) Until 2nd June HayFeverLondon.com

Snookered

TNT

Though not all his characters are adequately fleshed out, Ishy Din reveals a good ear for lively dialogue in his first full-length play for Tamasha. It takes too long - and too much repetition- to set up a thin plot, but the reunion of four old friends, gathered in a snooker hall in an unspecified Northern town to commemorate the birthday of a fifth (T, who died prematurely) keeps the ball rolling for its 95 plus minute booze-fuelled duration.

Jaz Deol’s Billy now lives in London after falling out with his family (over, it seems, a long ended relationship with a white girl), but he’s back to mark the demise of old mate T. Aggressive, edgy cab driver Shaf (Muzz Khan) is up to something shady and has too many kids, whilst Peter Singh’s conventional, aspiring manager Mo is still desperate to father one. And Asif Kahn’s underdog Kamy is a butcher in the family business who treasures the “lucky” cue, left to him by T, in the belief it was nicked from a snooker champ.

They’ve grown apart over the years but, although they’re linked by their shared Pakistani Muslim background, these heavy-drinking young men with their different life choices are all unsure of which path to take to be accepted as British whilst remaining true to their heritage. As Shaf rather crudely observes, what else is he expected to do to fit in- short of tattooing a Union Jack on his private parts?

Bush Theatre, Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ Tube: Shepherds Bush (020 8743 5050) (£15-£20) till 24th Marchwww.bushtheatre.co.uk

Bingo

Subtitled “Scenes of Money and Death,” Edward Bond’s 1974 play follows Shakespeare in his final years, no longer writing for the theatre and retired from London to live on his land in Stratford.

More an observer than a participant, his compassion– be it for the peasants who will suffer if the land is enclosed or the young vagrant woman who is whipped then hung – is limited by self-interest and apathy. The fate of the bears baited bankside by the Globe where his works were performed may prey upon his mind, but he seems to have lost the capacity for effective protest.

Angus Jackson’s production has attracted some high calibre actors – notably a dignified, brooding Patrick Stewart as the aging Bard, Catherine Cusack as the aggrieved daughter he has no time for, and Matthew Marsh’s wealthy landowner who easily persuades him to take no action either for or against enclosure. But it makes for a very uninvolving and inert evening as Shakespeare heads towards death, the only light relief coming from the jealous verbal attack launched in a local tavern by the excellent Richard McCabe’s very drunk, very slovenly fellow playwright Ben Jonson.

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 8LZ 0207 922 2922 Tube: Southwark / Waterloo (£10 - £29.50) Until 31st March

In Basildon

TNT

Sisters Maureen and Doreen haven’t spoken to each other for 20 years. Even as they flank their 60 year old bachelor brother Len’s deathbed (he gurgles his last as we watch) they still refuse to address each other directly in David Eldridge’s eminently watchable, blackly comic new play which keeps its secrets till the final scene.

There are hints along the way as they await the reading of Len’s will by best mate Ken (impressive Peter Wight) a jovial widower, still with an eye for the ladies. But it’s Eldridge’s understanding of the political climate of Essex and of his working class characters which fascinates more than the actual falling out – Ruth Sheen’s carefully presented Maureen, Linda Bassett’s dowdy Doreen (excellent), her never-going-to-make-it son (Lee Ross) with his loudmouth wife (Debbie Chazen) both convinced that the house will soon be home to their yet to be conceived child, and Maureen’s teacher daughter Shelley who’s as keen to reject her background as her banker’s son boyfriend (Michael Bennett) is to disown his.

Royal Court Theatre, SW1W 8AS Until Mar 24 (£10-£18) royalcourttheatre.com Tube: Sloane Square