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men in the last few decades and also a warning that there are still people out there whose negative attitudes are way out of date.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