Execution of Justice

TNT

Almost thirty years after its original conception, Emily Mann’s verbatim dramatization of the trial of "All American" ex-soldier Dan White finally makes it over here in Joss Bennathan’s involving, deftly orchestrated production.

Aside from being a solder, White was a former fireman and disgruntled city supervisor who shot both Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the US) and George Moscone, (the liberal mayor of California).

Telling quotes taken from interviews, the media and the street are interwoven with sections of the 1978 trial transcript to paint a picture of a San Francisco establishment – and a police force - more pro the murderer than the innocent victims. A committed cast of twenty (several of whom take on various roles) brings the tense atmosphere in the courtroom to life as Ben Mars’ increasingly frustrated prosecutor goes head to head with a defence lawyer who pleads for a lesser conviction of manslaughter - on the grounds of his client’s depression, diminished responsibility and, infamously, uncharacteristic binge on Twinkies and sugary junk food.

Southwark Playhouse, Shipwright Yard, SE1 2TF (020 7407 0234) Tube: London Bridge Until February 4 (£10-£18.00) southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

Our New Girl

TNT

We’re back in the kitchen again for the second full length production in the Bush’s new space – but this time, in Nancy Harris’s sometimes tense, sometimes funny new play, the family is affluent and middle class. Whilst everything is sparklingly pristine, however, unconditional affection is in short supply.

Previously a high-flying lawyer, heavily pregnant Hazel is now trying to make a go of selling Sicilian olive oil (the house is littered with the stuff) so that she can stay home and look after her 8 year old son Daniel. Meanwhile husband Richard is away much of the time – volunteering his plastic surgery skills in disaster zones overseas when he isn’t catering for the demands of his well-heeled London clientele.

On the surface, everything is perfect. But as Annie, the new nanny from rural Sligo soon realises, this is a deeply unhappy household, with Hazel at her wits end trying to cope with a sullen child and Richard’s lengthy absences.

Charlotte Gwinner’s disconcerting production lays bare the tensions of a modern marriage in which only one of the partners (Mark Bazeley’s hypocritical Richard) is still able to do just what he wants, even if it’s at the expense of the psychological well-being of their troubled son (Jude Willoughby, perfect, shares the role). Denise Gough brings a practical sympathy to the role of the nanny (who isn’t quite as straightforward or well-intentioned as she makes out) and, as Hazel, Kate Fleetwood charts, superbly, the frustrations of a perfectionist who isn’t cut out for domesticity and has lost control of her life.

Bush Theatre, Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ (020 8743 5050) Tube: Shepherds Bush tubeUntil February 11 (£15-£20) bushtheatre.co.uk

Lovesong

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Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Shame, The Hour) joins forces with physical theatre company Frantic Assembly to create a tender evocation of the start and end of a fifty year relationship. For half a century Billy and Maggie have lived in the same house, gathering fruit from the peach tree in their garden and watching the starlings flock overhead.

We see them both as their older selves (when Maggie is suffering from a painful illness both know to be terminal) and – sometimes simultaneously, sometimes separately, sometimes overlapping – as their younger counterparts, William and Margaret, in the first decade of a partnership which promised so much. Like their names, their relationship changes subtly with the years. The children she longs for never materialise, the dental practice he sets up so expectantly fails to provide the fulfilment he anticipated, extra marital temptations threaten their fundamentally loving domesticity.

Yet they remain, essentially, the same people and the stylised choreography of directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett melts old (Sam Cox and Siân Phillips) into young (Edward Bennett and Leann Rowe) in a poignant production in which the fluidly expressive body language says every bit as much as the spoken word.

Lyric Hammersmith, King Street, W6 0QL (0871 221 1726) Tube: HammersmithUntil February 4(£12.50-£35) lyric.co.uk

Fog

TNT

This short, powerfully acted play began life as a drama school audition piece for Toby Wharton, written in collaboration with Tash Fairbanks, a veteran of feminist lesbian theatre and 36 years his senior. Expanded to 80 minutes, and with Wharton convincing as troubled white teenager Fog, it paints a depressing picture of kids in care, and how institutionalised life – be it as an adult in the armed forces or as a fostered child – fails to support its “graduates” in the outside world.

Ten years after leaving his children in care after the death of his wife, Fog’s dad (Victor Gardener’s muscular ex-sergeant, all pent up frustration at the lack of opportunity) is out of the army and hoping to make a new life for himself and his children.

But they’re all damaged goods and it’s too late to make up for the legacy of past neglect.Despite his initial hopes and good intentions, their prospects seem as bleak as their tower block flat and only Fog’s black friend Michael and his protective, aspirational sister look set for a bright future in Ché Walker’s disturbing, street smart production.

Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10 9ED Tube: Earl’s Court Tube (0844 847 1652) Until January 28 (£11- £15) finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Huis Clos

TNT

The Donmar’s second season showcasing the work of its Resident Assistant Directors concludes with Paul Hart’s intentionally claustrophobic, in-the-round revival of John Paul Sartre’s existential depiction of hell, written during the Second World War.

Ushered into the stifling atmosphere of a dilapidated and windowless Second Empire drawing room where sleep is impossible, the three main protagonists (all recently deceased) are forced to face up to the uncomfortable truths about the behaviour which has brought them here – not by the conventional instruments of torture they anticipate but by their relentless (and occasionally repetitive) probing of each other’s past actions.

Will Keen’s edgy pacifist journalist, Michelle Fairley’s gruff lesbian postal clerk and Fiona Glascott’s flirtatious socialite reluctantly reveal their secrets, ultimately becoming their own gaolers in this hell of other people from which there is no way out.

Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1A 2DY (0844 871 7632)Tube: Charing CrossUntil January 28 (£17.50-£22) donmarwarehouse.com

The Art of Concealment

TNT

Told in flashback, Giles Cole’s interesting new play sees an ailing Terence Rattigan (just before his death in 1977) looking back on a life of constant privilege but critical acclaim cut short in the mid 50's when the Angry Young Men erupted onto the Royal Court Stage.

Covertly gay at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, and once referred to as “the prettiest playwright in London”, he is portrayed as extravagant but determinedly aloof, a man who put work first and reputation above the chance of love and happiness.

Dominic Tighe is well cast as the elegant, arrogant younger Rattigan, wallowing in the closet company of his sycophantic coterie but sending his lovers home before morning, and Graham Pountney camps it up as a bitchy director.

And although Cole can’t match Rattigan’s masterly skill as a writer, he does a more than adequate job of probing below the surface of the public face of the self-assured Harrow schoolboy, World War II airman, apparently eligible bachelor and toast of the town who became a disgruntled older man when his looks and success faded.

Jermyn Street Theatre SW1Y 6ST (020 7287 2875) Tube: Piccadilly Circus Untill January 28 (£17) jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Stones in his Pockets

TNT

It takes just two actors and some extremely deft switching in tone and posture to populate the rural Irish village where a Hollywood crew is on location filming the latest romantic blockbuster.

Marie Jones’ 1996 hit combines the comic with the tragic as 80 euro a day extras Charlie and Jake are temporarily caught up in the multimillion dollar world of glamorous make-believe before being brought back to earth to face the bleak economic reality of a countryside existence under threat.

Under Indhu Rubasingham’s assured direction Jamie Beamish and Owen McDonnell do an impressive job bringing to life not only the two locals whose lives haven’t gone according to plan, but also (among others) a flirtatious American superstar, an English director, his bossy young assistant and a stooped old-timer who claims he was an extra in The Quiet Man back in the early 50’s.

Tricycle, Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR. Tube: Kilburn Until Feb 4. (£14-£24) tricycle.co.uk

Joking Apart

TNT

Everything is perfectly peachy for happily unmarried hosts Richard and Anthea, but their well-meaning attempts to improve the lives of those around them consistently backfire in Alan Ayckbourn’s 1978 social comedy.

Over twelve years and four parties held in their spacious garden, he traces their fortunes (always on the up) and those of their less blessed guests – their next-door neighbours (new vicar Hugh and his mousey, neurotic spouse), Richard’s less able business partner (Finnish Sven with an answer to everything until illness strikes) and his wife Olive, plus lovesick employee Brian who brings along a succession of girlfriends he’s not the least bit interested in.

Holly Best’s realistic set even manages to include a hint of unseen tennis court in this intimate venue, and although the performances could be subtler and deeper, they’re more than adequate to convey the underlying sadness which surrounds the untouchable golden couple as the years take their toll on everyone else.

Union Theatre, Union Street, SE1 0LX Tube: Southwark Until Jan 14 (£16) uniontheatre.biz

Noises Off

TNT

The laughs just keep on coming in Michael Frayn’s ingeniously constructed comedy which leaves you wondering just how the excellent cast will manage to maintain the frenetic pace – and spot on timing – throughout the run of this 1982 multi-award-winner.

From the disastrous final dress rehearsal of a fictional touring farce “Nothing On” (sabotaged by Celia Imrie’s Dotty fluffing her lines and mislaying her plate of sardines), the set revolves to reveal the calamities unfolding backstage during the same scenes at a matinee a month later.

Finally, they’re repeated, the “right” way round, on closing night - by which time just about everything is going wrong.

Trousers drop, doors jam and the pace of pandemonium rarely slackens in Lindsay Posner’s precisely orchestrated revival.

Karl Johnson’s hard-of-hearing thesp disappears in search of whisky, Jonathan Coy drives the director (Robert Glenister) to distraction fretting about motivation, Jamie Glover, his laces vindictively tied together, bunny hops up - and tumbles down - the stairs, and Janie Dee’s calm, glamorous Belinda stirs up trouble whilst pouring oil on turbulent waters. Great fun.

Old Vic The Cut SE1 8NB (0844 871 7628) Tube: Waterloo Until March 10 (£10-£49.50) oldvictheatre.com

Slava's Showshow

TNT

This gentle, often magical, show has been around for years, but still succeeds in doing just what creator Slava Polunin set out to do back in 1993 - to turn us all, briefly, into wide-eyed children.

He and his fellow clowns are tender, doleful creations, their bodies hidden in shapeless bright yellow or dull green, their eyes dark sockets, and their outsize shoes perfect for penguin-like shuffles across the stage.

The routines are sometimes tantalisingly brief (a shiny blue ball twirled momentarily on a huge upturned nose), sometimes extended (a touching station farewell with a half-clothed coat stand). Barely a word is spoken.

But what makes this show unforgettable is the way it involves children and adults alike as an enormous gossamer web stretches overhead and seemingly disintegrates to nothing, flurries of snow coat us in white, and young and not so young join in the playful finale as the performers clamber over the seats to the exit.

Royal Festival Hall South Bank Centre Belvedere Road SE1 8XX (0844 847 9910) Tube: Waterloo Until 8th January (£20 - £47.50) slavasnowshow.co.uk