Amazonia ** TNT

The Young Vic’s seasonal offerings are usually a treat for adults and children alike, but this year’s Christmas production, despite — or perhaps partly because of — its laudable intentions and long gestation period, fails to live up to expectations. An uncomfortable mixture of folklore and fact, it ends up muddled and preachy and takes far too long for the main thrust of the story to become clear.
Credit to writers Paul Heritage and Colin Teevan for wanting to warn youngsters about the repercussions of destroying the Amazon rain forest and of the plight of the people who live there.
And why not incorporate the ghost of assassinated rubber-tapper turned environmentalist, Chico Mendes? But for it to work, this show needs a lot more fun, laughs and narrative coherence than they’ve managed to provide.
The cast (including Daisy Wilson’s marriageable Rosamaria) works hard to create an exuberant carnival atmosphere and a meagre handful of unexpected laughs is generated by the heroic efforts of Simon Trinder’s Francisco as he desperately attempts to persuade his boss’s bull to dance (and so secure the future prosperity of the village) whilst simultaneously catering to the increasingly bizarre cravings of his pregnant wife.
But this is a disappointing culmination of so much worthy effort, with the upbeat optimism of the final dance at odds with the show’s basic message that progress, at the expense of the trees, can only be of a transient nature.

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 (020-7922 2922). Until January 24. £22.50

Carousel **** TNT

I can’t remember much about seeing reruns of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 50’s film version repeated on TV — except a lasting childhood image of hunky fairground barker Billy Bigelow almost bursting out of his striped T-shirt. That torso must have made an impression on director Lindsay Posner for, years later, here’s Jeremiah James playing him on stage, with rippling banded biceps and a glorious singing voice I could listen to all night.
You’ll Never Walk Alone may have been appropriated by the football crowd, but this is where it originated, delivered with operatic flourish by Lesley Garrett’s feisty, slightly over-fussy aunt Nettie as she comforts her bereaved niece, Alexandra Silber’s touchingly naïve mill worker Julie Jordan.
For a wartime musical (it premiered in 1945) set in 1870’s New England, there’s some pretty heavy stuff going on — wife beating (apparently it doesn’t hurt if it’s done with love?), women as child-bearing machines or business like harridans, unemployment. But the melodies, including the poignantly cautious duet If I Loved You, are unforgettable, and with Adam Cooper’s vibrant choreography and William Dudley’s projected design, this romanticised story of an ill-fated love still has the power to shamelessly stir the emotions.

Savoy, Strand , WC2 Phone: - 0870 164 8787 Currently booking till 25th July Tickets £61-£31

GETHSEMANE at the National Theatre This is London

This is the third of David Hare's recent plays drawing on public events to be seen at the National, and the only one which he professes to be purely fictional. Yet it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see the similarities between the characters on stage and those who were in power not so long ago.
In a scenario not a million miles away from Christopher Shinn's recent ‘Now or Later’ at the Royal Court (in which the behaviour of a potential US president's son sparks a damage limitation crisis) Tamsin Greig's Home Secretary Meredith (whose husband's wealth has come from dubious dealings) is additionallysaddled with a sullen, privately educated, 16 year old daughter, Suzette, who has been caught indulging in illegal substances. It's all been hushed up, but even Meredith is unaware of the behind the scenes machinations involving smooth talking pop music mogul turned political fund-raiser Otto (Stanley Townsend).
Nicola Walker has her work cut out trying to make Suzette's idealised and idealistic ex-teacher, Lori, a convincing creation, but there are still confrontations to relish – particularly Meredith's audience with Anthony Calf's manipulative, drum-playing PM.
Ultimately, though (despite his intelligent observations and strongly felt criticism of New Labour) on current evidence, the further Hare moves away from fact, the less involving and hardhitting the result proves to be.
Cottesloe Theatre
Louise Kingsley

The Pride **** TNT

What seems to begin as an elegant 50’s drawing room comedy suddenly travels half a century forward in a slick manoeuvre which catapults the characters into present day London and alternative versions of their initial selves. The names (and the actors) stay the same, but the situation Oliver, Philip and Sylvia find themselves in has changed significantly — gay sex is out in the open, and it’s no longer a question of too little opportunity but of far too much, with every transient encounter an irresistible temptation for promiscuous journalist Oliver.
Alexi Kaye Campbell’s first produced play shifts fluidly between the two eras, highlighting the dilemmas facing homosexual men in very different times. As the Olivers, Bertie Carvel (definitely an actor to watch) is subtly superb throughout as he tries to hold on to the man he loves, whilst JJ Feild’s staccato delivery as married 50’s Philip gives way to real anguish as he realises, but still fights against, his true nature.
Lyndsey Marshal’s Sylvia (distraught as Philip’s betrayed wife, feisty as Oliver’s confidante) switches convincingly between vulnerable book illustrator and assertive actress, and Tim Steed makes just as much impact in a trio of smaller roles, not least that of the doctor whose vomit-inducing aversion therapy aims to replace same-sex attraction with disgust.
Royal Court Theatre Sloane Square, SW1 Phone 020 7565 5000 Until 20th December Tickets £10-£15

August: Osage County **** TNT

Founded over thirty years ago, American company Steppenwolf proves that its still at the top of its game with this multi-award winning production. In the style of his predecessors, Eugene O’Neill & Tennessee Williams, Tracy Letts’ corrosive drama isn’t afraid to take its time to explore the deeper tensions and secrets underlying the surface antagonism of an unplanned family reunion when drunk, former poet Beverly Weston disappears from the Oklahoma home he shares with his sickly, pill-popping wife Violet.
With bitter comedy and a cruel eye for exposing the damage that one’s nearest and dearest can inflict with a not-so-casual word, this ensemble piece packs a hefty emotional punch during its three-and-a-half hours. Eldest daughter Barbara (excellent Amy Morton) battles hot flushes and the intense summer heat while trying to hide the fact that her husband (Jeff Perry) has left her for a young student. Florida-based Karen has brought along her latest beau, in the mistaken belief that she’s finally found herself a really good man, and stay-at-home Ivy — who probably has — really should have looked elsewhere.
Played out on Todd Rosenthal’s three-storey, outsize doll’s house of a set, this is as much a comment on the state of America as on one extremely dysfunctional Midwestern family, and the acting — including Rondi Reed’s knockout performance as Violet’s brash, vulgar sister — is superb.

Lyttelton at the National, South Bank, SE1 Phone: - 020 7452 3000 Until 21 January Tickets £41 - £10

Treasure Island ** TNT

Lily Allen’s dad Keith takes to the West End boards for the first time in his acting career, with his leg encased in a cumbersome prosthesis and a parrot (a squawky mechanical specimen) sporadically perched on his shoulder.
Yup, it’s that time of year again, but Ken Ludwig’s rather prosaic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic children’s tale is poised precariously somewhere between panto, straight play and musical. The bad guys aren’t particularly scary, the scenery (some rope rigging, a few barrels and floaty video projections) cut-price and, despite a couple of lively numbers and the requisite amount of yo ho hoing, there’s a distinct lack of dramatic power in the retelling of this story of mutiny on the high seas.
Allen obviously relishes the role of the rogue pirate who dupes Michael Legge’s uncharismatic young Jim into believing he’s fatherly friend rather than foe and Tony Bell (having made a brief early appearance as Billy Bones) reappears to add a touch of dignity as Captain Smollett.
But sadly there’s little gold to be found in this particular Treasure Island, and the timing — with real pirates holding the Sirius Star to ransom off the coast of Somalia — only serves to underlines its underwhelming sense of derring-do.
Theatre Royal Haymarket, Haymarket, SW1 (0845-481 1870) Until February 28. £45 -£20

WIG OUT! *** TNT

His recent season at the Young Vic has just won him a well-deserved Evening Standard award for Most Promising Playwright, but as far as Tarell Alvin McCraney is concerned, less is proving to be most definitely more. All he needed to create an initial stir with the excellent The Brothers Size was a tiny cast, a bare stage and his own unique voice. Given more resources, his identity threatens to be swamped by the presentation, even though Dominic Cooke’s cabaret style alternative to the Xmas panto (with the stalls reconfigured as a strut-your-stuff catwalk) makes for entertaining viewing.
Set in the world of the New York drag scene, its loose construction and ultra flimsy plot centre on the Cinderella Ball competition between the rival tranny Houses of Light and of Diabolique – cue outlandish costumes, totter-high heels and risqué routines – and a love story between straight looking Eric (who normally goes for butch guys) and gentle drag queen Wilson a.k.a. Nina (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett).
With a female chorus of harmonising Fates (in skin-tight Lurex and short, short, shorts) controlling the proceedings with a click of their fingers, and Kevin Harvey’s ageing Mother of the house Rey-Rey in a sleek bob wig and head-to-toe pink, this is far from your conventional seasonal offering.
No question McCraney is talented, but this lively exposé of the hierarchies which develop within a marginalised community of African American and other gay men of colour is, disappointingly, more show than content.

Royal Court Theatre Sloane Square, SW1 Phone 020 7565 5000 Until 10th January. Tickets £10-£25

LA CLIQUE - This is London

When the London Hippodrome opened in 1900, it featured a 100,000 gallon water tank, polar bears and elephants. You won't see anything on that sort of scale here in 2008, but La Clique – an international collection of burlesque performers, cabaret artists, contortionists and acrobats – is still pretty amazing and, in my companion's view, one of the most entertaining shows he's ever seen.
The music is pre-recorded, but that detracts not a jot from the impact made by Montreal's Cabaret Decadanse who kick off the proceedings with a miming life size puppet which looks like a vertical slinky and is just as bendy. Two Australian guys in suits mock the seriousness of the English businessman, reading the Financial Times whilst executing gravity-defying balancing acts – before ripping off the pinstripe to reveal their muscled bodies beneath. A toned young man, bare-chested in jeans (definitely centrefold material) takes a bath and performs a delicate aerial ballet, dousing the front row with water, and a beautiful Ukrainian girl turns spinning hula hoops into an incandescent display of giant insect wings.
Then there's the amazing Captain Frodo (who doesn't look anything special in his tennis shorts but has a body that bends in ways which will make you wince as he squeezes his dislocated limbs through a couple of stringless racquets) and Miss Behave in skin-tight red latex who swallows a metal table leg and does awful things (of the ‘don't try this at home’ sort) with scissors opened wide inside her accommodating mouth. And what cheeky striptease artist Ursula Martinez does with a disappearing red hankie defies belief.
The first half is just about faultless, the second slightly overstretched, but this is still an excellent evening out, a welcome escapist concoction guaranteed to make you gasp.
Louise Kingsley

State of Emergency *** TNT

In German playwright Falk Richter’s disturbing 80-minute three hander, a man, a woman and their defiantly incommunicative teenage son are viewed from behind the supposed security of floor to ceiling panes of glass.
Ensconced in the protective environment of a gated community, they should feel safe from the underprivileged violence raging on the other side of the fence beyond. But their sheltered isolation brings its own torments and, as her husband fails to meet his targets at work, the woman is terrified that this pristine, sterile way of life - a prison of their own choosing - is about to be snatched away from them.
Falk’s satire of a supposed utopian existence provides no solutions, but Geraldine Alexander’s immaculate, taut, probing wife and Jonathan Cullen’s weary husband, slipping away into narcoleptic oblivion, are both excellent, powerfully conveying the trapped tension that wealth and elitism can unintentionally create.

Gate, Pembridge Road W11 (020-7229 0706). Until December 13 £16

Imagine This *** TNT

This new musical features not one but two horrific episodes in the history of the Jewish people – but it does so with such banal lyrics that the emotions it intends to rouse are dulled.
Initially, I thought I might have mistakenly wandered into the opening night of Carousel as we are introduced to the Warshowsky family, a troupe of Polish actors enjoying a last carefree evening at the fairground before being herded into the starkly contrasting Warsaw Ghetto. Later, there’s a hint of The Sound of Music as they perform what is intended to be an inspirational musical for their fellow internees on the eve of transportation, in 1942, to the extermination camp of Treblinka. And, with his jokey addresses to the audience, Peter Polycarpou’s impressive and resolutely dignified Daniel invokes memories of Fiddler on the Roof.
There’s one intensely moving sequence (the slow-motion mass suicide of the Jewish community atop Masada in 70 AD, which forms part of the play within a play structure), and cruel killings emphasise the callous brutality of both the Nazi regime and of the Romans centuries earlier.
But although the actors sing their hearts out (beautifully, defiantly), clunky choreography and a parallel pair of uninspiring love stories only serve to emphasise how much this Holocaust musical relies on imitating the style of a host of other familiar (and better) West End successes.

New London, Drury Lane, WC2 (0844-412 4654). Booking until February 28. £60 - £17.50

Blowing Whistles *** TNT

Matthew Todd’s amusing but sad comedy is both a reminder of how much things have changed for gay men in the last few decades and also a warning that there are still people out there whose negative attitudes are way out of date. But there are problems, too, within the community and Jamie isn’t very enthusiastic when, on the evening before Gay Pride, his partner (37-year-old PR man Nigel) picks 17-year-old Mark (aka Cumboy17) from the Gaydar website as joint treat for their 10th anniversary celebration.

As Mark attempts to turn the encounter into more than a one-night orgy, Jamie is pushed into realising the extent to which Nigel’s lifestyle excesses and casual encounters are hurting him, and Todd’s pretty explicit play delves into deeper than expected waters.

It doesn’t always flow, with issues being raised but never fully explored, but Stuart Laing’s Nigel preens convincingly in his fight to fend off impending middle age, and Paul Keating ensures that Jamie comes across as a three-dimensional character as he struggles against unanticipated temptation.

Leicester Square Theatre, Leicester Pl, WC2 (0844-847 2475). Until November 29. £25

I Caught Crabs At Walberswick *** TNT

Hormones rage and a teenage friendship is tested in Joel Horwood’s lively new comedy set in Suffolk, where sleepy Walberswick really does host a crab-catching competition. Despite its memorable title, it’s more a question of who might get the girl when posh, super-fit Dani (a definite “10”) hooks up with middle-class Wheeler and his best mate Fitz on the eve of their Biology GCSE exam. Their futures are thrown into jeopardy as they get high on booze and drugs during an evening which gets progressively out of control, until they’re pushed into facing up to the way their lives are likely to go.
Lucy Kerbel’s swift 70 minute production is both funny and touching, with the adults -two unhappy single parents (one taking refuge in the fantasy flights of aircraft simulation games, the other an ineffectual artist) and a bickering long-married couple - still as confused about the world as their 16-year-old offspring.

Bush Theatre, Shepherd’s Bush Green, W12 (020-8743 5050). Until December 6. £13-£15

THE WALWORTH FARCE Cottesloe This Is London

Much as I admired the speed and technical proficiency of the acting in Druid theatre company's production of Enda Walsh's black comedy, I just couldn't warm to the relentlessly manic pace which rarely let up for over two hours. But what fails to tickle one person's funny bone works a treat on another's – the lady seated in front of me clearly relished every frenetic moment of this violent farce with its shades of Orton and Synge, remarking to her companion at half time that surely it couldn't be the interval already.
Set in the shabby, high-rise Elephant and Castle flat of Irish immigrant Dinny and his two sons, it takes us through the fictionalised scenario which he compels them to enact every day, reliving (with fanciful embellishments) the circumstances which forced him to flee his native Ireland and hide himself away imprisoned behind their locked front door. Sean (Tadhg Murphy), his head partially shaved to mimic the receding hairline of one of the characters he's made to play, has at least managed to make some contact with the outside world – making a daily trip to Tesco to purchase the never-changing shopping involved in their daily ritual. But this particular morning things don't go according to plan when he mistakenly picks up the wrong plastic bag and returns
without a chicken.
Denis Conway is superb as Dinny, controlling, apoplectic and secretly running scared from an awful truth, whilst Garrett Lombard's damaged Blake (dressed up in women's clothes and a succession of wigs) is equally disturbed and potentially dangerous, his naturally deep voice coming as a shock after the fluting high-pitched tones he adopts to play his own mother.
But it is left to Mercy Ojelade's well intentioned Hayley (walking unsuspectingly into the distorted ceremony of their everyday lives and forced to participate in their grotesque game playing) to bring the only note of normality and a brief slowing of pace to this brutal, very Irish play which Mikel Murfi directs with an assured hand.
Louise Kingsley

Delirium ** TNT

Enda Walsh’s updated reworking of Dostoevsky’s classic The Brothers Karamazov certainly lives up to its new title with its frantic, overemphatic relentlessness. Even if, like me, you haven’t read the novel, it doesn’t take long to work out the personalities of the three brothers and Fyodor, their dissolute dad, though the servant Smerdyakov (his illegitimate son) proves more difficult to pin down.

The jealous rivalry between Fyodor and Mitya (his profligate, debt-ridden eldest) over cabaret singer Grushenka, and Mitya’s treatment of his fiancée Katerina are clearly expounded, and there’s the occasional arresting moment. For the most part, however, the complex theological and philosophical debates are submerged in Theatre O’s hectic, very physical production which turns a priest into a sock puppet and takes place primarily in a night club.

His style will appeal to some, but for the second time in as many months, I emerged from a Walsh play about a dysfunctional family alienated from the characters, exhausted by the sheer frenzy, and (in this case) feeling as though I’d been repeatedly bludgeoned about the head with the weight - if not the insight - of the 1000 page original.

Pit at the Barbican Silk St, EC2 (020-7638 8891). Until November 22. £12

Rue Magique *** TNT

Despite the name, don’t expect to see a charming pre-Xmas fairytale for children. This new musical by psychotherapist Brett Kahr (his first) and director Lisa Forrell encompasses some tough topics – homelessness, drug abuse and, primarily, child prostitution. Instead of an evil stepmom, we get Desdemona, the deeply disturbed Madam of a South London brothel who won’t leave the house, has a pathological horror of dirt and mess, and views her reluctant 13 year old daughter Sugar as profit-making merchandise.

Melanie La Barrie’s Desdemona delivers a couple of powerful numbers and, away from the whorehouse, it’s upsetting to see Nadia Di Mambro’s abused Sugar shy away from the gentle kiss of well-meaning local lad Rem who works in the corner shop. The ultimate intentions of this show are obviously serious, but with far and away the best song (The Viper’s Tale) given to a sad trio of fat, masochistic and gay punters, the emotional balance tips too far into the comic, and the writing isn’t always quite punchy or sophisticated enough to get the traumatic message over with the credibility it deserves.

Kings Head Theatre, Upper St, NI (0844-412 2953). Until December 7. £20- £25 (concessions available

Rank *** TNT

One of the first rules of being a theatre critic is: 'Don't be late'. When a police diversion turned a 30-minute journey into a 90-minute gridlock, however, there wasn’t much I could do except sneak a quick interval catch-up with a copy of the script. Luckily, though, the discursive nature of the first scene meant that it didn’t take long before Fishamble’s entertaining production of Robert Massey’s new comic thriller had sucked me into the world of unpaid debts, shady dealings and Dublin taxi drivers., a world where women (or the absence of them) are an unseen but influential presence.
Once a teacher, now earning a living behind the wheel, vegetarian Carl’s weight has spiralled out-of-control along with his gambling habit since the death of his wife. He owes thousands, but it’s casino owner and violent gangster Jack (Bryan Murray) who’s the most immediate problem. He wants his money and he wants it now.
There are good performances all round as Carl’s taxi-driving mates, (Eamonn Hunt as his reformed father-in-law George, who has stocked up on a lifetime’s supply of special offer loo rolls, John Lynn as the aptly named ‘Two in the Bush’ who just doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut and his trousers zipped), prove their solidarity and pay Jack and his dim-witted, cricket-bat wielding son Fred (Luke Griffin) a conciliatory visit.
The writing could be more focussed, but the rambling dialogue, which often seems to go off at a tangent, rather suits this depiction of characters in serious danger of completely losing their way.

Tricycle, Kilburn High Rd, NW6 (020-7328 1000). Until November 29. £10-£20

Lucky Seven *** TNT

Back in 1963, young researcher Michael Apted was involved in a TV documentary featuring fourteen seven-year-olds being asked about their views and aspirations. Thanks to him, what was intended as a one off programme became a seven-yearly event. 49 Up (involving as many of the original interviewees as were prepared to participate) was screened in 2005, and 56 Up is already planned to follow.
Alexis Zegerman’s mildly entertaining new comedy places just a trio of fictional characters in the same scenario, but begins at the end and finishes at the beginning of the process, with frequent flashbacks to their 21 and 42 year old selves. Like its TV inspiration, it charts the changes the intervening years have wrought and shows how (though some things can be modified by life’s unexpected knocks and unanticipated blessings) fundamentally their basic personalities have barely changed in over four decades.
Zegerman writes some witty lines and highlights the effect living under public scrutiny (even if only intermittently) can have, and the cast do an excellent job switching between ages. But, with just three characters (working class Jewish Eastender Alan with a once flourishing knicker manufacturing business, depressive middleclass archivist Tom, and posh, blonde, saddened Catherine) this stage replica fights to sustain a credible plot line and proves only a shadow of the fascinating TV original.

Hampstead Theatre, Eton Ave, NW3 (020-7722 9301). Until November 22. £15-£25 (under 26s £10)

STRINDBERG’S ‘CREDITORS’ -
AT THE DONMAR - This Is London

Written in the same year as his more frequently performed ‘Miss Julie’, Strindberg's 1888 drama is also an intimate triangle laying bare the potentially destructive power of sex. It's a more streamlined affair, filled with resentment and recrimination, which shows men and women at their worst - selfish, cruel and unforgiving. David Greig's new version comes across all the more powerfully for being played out on the isolation of Ben Stones' bleached-out, wood-panelled hotel room, surrounded by water.
Tom Burke's Adolph, a successful but now mentally tormented and physically infirm young painter, is an easy target for Owen Teale's Gustav. He takes control from the moment he enters the room, raising the blinds to let in the light and a different perspective, and it's soon apparent that he has a deeper, more personal agenda than Adolph realises.
It's just the kind of role that Alan Rickman would play to perfection, but on this occasion he's directing rather than performing, and Teale does an excellent job of conveying the determined restraint of a damaged man intent on vengeance and on calling in an emotional debt. Though seeming to offer Adolph salvation, his advice - including sexual abstinence - is calculated to have the opposite effect.
Anna Chancellor's novelist Tekla completes the trio. Older than her current husband Adolph (whom she treats as more playmate than partner), younger than Gustav, she craves reassurance that she still has the power to attract. All three suffer, and Rickman's fine, intense production brings out all the vituperative interdependence which typifies Strindberg's embittered view of marriage.
Louise Kingsley

No Man's Land **** TNT

This is a very classy revival of Harold Pinter’s very enigmatic 1970s play. Rupert Goold’s strongly-cast production takes place in the sumptuous Hampstead home of Michael Gambon’s Hirst, a wealthy man of letters. The room is dominated by an extensive bar which screams indulgent opulence and pushes his extensive book collection far into the background.
After a chance encounter on Hampstead Heath (an area long notorious for anonymous gay pickups, though nothing is made explicit and Spooner himself confirms that he is long past that sort of thing) he has invited back David Bradley’s wheedling, down-at-heel Spooner, an unsuccessful writer dressed in the sort of clothes a scarecrow would reject.

Until the interval, a facially crumpled Gambon (Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films) says very little – though his dull, inebriated befuddlement speaks of a deep despair. It’s only later that, temporarily, he reappears transformed – bright, alert and back in control as he informs Spooner that he had a longstanding affair with his wife. Or did he?

It’s that sort of play – nothing is made clear, and consequently the main pleasure of the evening comes from small, telling moments and the strength of the individual performances – with Hirst’s servants (Little Britain's David Walliams slick, camp Foster, and Nick Dunning’s menacing, cockney Briggs) completing the quartet of players in this bleak power game.

Duke of York’s, St Martin’s Lane, WC2 (0870-060 6623). Until january 3. £15-£47.50

Faces In The Crowd *** TNT

A transformative design turns the theatre’s smaller studio space into 44-year-old Dave’s minimalist, one-bedroom Shoreditch flat in Leo Butler’s intense two-hander. The stage becomes a cross between a floor plan and a real apartment – solid external walls enclose the set, but the internal partitions are taped lines on the floor, the doors merely frames. Peering uncomfortably over the parapet, the audience becomes voyeurs as Dave and his estranged wife Joanne tear each other and themselves to emotional, recriminatory bits.

Initially, the nature of the transaction which is about to unfold is ambiguous – though sex is undoubtedly in the air. Once their relationship becomes clear – he walked out on her, Sheffield and their debts a decade ago, she’s tracked him down and wants him to father a baby – Butler tries too hard to forge links between their current predicament and the legacy of capitalist Britain.

But, as insults are hurled and festering hurts come painfully to the surface the actors are faultless. Amanda Drew as Joanne (her biological clock ticking deafeningly as she nears her 40th birthday) and Con O’Neill as Dave (with his unseen young girlfriend, plasma screen and recipes from the Guardian) give brave, bare, no-holds barred performances which draw you, briefly, into their unfulfilled lives.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until November 8. £10-£15

In The Red And Brown Water *** & The Brothers Size **** - TNT

Young American playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney scored a huge critical hit last year with The Brothers Size – a simply staged three-hander played out within the confines of a chalk circle and with an unobtrusive musician tucked away in a corner. Now Bijan Sheibani’s powerful production is back with a completely new cast but the same intensity that made it so memorable first time round.
Tunji Kasim and Daniel Francis are first rate as the two black Louisiana brothers – work-shy ex-jailbird Oshoosi Size and the older Ogun, an industrious car mechanic who once loved the unseen Oya. But it’s the relationship between the siblings – and the unsettling presence of Oshoosi’s former cellmate Elegba – which forms the core of this small scale drama, influenced by Yoruba mythology, in which the characters speak not only the colloquial, sometimes poetic dialogue, but also their own stage directions.
Though both plays are completely self-contained, Ogun (now a stuttering Javone Prince) and Elegba (cheeky John MacMillan) also appear in In the Red and Brown Water, a far more ambitious undertaking which focuses on Oya.
Walter Meierjohann’s production floods the main stage with several inches of water and the audience sits round like poolside watchers. The slosh and swish of water seems in some ways a strange accompaniment to the story of a girl who could run like the wind, but it adds poignancy (when her running shoes float, abandoned on the dark surface) and a dangerous sensuality (to a late night party).
Ony Uhiara is excellent as the athletic but barren Oya, Ashley Walters (formerly of So Solid Crew) is on convincingly swaggering form as Shango, the young man she can’t resist, and once again McCraney shows that his is a distinctive voice well worth listening to.
Young Vic, The Cut – The Brothers Size – Maria Theatre, £17.50. In the Red And Brown Water – Main Stage, £22.50. Until November 8.

The Norman Conquests ***** - TNT

Forget 1066 and the battle of Hastings, the conquests going on in Alan Ayckbourn’s clever and immensely enjoyable trilogy which dates from 1973 are of a far more intimate nature. Set in a Sussex country house over the course of a single sunny weekend, they can be seen singly or in any order, but much of the fun – and the sadness - comes from seeing events unfold from different perspectives. Table Manners takes place in the dining room, Living Together in the sitting room and Round and Round the Garden speaks for itself. Some of the action overlaps, some is consecutive, but at the centre of it all is assistant librarian Norman’s doomed plan to spend a clandestine weekend away with Annie – who just happens to be the sister of his workaholic wife, Ruth.
Single Annie can’t leave their unseen, bedridden mother unattended, so has summoned her brother Reg and sister-in-law Sarah to hold the fort in her absence - without, of course, explaining the exact nature of her intended break. And then there’s Tom (Ben Miles) the hesitant, irredeemably slow on the uptake, local vet who’s been subjecting Annie’s cat to all sorts of indignities just so that he can pop over to see her.
Things rapidly start to unravel as jealousies flare, marital irritability escalates, and siblings squabble. Ayckbourn is a brilliant observer of human foibles and Matthew Warchus’s excellent, superbly acted revival, played out in the round in a reconfigured auditorium, proves a triple treat. Stephen Mangan’s infuriating, woolly-hatted Norman (legless on dandelion wine but somehow managing to attract all the women), Jessica Hynes’ sad Annie in her shapeless clothes, Amanda Root’s bossy, interfering Sarah and, best of all, Paul Ritter’s nerdy estate agent Reg with his homemade games ( and peerless comic timing) make this an event to savour.

Old Vic, The Cut, SE1 (0870-060 6628). Until December 20. £10-£45 (concessions available)

Flamenco Flamen'ka ** - TNT

Two brothers fall in love with the same woman and the result is tragedy in this dance drama based on The Intruder, a short story by the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges.
The set – an alcoved Spanish square – is attractive, but the tale of prostitute Juliana and the jealous siblings proves disappointingly banal with its mix and match choice of music which breaks the atmosphere created by flashing knives, ferociously stamping heels and smouldering sexual resentment.
Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood directs a production which was originally conceived by Karen Ruimy, but lets her get away with a handful of averagely sung songs and (when she steps outside her role as the madam of the bordello) some irredeemably dire dialogue.
The show takes itself far too seriously to sustain such a flimsily developed and muddled storyline, and it’s left to Francisco Hidalgo and Manuel Gutierrez Cabello, almost driven apart by their shameful desire, to demonstrate just how dangerously seductive flamenco - and brotherly love - can be.

Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue W1 (0870-040 0081). November 15. £21- £50.50

Mine **** - TNT

Having it all proves unexpectedly problematic for an unnamed Man and Woman with the ideal home, glamorous careers and more money than they need when they eventually take home the baby they’ve been awaiting for a long, long time. Unable to have children themselves, they’ve finally reached the top of the list to foster with a view to adoption.
Life should be perfect, but the tiny mite comes with baggage – a mother who drinks, takes drugs and sells herself to pay for her habit. But she also has a heartfelt determination to prove that she can turn things round and win her baby back.
Polly Teale’s new play, which she directs herself, incorporates Shared Experience theatre company’s trademark integration of physicality and text to contrast two very different lifestyles, revealing the cracks and insecurities beneath apparent perfection as well as the guilt which can be born from the best intentions.
Well-acted and atmospheric, her production (played out against fluid video projections, watery as a womb) gives added poignancy to an emotionally complex, if not unfamiliar, situation in which the answers are not always clear cut.

Hampstead, Eton Ave, NW3. 020 7722 9301. October 25. £25-£15

Girl with a Pearl Earring *** - TNT

Though occasionally lovely to look at, this undistinguished adaptation of novelist Tracy Chevalier’s fictional account of the inspiration behind Vermeer’s enigmatic painting is a slow-moving affair which never really justifies its transition from page to stage. Told in flashback – and with each character briefly given the opportunity to address the audience directly - it follows the arrival of new servant girl, Griet, in a household full of children but short of money. She immediately captivates the men and alienates the women, and ends up sitting, secretly, for the Delft artist.
Niall Buggy overplays Vermeer’s crudely lascivious patron, whilst Sara Kestelman gives a subtly commanding performance as his shrewdly practical mother-in-law. Kimberley Nixon invests Griet with a sweet innocence (in contrast to Scarlett Johansson’s latent sensuality in the screen version).
But ultimately it’s hard to summon much enthusiasm when the piercing of a young girl’s ear (no matter how symbolic) is the climax of an otherwise prosaic evening.

Theatre Royal Haymarket, Haymarket, SW1 (0845-481 1870 (with booking fee). Until October 18. £17.50 -£45.00 (some day seats at £20))

Radio Golf *** - TNT

August Wilson died in 2005, so this will be the last in his series of ten plays charting the African American experience over each decade of the 20th century, and the sixth to receive its British premiere at this address. It takes us to 1997 and into the new office of Harmond Wilks (a Pittsburgh realtor who aims to be the first black mayor of Pittsburgh) and his businesspartner Roosevelt Hicks (a smooth operating bank Vice President whose love of golf is boosted by the belief that the best place to come to a business understanding is on the course). Smart, educated, wealthy, these two highfliers have made it in a white-dominated world and are at the fore of a multimillion pound project to redevelop the run down Hills District (where Wilson himself was brought up).
Wilson is suspicious of the cost of this success, and whilst (despite his ambition) Danny Sapani’s Harmond listens to his conscience, Roger Griffiths’ Roosevelt has no qualms about trampling over his roots if there’s money to be made. Far more sympathetic is the portrayal of the disadvantaged blacks who seem to treat the office as a local drop-in centre - Joseph Marcell’s deliciously cheeky Elder Joseph Barlow whose refusal to abandon his ramshackle, repossessed house jeopardises the rejuvenation plans, and Ray Shell’s shady Sterling, who never had his old schoolmate Harmond’s advantages but nevertheless sees the basic truth with the clear eye of common sense.
These two characters do much to galvanise a slow-starting, somewhat longwinded evening. But if Wilson’s exposition is sometimes awkward, his message still deserves to be heard.

Tricycle, Kilburn High Rd, NW6 (020-7328 1000). Until November 1. £10-£20

Riflemind ** - TNT

There’s nothing wrong with most of the acting in this collaboration with Sydney Theatre Company, but Andrew Upton’s portrayal of a once successful rock band contemplating a comeback takes an awfully long time to make much impact.
It’s hard to care whether clean living composer and ex frontman John (John Hannah) or his yoga-obsessed wife (Susan Prior) will lapse into a destructive drink and drugs lifestyle when the other former members arrive for a weekend of jamming, recrimination, and argument about a mooted world tour.
Director Philip Seymour Hoffman does his best to inject atmosphere into a predictable scenario, and things improve after the interval, but even Paul Hilton (excellent as heroin-addicted bassist Phil) can’t salvage this attempt to resurrect and relive the past.

Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, SW1 (0870-060 6632). Until January 3. Tickets £25-£45

The Girlfriend Experience **** TNT

You wouldn’t normally expect to see the cast wearing headphones in an otherwise naturalistic play, but playwright Alecky Blythe uses the “recorded delivery” technique to let us eavesdrop on a form of prostitution which rarely hits the headlines. From hours of audio material, she has selected a sequence of minor episodes, and the taped words of the women whose world she was allowed to enter are played to the actors who replicate them on stage, complete with all the pauses and repetitions of everyday speech.

I’m not sure that (once the production is rehearsed and ready) this way of working adds much to the experience, but you soon forget the method and ignore the headsets as Tessa (a Gothic ex-dominatrix) and her three co-workers lounge around in her Bournemouth flat, waiting for the next punter to ring the basement doorbell for forty quid’s worth of massage and hand relief, or fork out an extra twenty for half an hour and the full works.

What comes across most in this warm and witty portrayal is the very ordinariness of these self-employed, suburban women who offer a kiss and a cuddle along with gratification, before going home in the evening to take care of an ailing father, a teenage daughter or a husband. Verging on (or well into) middle age, with big boobs and bodies that could at best be described as “comfortable,” they still long for real romance whilst maintaining that what they do is just a job like working in a supermarket.
Debbie Chazen, Beatie Edney, Lu Corfield and Esther Coles give brave, sympathetic performances in their black lingerie and Alex Lowe, always glimpsed through a doorway, manages to invest their clients – the creepy, the sad, the obnoxious and the simply horny – with considerable individuality.

Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, Sloane Square, SW1 (020-7565 5000). October 11. £15 (£10 on Monday)

Ivanov **** - TNT

From Christopher Oram’s subtly atmospheric set to the bitter wit of Tom Stoppard’s colloquial new version, Michael Grandage’s production of Chekhov’s tragi-comedy proves a resounding success. The eponymous landowner at the centre of this comparatively rarely revived early play is a callous, self-loathing and selfish creation whom Kenneth Branagh endows with all the despair of a man on the verge of financial and emotional meltdown, too obsessed with his failing farm and the attentions of a pretty young neighbour to behave halfway decently towards the dying wife (Gina McKee) he no longer loves.
But this is also an ensemble piece in which Lorcan Cranitch’s scheming estate manager, Kevin R.McNally’s affable Lebedev and Malcolm Sinclair’s cynical old uncle make a vodka-fuelled contrast to Tom Hiddleston’s principled but unattractively priggish young doctor.

Wyndhams, Charing Cross Rd, WC2 (0844-482 5120). Until November 29. £10-£32.50

in-i ** - TNT

Combining the talents of a world famous French actress and an equally respected performer from the world of ballet might sound like the foundation for a fascinating collaboration, but the result proves patchy.

As part of the European Culture Season, Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan have put together several short scenes using words and movement to investigate the nature of love. They begin with Binoche recounting how, as a teenager, she spotted a man at the cinema and stalked him until they became lovers. There’s an amusing (but over-extended) segment in which passion gives way to the practicalities of living together and the state of the toilet seat becomes a matter of contention.

But there’s more tempestuousness than humour, and the choreography often verges on the violent as the colours of the flat encroaching wall, designed by Anish Kapoor, mutate. Khan delivers his spoken lines with intensity, and one can’t help but admire the agility and stamina of the forty-something Binoche as she throws herself into the dance moves. But, even at just over an hour long, this experiment becomes repetitive and the uneasy mix of tone never goes deep enough to enlighten.

Lyttelton at the National, South Bank, SE1 (020-7452 3000). Until October 20. £10-£41

Now Or Later **** TNT

Prince Harry caused a ruckus several years back by sporting a swastika at a fancy-dress party. Christopher Shinn’s timely play imagines what might happen if the gay son of the Democrat President-elect made a similar (but in this case calculated) faux pas by dressing up as Muhammad and refusing to apologise.
Set in the anonymity of a Southern hotel room, Dominic Cooke’s convincing production is both intelligent and thought provoking as it explores issues of freedom of speech and intolerance. Eddie Redmayne exudes damaged sensitivity as the Ivy League student, determined to preserve his private autonomy, and Matthew Marsh is calculatingly effective as it becomes clear the principles that helped him get to power now lie somewhere between hypocrisy and compromise.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Sq, SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until November 1. £10-£25

LOUISE KINGSLEY

... SOME TRACE OF HER - This is London

Inspired by the book, created on stage and projected on screen, director Katie Mitchell's 90 minute distillation of Dostoevsky's novel ‘The Idiot’ requires as much concentration on the part of the audience as it does from the actors. Deploying techniques similar to those she used in her adaptation of Virginia Woolf's ‘The Waves’ a couple of years back, it proves fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.
The set resembles a recording studio in which the cast scurries about creating small scale effects - the bumpy sway of a train journey, the view through a window streaming with rain - which are simultaneously shown on the large overhead screen where, convincingly, they take on the brooding appearance of an old black and white film. So far, so impressive. But if, like me, you haven't read the original, the disjointed fragments render both the narrative and the characters' motivation hard to follow. As a result, this multimedia hybrid feels more of an atmospheric exercise than the story of a doomed love triangle.

That said, it's still rewarding to see Mitchell pushing the boundaries and to witness the multitasking cast (led by Ben Whishaw's smitten, epileptic Prince Myshkin and Hattie Morahan's intense damaged beauty Nastasya Filippovna) create a mini art house movie before our eyes.
Cottesloe Theatre.
Louise Kingsley

Turandot - TNT

Still unfinished when he died in 1956, Brecht's last play has, apparently, never been performed in this country before. Though intermittently entertaining, it's not one of his best.

It begins in pantomime fashion with Gerard Murphy's rotund Emperor of China (petulant as an outsize baby in silk undies) threatening, as he does at regular intervals, to abdicate. But there's a dark side to his corrupt rule. Having secretly removed a sizeable proportion of the cotton crop, he and his court find themselves unable to explain to the people why, in a bumper year, prices are so high. Turning to the intellectuals to come up with a solution, the Emperor offers his daughter Turandot (an empty-headed little cutie who goes weak at the knees at the merest suggestion of a brain) as the prize. Failure means decapitation.

Brecht mocks these professional thinkers who sell their opinions in the market place, as well as satirising those in power. But despite the efforts of translator Edward Kemp and director Anthony Clark, it's often an unfocussed and uninvolving event which is unlikely to leave a lasting impression.

Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 (020-7722 9301). Until October 4. £25-£15 (£10 for under 26s).

Well - TNT

Although the focus tends to go somewhat fuzzy towards the end, I rather warmed to American Lisa Kron's short and surely autobiographical play, thanks in no small measure to an engagingly sympathetic performance from Natalie Casey as a younger Lisa.

With a mixture of affection and exasperation which will ring a bell with many daughters, Lisa tries to unravel the process by which she herself managed to become well, whilst Ann (apart from one brief period when she tackled the racial ills of a whole neighbourhood) has remained crippled by debilitating allergies for as long as she can remember. Armed with prompt cards, she attempts to orchestrate a "multi character theatrical exploration" of illness and wellness. But events aren't completely under her control as, in the way mothers do, Ann fussily interrupts the proceedings to offer hospitality and suggest corrections, and the quartet of hired actors (all excellent) not only slip out of their roles as neighbours, doctors and fellow allergy suffers but also appear as characters she really doesn't want to include.

Quirky and unusual, Eve Leigh's playful production is full of little surprises and gentle humour, and in the intimacy of this tiny studio space, it's easy to believe that we really are guests invited into the Kron's living room where Sarah Miles' chronically fatigued Ann spends her days wrapped cosily in a blanket.

Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1 (0870-060 6632). Until September 27. £22.50 (£15 Mondays).

Eurobeat -TNT

Some shows are simply beyond criticism and this brash spoof on a 50-year-old institution, the Eurovision song contest, fits firmly into that category. Camper than camp, Eurobeat hits London (via Australia and Edinburgh) in an extended form in which Bosnian hosts Boyka (all teeth and yapping Chihuahua laugh) and Sergei (gold lamé suit and wonky toupee) grin and innuendo their way through the links between 10 international competitors including Russia's KGBoyz and Iceland's weird Björk-like offering.

The costumes are tight and ready to be stripped off, the dialogue banal. But this deliberately trashy show knows its market — so, if you're just out for a good time, grab your mates and your mobile, and get voting.

Novello Theatre, Aldwych, WC2 (0844-482 5170). Until November 15. £10-£42.50.

Joan Rivers - A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress -TNT

For a woman who's become almost as famous for the work done on her face as the work she's done on the screen, Joan Rivers proves remarkably candid about the unwanted aspects of aging. She makes no secret of the fact that she's 75 – or that without a bra she'd probably trip over her tits. Okay, that's obviously a bit of an exaggeration – her clothed body (no doubt with considerable cosmetic help) seems in pretty good nick even for someone half her age. But Rivers is no shrinking violet, and she's not shy about revealing a more vulnerable side either – talking about the suicide of her husband over 20 years ago brings her close to tears, and her never resolved estrangement from fellow TV host Johnny Carson still rankles. At least she's back on good terms with her only daughter, Melissa.

The biographical information doesn't yield many new surprises – but you just have to admire the woman's spirit and determination. Love her or loathe her, she's feisty and funny, and although her new bitchily confessional show(set in her dressing room on Oscar night just before she's due to conduct the red-carpet interviews and in which she's joined by 3 other actors who, to be honest, do very little for most of the time) could do with a bit of cutting, there's enough crude humour and sheer bloody mindedness to keep her fans more than happy. She may not be able to completely hold back the years, but she's a survivor who certainly still knows how to play an audience.

Leicester Square Theatre, Leicester Place, WC2. (0844-847 2475). Currently until September 18. Returns December 2-23 and January 15-29. £47.50-£35

365 - TNT

There are no facts or figures in David Harrower's collaborative new play for the National Theatre of Scotland – the programme fills in the disturbing details. Instead what he gives us is a sometimes dreamlike, sometimes all too real insight into what it can be like for the many teenagers who leave the sheltered environment of institutionalised residential and foster care for the interim arrangement of a 'practice flat'. In this half way house environment, these often damaged kids have to learn how to cope with severely limited financial, practical and emotional support before they are expected to stand entirely on their own two feet.

One gangly youth doesn't know how to plug in a toaster, but wants to be a chef; a young girl can't free herself from the traumatic legacy of being abandoned by her mother, with only a packet of cereal, when she was just four years old; three other youngsters are trapped in a once comforting, now abusive, interdependency.

There are no complete stories. Instead director Vicky Featherstone's moving production combines compelling performances with music, movement and clever design to create a montage of pain, humour and, against the odds, hope for a better future.

Lyric Hammersmith, King Street, Hammersmith, W6 (0871-221 1722). Until September 27. £10-£27

PIAF at the Donmar - This is London

Pam Gems’ reworking of her 1978 account of the life of Edith Piaf

whizzes through her 47 years in not much more than 90 minutes.

The French chanteuse from the gutter started performing on the

streets and went on to make and lose a fortune, thrilling audiences

from the cafés of Paris to the concert halls of New York.

Diminutive Brazilian actress Elena
Roger (recently a first-rate Evita) makes
for perfect physical casting as the tiny
songstress in a simple black dress who
was nicknamed the ‘Little Sparrow’.
When she sings, she almost captures
the heartrending emotion behind the
songs of lost love and vulnerability,
though her accent occasionally muffles
the impact of the spoken dialogue.
Whilst never probing too deeply
below the surface, the kaleidoscope of
short scenes mimic Piaf’s whirlwind life
of handsome young lovers (it’s hard to
keep track) and chart her declining
health, exacerbated by a string of
crippling car crashes and an addiction to
booze and morphine.
More essence than analysis, it
provides a welcome opportunity to hear
those unforgettable songs – including
La Vie En Rose, and, of course, the
defiant Non, je ne regrette rien – and
Jamie Lloyd’s spartan production, played
out against Soutra Gilmour’s drab, grey
unwelcoming set has, appropriately, the
swift, thrusting force and lack of
intimacy of one of Piaf’s seedy,
backstreet encounters.
Louise Kingsley

Zorro: The Musical - TNT

Matt Rawle makes a rather baby-faced hero in this enjoyable new musical about the fictional 19th-century masked crusader, but there's no shortage of swashbuckling antics and clever effects in this vibrant musical which knows not to take itself too seriously.

The chorus of female flamenco dancers wails piteously and stamps ferociously when the menfolk are sentenced to death by Adam Levy's despotic Ramon, and Lesli Margherita's Inez is a siren with a temper and a decent heart. By comparison, Emma Williams' sweet-voiced Luisa seems a pallid rival for Zorro's affections. But with its sword fights, abseiling and catchy Gipsy Kings' tunes, this looks like a hot summer hit which will still be heating up the winter months.

Garrick Theatre, Charing Cross Rd, WC2 (www.garrick-theatre.com; 0844-412 4662). Until September 12 2009. £25-£60

Twelfth Night- TNT

Even though it heavily indulges the musical moments of Shakespeare's dark-tinged comedy, Filter's anarchic production is all over in a bare 85 minutes of misplaced love, drunken revels and electronic music-making. The bare bones and essence of the original are very much in evidence, but this joyous interpretation crams the story into what's staged as a free-wheeling jamming session with a complimentary slice of giant pizza — or possibly a shot of tequila – on offer for the lucky few sitting close enough to the action.

Shipwrecked Viola hides her boobs under a man's jacket requisitioned from a member of the audience, Jonathan Broadbent doubles incongruously as the lovelorn Orsino and a sozzled, back-flipping Andrew Aguecheek whilst OliverDimsdale's equally inebriated Toby Belch (the only character in doublet and hose in this modern dress version) crashes around the cable-filled set quoting from the wrong play. Meanwhile Ferdy Roberts's Malvolio parades around in crotch high yellow socks, proudly displaying his beer belly in a misguided attempt to please Olivia. Despite the clowning and red noses, the darkness is still there. True, the poetry has been sacrificed, but the cast has such a good time that it all proves irresistibly infectious fun – and laughter, after all, is surely what comedy is all about.

Tricycle, Kilburn High Road, NW6 (020-7328 1000). Until September 27. £20.00- £10

Gigi - TNT

The Open Air Theatre makes the ideal venue for this stage adaptation of Lerner & Loewe's 1958 musical movie set in turn of the century Paris. It paints a picture of an indulgent society in which men are incorrigible philanderers and women use their feminine wiles to relieve them of their wealth — before moving on to the next rich lover.

Lavishly costumed and led by twinkly eyed, lavender-suited Topol as the lascivious old Honore, a fine cast delivers the witty dialogue and catchy tunes with panache. Lisa O'Hare's Gigi transmutes attractively from tomboy to elegant young lady in love, and Millicent Martin and Linda Thorson are excellent as her practical grandmother and cynical aunt intent on grooming her for the life of a courtesan.

Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, NW1 (0844-826 4242; www.openairtheatre.org). £10-£35. Until September 13.

Dorian Gray- TNT

You'll have to queue for returns or pray for a transfer if you want to catch Matthew Bourne's latest dance drama, a dark adaption of Oscar Wilde's only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," published in 1891.

But whilst Wilde's Dorian had an ageing portrait secreted in the attic as he himself remained ever youthful, Bourne's angular, jagged, contemporary ballet creates an alternative version in which Dorian is a waiter who becomes the new face of a male perfume, "Immortal," with his image plastered on a huge billboard. Instead of by a painter, his beauty is captured by Aaron Sillis's muscular photographer in black leather, and the circle to which this bisexual Dorian's good looks gain him access isn't the high society of the upper classes but the superficially glamorous world of fashion. The hedonistic debauchery and trail of death remains, and as Richard Winsor's Dorian indulges in greater and greater excess, the only sign of a conscience is the Doppelganger which first appears after he callously watches one of his many lovers die from a drug overdose right in front of his eyes.

As one might expect from Bourne (who leapt to fame with his homoerotic "Swan Lake") characters from the novel are reimagined as the opposite sex. But then that might well have been what Wilde himself would have done had the law not forbade it. There's an overreliance on orgiastic bump and grind choreography for the chorus of hangers-on, and purists – be they balletomanes or devotees of the writer – may gripe. But, with Terry Davies' sinister percussive music and designer Lez Brotherston's revolving wall design, Bourne has created a stylised satire which, as an outsize glitterball replica of Damien Hirst's diamond encrusted skill rotates overhead, reflects on the shallow hedonism of today's culture of modern celebrity.

Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue, EC1 (0844-412 4300) Until September 14. £10 - £49

Hedda - TNT

Whether or not you're familiar with Ibsen's play, Lucy Kirkwood's contemporary adaptation of his 19th century domestic drama is well worth seeing in its own right, and director Carrie Cracknell ensures that the updating convinces.

It brings the classic bang up to date whilst still remaining true to the essence of the original – but instead of the icy fjords of Norway, we get a Notting Hill flat with unfulfilled potential. Here Hedda, just back from an extended honeymoon, is bored, discontented and itching to cause trouble when Adrian Bower's dissolute Eli reappears, apparently reformed and with his latest book kept close on the memory stick hanging round his neck.

Cara Horgan's elegantly languid, insomniac Hedda, trapped in a relationship that was bound to disappoint, has a malicious gleam in her eye as she plays dangerous games with the lives of others, and Tom Mison impresses as her decent but uninspiring husband – a young academic researching robotic ants who made the unworldly mistake of thinking that marriage to a beautiful woman would automatically bring him happiness.

Gate, Pembridge Road W11 (020-7229 0706) Until October 4. £16 (£11 concessions)

The Pretender Agenda - TNT

Christopher Manoe's workmanlike new play may not break new ground, but it's certainly a salutary warning never to mix business with pleasure or to have an affair with the man who pays your wages. In fact, it casts a pretty negative light on human nature in general as a handful of 30 somethings gather together in boss James's bachelor pad to celebrate the success of his media company.

A cast crammed with TV regulars successfully differentiates the rather too sketchily drawn characters who work for him. One can sympathise with the frustration of Sue Devaney's Gina as Robert (her wimpish partner since teenage times) fails miserably to put off Emily Aston's socially inept Kate, a gatecrashing temp who proves to be not only an obnoxious misfit but also a devious eavesdropper with an unexpectedly malicious streak. And though James flaunts his genial hospitality and gratitude to his staff, there's a self-serving selfishness not far below the surface bonhomie.

Manoe, who also directs, comes up with a handful of arresting lines and some effective comedy moments. He doesn't quite pull it all off – there's not enough plot to get your teeth into, and the production lacks momentum - but it's a serviceable attempt which, one hopes, doesn't too accurately reflect his own office experiences or the personalities of his former colleagues.

New Players, The Arches, Villiers Street, WC2 (020-7478 0135). Until September 27. £12.50-£28.50

They're Playing Our Song - TNT

Neil Simon's comedies don't always transfer too happily from Broadway to London, and this bland revival of his 1979 musical collaboration with Carole Bayer Sager and Marvin Hamlisch illustrates why. Virtually a two-hander (though each character has three identically dressed alter-egos) it charts, semi-autobiographically and somewhat predictably, the romance between Sonia, a kooky lyricist with a major punctuality problem, and Vernon, a successful composer with a withering wit.

Fresh from The Sound Of Music, reality TV-show winner Connie Fisher has an attractive voice, dreadful wigs and an ex who won't go away, but it's left to impressionist Alistair McGowan to give their relationship more neurotic depth.

Menier Chocolate Factory, 53 Southwark St, SE1 (020-7907 7060). Until September 28. £25

Tory Boyz & Out of Me - TNT

Here's your annual chance to spot an up and coming star as the National Youth Theatre celebrates over 50 years of giving hopeful actors and backstage technicians the chance to show what they can do. You may not see a future Helen Mirren or Daniel Craig (both NYT alumni) but there's definitely a host of talent on display this year.

The London season kicks off promisingly with "Tory Boyz", set mainly behind the scenes in the present day House of Commons but flitting back to the 1950's to link the dilemma of dedicated gay researcher Sam with the restrained behaviour of Edward Heath (the famously unattached Conservative who became Prime Minister in 1970).

Questioning whether Sam can afford to openly acknowledge his sexuality and still climb the greasy political pole, James Graham's thoughtful, short new play offers some sparky dialogue and the young actors - especially Hamish McDougall's troubled Heath, recoiling from any feminine touch apart from his mother's, and Dan Ings' cocky Chief of Staff with a nasty, careerist streak – deliver them with commendably convincing assurance.

The girls get their turn in Jane Body's swift-paced "Out of Me" which begins with an arresting opening sequence showing four very different young women at the very moment their lives are about to change. Cheerful florist Alice (Rosie Sansom) finds herself flat on her back among the plants and sacks of seed; Antonia Thomas's aspirational Billie thinks (mistakenly) that she has everything under control; 16 year old bluestocking Ellen (Sita Thomas) gets uncharacteristically carried away at her university interview; and Charlie Russell's good time girl, Irish Eve, meets the man of her dreams – but only after she's become pregnant by someone else.

In short sharp, often overlapping scenes, their unwanted pregnancies progress from conception, through denial and the realisation that, one way or another, a choice has to be made. Funny, touching (and again performed to a very high standard) this new play with music – and its silent men hovering in the background - shows that even when abortion is legal, the decision to terminate is rarely an easy one.

Soho Theatre, Dean Street, W1 (020-7478 0100). In rep until Sep 13/ Sept 9. £20-£22.50

Her Naked Skin - TNT

It's shocking to realise that this is the first new play by a woman to occupy the Olivier, but far more so to witness the appalling indignities hunger-striking suffragettes endured in prison (including force-feeding by nasal tube) in their fight to obtain something that most of us now take for granted.

Playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz brings together various individuals — a titled lady (Lesley Manville) who refuses to listen to the pleas of her perplexed husband to give up the cause, a working class machinist (Jemima Rooper) with whom she embarks on an affair, and Susan Engel's indomitable, elderly Flo who has devoted her life to gaining the vote — to convey with wit, sympathy and even-handed clarity the frustrated determination of being militant, disenfranchised and female in 1913.

Olivier, National Theatre, South Bank, SE1 (020-7452 3000; www.nationaltheatre.org.uk). Until September 24. £10-£30

Enduring Freedom - TNT

New playwright Anders Lustgarten is also a campaigning activist and the emotional aftermath of 9/11 provides fertile ground for him to examine both the personal and political implications of that horrific event as the McFarlanes wait in their New Jersey home for news of the son they will never see again.

Lustgarten movingly shows the various stages of their grief as Lisa Eichhorn's gentle Susan (a teacher) and Vincent Riotta's enraged Tom (a fire-fighter) try to come to terms with an unfathomable loss, their previously loving relationship torn apart not only by their different ways of coping but also by their political beliefs . And Fiz Marcus's Hanna brought tears to my eyes as, her own marriage abruptly ended by the collapse of the Twin Towers, she listens once again to the last missed message her husband would ever send.

The helpless incomprehension of all three is palpable as friends and relatives rally round offering support which always seems inadequate and out of tune with their needs. But then, no matter where the blame lies, neither anger nor compassion can offer much solace to grieving parents who have only a tiny identifying scrap of their son's shoulder blade – the size of a quarter - returned to them to bury.

Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10 (0844-847 1652). Until August 30. Tickets £13 (£9 Tuesdays).

Under the Blue Sky- TNT

David Eldridge's loosely linked trilogy of half-hour plays looks at what three pairs of teachers get up to once the kids have gone home, portraying them as every bit as emotionally confused as their pupils.

After years of close friendship, Helen still can't accept Nick really doesn't want anything more; having been dumped yet again, slutty Michelle finds that things turn unexpectedly nasty when she drunkenly seduces wimpish, virginal Graham; and, most memorably, an older woman (Francesca Annis) tries to persuade Nigel Lindsay's comfortingly plump, but much younger Robert to discontinue their platonic holidays.

Comic, disturbing and ultimately heart-warming, these well-acted duets from 2000 touch on broader matters, but mainly show that those who teach still have a lot to learn.

Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Ln, WC2 (0870-060 6623). Until September 20. £15-£47.50

The Shadowmaster - TNT

Director Stephanie Sinclaire's adaptation of J.M. Barrie's "Dear Brutus" proves a slight, over-extended affair which reveals several of the recurring preoccupations of the famous creator of Peter Pan. Although short, it spends too much time on inconsequentialities and doesn't go far enough in developing the possibilities it raises.

Midsummer night brings together half a dozen individuals at a country house party hosted by the mysterious Lob (whom they never meet) and his trick-playing manservant. The long-standing marriage of one couple has been destroyed by loss and drink; a young husband flits between his wife and his mistress (who happens to be her closest friend); and nothing is good enough for a haughty aristocrat. But for a single night, the appearance of a magic wood gives the guests the chance to see what their lives would have been like had they followed different paths, before they return (perhaps a little wiser) to reality.

The scenes between the adults have a forced overemphasis, but the relationship of a father (Billy Geraghty) and his little daughter (who, like Peter Pan, will never grow up) has a convincing poignancy which promises deeper, more troubling insights than this charmingly designed production ultimately delivers.

Kings Head Theatre, Upper Street, NI (0870-890 0149). Until September 7. Tickets £15- £20

West Side Story - TNT

Even half a century after its premiere, the finger-snapping opening of this marvellous musical still has the power to thrill as rival gangs, the "Polack" Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks, clash over their patch in New York's Upper West Side. Inspired by Shakespeare's classic tale of doomed young love, Romeo and Juliet, Jerome Robbins' transposition across the Atlantic and into the '50s brought together some of the big creative names on Broadway, plus a then comparatively unknown but already brilliant lyricist, Stephen Sondheim.

Despite a couple of cavils (those lyrics, always worth listening to, weren't always clear, and, at the matinee I attended, a beautifully-voiced but uncharismatic Tony dulls the romantic passion) this 50th anniversary production is a powerful treat. The choreography (reproduced from the original) is excitingly high energy with the Puerto Rican girls (led by Oneika Phillips striking Anita) vibrantly sexy in "America" and the boys showing their mettle in "Cool." Elisa Cordova makes a sweet, operatic Maria (the innocent new immigrant, sister of Shark leader Bernardo, who makes the fatal mistake of falling for former Jet Tony) and Leonard Bernstein's glorious music provides drama, comedy, romance – and the backdrop for an eerily resonant fatal knife fight.

Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue, EC1. (0870-060 6615). August 31. £60-£15. (£50-£10 Wednesday matinees)

Gone Too Far - TNT

The short runs in the Theatre Upstairs usually sell out fast, but this year the Royal Court has brought back a trio of the most popular shows and restaged them downstairs in the main auditorium. Bola Agjabe's first play is the last of these, an edgy, streetwise account of brooding black on black violence and identity conflict exposed through a series of encounters on a London estate.

Cleverly but simply staged by director Bijan Sheibani, with each scene separated by moody dance moves, it won a Laurence Olivier Award for outstanding achievement when it premiered last year as part of the Young Writers' Festival. For unaccustomed ears, the various speech patterns take a while to get used to, but it's well worth listening as belligerent, 16 year-old Yemi (Tobi Bakare) works his way to tolerance, understanding and pride in his heritage with the help of Ikudayisi (his 18 year old brother from Nigeria whose existence he's only recently found out about).

The acting is excellent – especially from Zawe Ashton's mouthy, mixed race Armani trying to stir up trouble among the boys, Bunmi Mojekwu as her sweet-natured sidekick Paris, and Tunji Lucas's likeable and culturally bemused Ikudayisi, attempting to keep the peace whilst working out where he fits into his new London home.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until August 9 (then at The Albany, SE8 Aug 14-16 & Hackney Empire, August 19-23. Tickets £25- £10

The Female of the Species - TNT


No wonder Germaine Greer was incensed by fellow Aussie Joanna Murray-Smith's portrayal of a fictional feminist writer, Margot Mason, held hostage (like Greer herself several years ago) by a disgruntled ex-student who believes Mason's writing has completely wrecked her life.
Anna Maxwell Martin's obsessive, gun-toting intruder and Margot's stressed-out housewife daughter are just two of the uninvited visitors who find their way to the academic's isolated country home and reveal the inconsistencies in her influential theorising.
Eileen Atkins is always watchable as the handcuffed author of The Cerebral Vagina, and the arrival of a bearded taxi driver adds a belated whiff of testosterone to this comic exposure of the post-feminist confusion of both sexes.
Vaudeville Theatre, WC2 (0870-040 0084). Until October 4. £27.50-£47.50

High School Musical - TNT

Arriving at the Apollo Hammersmith is rather like gate-crashing a pre-teen birthday party. The foyer is full of excited little girls waving cheerleader pompoms and ready to stay up way past their bedtime. They probably all know the story inside out, but that hardly matters - Disney's lively, cleaned-up derivative of "Grease" won't win any points for originality and the phenomenal success of the made-for-TV original is sure to guarantee an enthusiastic school holiday audience.
It's not just the plot that lacks novelty as new girl maths geek Gabriella and basketball star Troy navigate the pitfalls of continuing a holiday romance back at Albuquerque's East High, where the divide between Brainiacs and Jocks seems an insurmountable barrier. The choreography backs away from hints of freshness, too – when basketballs crash from the ceiling, the dance routine which incorporates them has barely started before it's over (surely young attention spans aren't quite that limited?)
But the colours are bright, the dialogue (though cheesily unsubtle) is delivered with the same gusto as the energetic dance numbers and I must admit to a soft spot for a couple of the minor characters - scurrying, apologetic Kelsi with her problematic new glasses and bitchy drama queen Sharpay's camp twin brother Ryan. The kids in the audience loved it with its "follow your dreams" message, but unencumbered adults would do better to head elsewhere in search of musical fulfilment.
Apollo, Hammersmith, Queen Caroline Street, W6 (0844-847 2397/0871-386 1122) Until August 31. £45-£10

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover - TNT

It's mostly fun, but to make sure you don't forget the heartbreak involved, there's a sprinkling of truly poignant episodes in this hour long show inspired by audience stories of breaking up and moving on. Most devastating of all is Claire Keelan as a young junkie about to turn hooker in a desperate effort to keep hold of her exploitative "boyfriend." Ralf Little is touching, too, as he delivers a sad little monologue counting down the seconds since the end of his relationship, and he's also suitably street in a witty rap number aimed at his two-timing girlfriend.
There's a running gag in which, over decades, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's attempts to read his bedtime book are constantly thwarted by his partner's unstoppable interruptions, plus a farmer in love with his cow and a young woman (Michelle Terry) unceremoniously dumped by text after she's spent the half the evening, immaculately groomed, waiting for her louse of a date to turn up.
Five writers and director Anthea Williams have concocted an enjoyable mix of scenes, sketches and swift one-liners and come perilously close to convincing all those singletons out there that – even when they think they may have found Mr or Miss Right – the hunt just might not prove worth the effort.
Bush Theatre, Shepherds Bush Green, W12 (020-8743 5050). Until August 9. £13

Afterlife - TNT

When Michael Frayn is on form, his plays are hard to beat for intelligence and wit. But, every so often, he comes up with a clunker. Although the National's resources succeed in dressing up this homage to extravagant impresario Max Reinhardt (1873-1943), beneath its opulent, baroque surface (and despite a fine central performance from Roger Allam) it's hard to warm to the script's intellectual games.

Reinhardt wanted to break down the boundaries between life and art, and Frayn forces parallels between his situation as an Austrian Jew by integrating rhyming chunks of Everyman (the medieval morality play that he staged annually at Salzburg). But the production repeatedly hammers home the message without illuminating the characters and the result is dramatically underpowered.

Lyttelton at the National, South Bank, SE1 (020-7452 3000). Until August 30. £10-£14.

Hangover Square - TNT

Fidelis Morgan's adaptation does an excellent job of distilling the essence of Patrick Hamilton' s dark 1941 novel – and designer Alex Marker more than matches her vision with an extraordinarily atmospheric transformation of this tiny space. Rain trickles down a sloping glass roof, a streetlamp nuzzles against the audience seating, and empty bottles clutter the ledges of dingy saloon bar, cheap Brighton hotel and sleazy lodging house as George Harvey Bone listens to the voices in his head telling him to kill failed actress Netta Longdon.

Set in Earls Court just before the outbreak of war,Gemma Fairlie's excellent production conjures a seedy world of drifting pointlessness in which the obsessed Bone hovers, humiliated, on the edge of her boozy crowd, an object of scorn who's always left to pick up the tab.The device of splitting the role of Netta between two actresses emphasises the turmoil in Bone's troubled brain and Matthew Flynn plays him with the dazed, desperate look of the borderline alcoholic, unable to distinguish between reality and his unfulfilled desires.

Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10. (0844-847 1652). Until August 2. Tickets £13 (£9 Tuesdays).

Fanshen - TNT

Full marks to the enterprising Theatredelicatessen for securing a temporary home at a central London location just a stone's throw from Oxford Circus.The building is scheduled for redevelopment and (although a smart commissionaire is still in situ in the entrance lobby) the space in which this slice of Chinese history unfolds has, appropriately, already been stripped to the floorboards. The audience sits on bare wooden benches, or hard sackcloth covered seats to watch the peasants of Long Bow village deal with the changes brought about by the overthrow of the feudal system and its replacement by what was intended to be a communist utopia.

David Hare's 1975 Brechtian style docu-drama, interesting though it is, proves pretty heavy-going as it demonstrates how the less attractive aspects of human nature (greed, corruption, the desire for vengeance) undermine the idealism behind this period of land reform from 1945 – 1949.It's all very earnest and very worthy and the cast are obviously committed. But although Hare opens a window on another culture, it proves hard to engage with so many briefly sketched characters, so many community meetings and so little actual drama.

295 Regent Street, London W1. (07708 740913). Until August 3. Tickets £12 (£10 concessions).

HARPER REGAN - This is London

In an already fragile situation, the imminent death of a parent sends 41 year old middleclass Harper right off the rails in Simon Stephens' episodic new play. In a series of often slightly bizarre encounters, it follows her as, without a word, she walks out on her family and disappears back to her Manchester roots to visit, too late, her dying father.
There's a fascinating, emotionally disjointed quality to the distinct scenes which, physically, merge fluidly into one another as Hildegard Bechtler's economical but atmospheric set glides and rotates to create yet another anonymous environment – the Uxbridge office where her disconcertingly weird boss refuses to give her compassionate leave because the timing isn't onvenient; the canal bridge on which she engages a bemused young student in conversation; a vast two-storey hotel room where she arranges to meet Brian Capron's gentlemanly stranger in search of no-strings extra-marital sex.

In the pivotal role of Harper, Lesley Sharp gives a riveting performance of desperation and troubled vulnerability as she confronts her estranged mother (Susan Brown), then imparts the truths she herself hadn't wanted to hear to her own teenage daughter (excellent Jessica Raine). And, as Harper's personal odyssey draws to an end and the strains her husband's actions have put on the whole family are acknowledged, Marianne Elliott's sympathetic, well-acted production finally suggests that her journey has, perhaps, brought them all to a more comfortable place of acceptance and a workable future.
Cottesloe Theatre.
Louise Kingsley

The Revenger's Tragedy - TNT

Melly Still's visually arresting, modern dress revival of Thomas Middleton's Jacobean tragi-comedy begins with an orgy and ends with a bloodbath. The revolving labyrinthine design and eclectic music portray a decadent Italian court, rife with corruption and lechery, where brother betrays stepbrother, bastard son gets it together with his father's new wife, and a mother is prepared to prostitute her virtuous daughter when substantial riches are on offer.
Elliot Cowan's louche Lussurioso follows in the rampant footsteps of his ducal father (Ken Bones) and, at the centre of a convoluted but clear plot, Rory Kinnear's Vindice (in disguise to avenge the murder of his betrothed and armed with her poisoned skull) rises to the challenge of being hired to kill himself.
Olivier at the National Theatre, South Bank, SE1 (020-7452 3000; www.nationaltheatre.org.uk). Until August 28. £10-£30 (part of the Travelex £10 season)

The Rake's Progress - TNT

I'm a huge fan of the multi-talented French Canadian director Robert Lepage, but (as with his muddy production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the National several years back) his brilliant creativity seems constrained whenit comes to working within the confines imposed by someone else's structure.
Based on Hogarth's series of paintings depicting the downfall of a weak-willed hedonist, Stravinsky's 1951 opera boasts a libretto co-written by the poet W.A. Auden and his lover Chester Kallman. Lepage has abandonedthe original 18th century setting and turned Tom Rakewell into a good-for-nothing spendthrift from Texas. Tempted by Nick Shadow (who emerges, slicked with oil, from his subterranean lair) Rakewell deserts the girl he supposedly loves for the glitzy fame and surface glitter that Tinseltown has to offer.
From brothel, to marriage to a bearded (and very hairy-legged) lady, to ruin and insanity, Rakewell's fate is shown (somewhat statically) on sets inspired by scenes from such mid-20th century movies as Sunset Boulevard and Giant. There are glimpses of Lepage's visual flair and imagination at work, but too often the results are disappointingly disjointed. Still, bass-baritone John Relyea makes a devilishly demonic Shadow, and (with Thomas Ades conducting) soprano Sally Matthews' rejected Anne is deeply moving as she sets out in search of her worthless beloved.
Royal Opera House Covent Garden, WC2 (020-7304 4000). In rep until July 18. Tickets £139- £6

In My Name - TNT

In what appears to be the immediate aftermath of the July 7th bombings, supermarket shelf stacker Grim is completely unconcerned about the chaos outside the messy flat he shares with new flatmate Egg. He's far morebothered about the aimless state of his life – and by Egg's edgy behaviour.
Although there's some snappy dialogue, the construction of Steven Hevey's 90 minute transfer from the Old Red Lion is ropey. After an unnecessary interval, what begins as a rather laboured comedy (with a lot of chat aboutnon-functioning mobile phones and childish board games) escalates into intense, small-scale violence. All the same, the lack of morality and muddled sense of identity of young Brits comes powerfully across, thanks in no small part to a couple of knockout performances – from Kevin Watt as disturbed ex-soldier Egg who can't forget what he's seen and done whilst purportedly serving his country, and from Ray Panthaki's fast-talking, coke-snorting Royal whose streetwise bravado crumbles into snivelling terror.
But, poignantly, the unforgettable moment of the evening came when Panthaki stilled the first night applause to dedicate the performance to his girlfriend's brother – 16-year-old Ben Kinsella who had been pointlessly knifed to death just days before.
Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1 (0870-060 6632). Until July 19. Tickets £22.50 (£15.00 on Monday).

Black Watch - TNT

After almost two years, Gregory Burke's 2006 Edinburgh Festival hit for the National Theatre of Scotland has finally made it to London and into a transformed Barbican theatre. This brilliant fusion of music, movement, video and expletive-spattered dialogue — much of it gleaned from Fifeshire squaddies who served in Iraq — is angry yet beautiful, its characters at times inarticulate yet always powerfully eloquent.
In a superbly choreographed sequence, director John Tiffany deftly recreates three centuries of this proud Scottish regiment's history. But Burke also vividly portrays the gibing camaraderie that pervades the dangerous tedium of anticipating the next mortar attack, and the emotional damage done to the highly drilled young soldiers fortunate enough to return from peacekeeping in "the triangle of death".
Barbican, Silk St, EC2 (020-7638 8891). Until July 26. £25

On The Rocks - TNT

Amy Rosenthal has obviously done her research into the time that D.H. Lawrence and his German wife Frieda spent living in an isolated Cornish village during the First Wold War. Her comic new play reveals not only their turbulent domesticity but also their relationship with the close literary friends — New Zealand born short storywriter Katherine Mansfield and her future husband, critic and editor John Middleton Murry — whom Lawrence persuaded to rent the cottage next door in an attempt to fulfil his vision of a communal utopia of artists.
While he and Tracy-Ann Oberman's earthy, red-stockinged Frieda fight violently (then patch things up with equal vigour in the bedroom and on the kitchen floor), their companions are painted in much more subdued colours. Mansfield, her voice tight and unhappy in Charlotte Emmerson's performance, is on the verge of depression and unable to write. And Nick Caldecott's fastidious Murry is far too inhibited to abandon himself to any sort of fleshly contact — let alone the near-naked wrestling bout which Ed Stoppard's passionate, insulting, control freak Lawrence forces on him.
But, after what the programme reveals to be an incredibly long gestation period, it's a shame that Rosenthal hasn't quite managed to distil all that information into something tighter, funnier and consistently more involving than Clare Lizzimore's production proves to be.
Hampstead, Eton Ave, NW3 (020-7722 9301). Until July 26. £23-£14 (£11 for under 26s)

Grand Slam - TNT

Timed to coincide with the opening of Wimbledon, theatre critic Lloyd Evans' functional new comedy brings a neurotically superstitious female tennis player and a rough East End bodyguard into a game, set and match situation. At the age of 29, unseeded, Monaco-based British Madeleine has finally scraped into the tournament on a wild card. She's rented a house in Wimbledon, along with the temporary services of minder Cedric. He turns out to be a bouncer with a criminal record; she (less credibly) has a trainer who's only contactable by phone, survives on a dolphin's diet, and surreptitiously helps herself to Cedric's unhealthy fags, booze and hamburgers in spite of what's at stake.
Constructed in a series of short (but not always sharp) scenes, the exchanges between them have something of the rhythm of a tennis match, each one vying for the upper hand as, against the odds, she gets closer and closer to the final. But although Rachel Pickup's rich, ritual obsessed Madeleine and Sam Spruell's law-bending Cedric do what they can to keep the ball in the air, this old-fashioned two-hander won't win any trophies.
Kings Head Theatre, Upper Street, NI (0870-890 0149). Until July 26. £20- £25 (concessions available)

THE CHALK GARDEN Donmar Theatre - This is London

Though probably best known for her children's novel ‘National Velvet,’ Enid Bagnold also turned her hand to writing plays and had a significant success with this quirky upper middleclass comedy which premiered in New York in 1955 before opening in London the following year. Michael Grandage's delightful revival brings out all the charm of Bagnold's idiosyncratic, aphoristic style whilst refusing to shy away from the darker side of her characters' behaviour.
Apparently inspired by her own experiences when interviewing potential nannies, this wittily written account of an unconventional and dysfunctional household definitely has its serious side. Just like the flowers which refuse to grow in the infertile chalk of Mrs. St. Maugham's Sussex garden, her 16 year old granddaughter Laurel (who hasn't seen her mother for years since she remarried) cannot flourish in an emotionally sterile environment where her closest friend is the highly strung manservant Maitland, a conscientious objector who served five years in prison.
Penelope Wilton is enigmatically controlled as the mysterious, greenfingered Miss Madrigal with a questionable past. Hired (without references but with considerable horticultural knowledge) as companion to Felicity Jones' precociously curious Laurel, she manages not only to curb her young charge's tendency to elaborate the truth and play (literally) with fire, but also to coax the garden into life – despite the contradictory orders of the ancient butler who lies, unseen and dying, a relic in an upstairs bedroom.
But the star of this highly enjoyable evening is Margaret Tyzack's bitchy, manipulative but ultimately lonely grandmother. Tyzack revels in her eccentricities and (despite her sharp tongue and scathing attitude towards her own daughter) makes it impossible not to feel a twinge of sympathy for this unconventional old dowager with her emotionally barren existence.
Louise Kingsley