The Devil and Mister Punch

TNT

It’s far from perfect – and even the script admits it’s all a bit of a conundrum – but Improbable’s celebration of the 350th anniversary of the first recorded appearance of Punch proves an enjoyable melange of vaudeville and puppetry, song and mask.

The windows, doors and tiny apertures of the panelled set open and close to reveal a scene-stealing dog sporting an Elizabethan ruff tapping away at a typewriter, a sextet of cute piglets swiftly minced into sausages, a cello-playing matador and a man-size bull. Punch is a multiple-murderer with a beaky chin as long as his nose who knocks off his wife and baby without a moment’s regret on his journey to hell. Mixed in with the puppets (from the tiny to the giant-headed) are a sweetly singing duo and the presenters of this weird show, Messrs Harvey and Hovey.

There’s a lack of coherence, and not everything works – but it’s inventively executed and under the guidance of co-founder Julian Crouch, there’s enough novelty in this devised show to keep you entertained.

Barbican, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS Tube: Barbican until 25th February(£16) barbican.org.uk

Outward Bound

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Never heard of Sutton Vane? Neither had I, and although he hardly ranks among the greats, this post-World War I playwright who died almost half a century ago had an unexpected hit with this fantasy drama both here and on Broadway in the early 1920’s.

Set in the smoking room aboard an ocean liner (a stunning wraparound art deco design courtesy of Alex Marker who delivers the goods time and again in this tiny space) it brings together a clutch of socially diverse characters, none of whom seems too sure of why they’re there or where exactly they’re headed.

There’s a nervous young woman clinging to her protective partner, an upper-class loud mouth downing whisky after whisky, an unbearably snobbish double-barrelled wife on her way (or so she thinks) to join her husband and refusing to share space with a humble charlady. An apologetic clergyman and a blustering businessman complete the passenger list tended by Scrubby, the quietly efficient non-committal steward.

There’s no doubt the play has dated, but Louise Hill’s spot-on, well-acted revival is unquestionably compelling, liberally sprinkled with comic dialogue to leaven the moral message of Vane’s supernatural thriller.

Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10 9ED Tube: Earl’s Court until 25th February (£11-£15)finboroughtheatre.co.uk

She Stoops to Conquer

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There’s lots of uninhibited fun and games going on in the Hardcastle household thanks to prankster Tony Lumpkin’s irresponsible interventions in Oliver Goldsmith’s sprightly 1773 satirical comedy. With a chorus of singing servants, Jamie Lloyd’s rambunctious revival adds a generous dash of 21st century liberation as (under orders from his father), man about town Marlow comes a-wooing and is tricked into believing that his host’s home is the local inn.

Brazen in common company but cripplingly tongue-tied in the presence of women of his own class, Harry Hadden-Paton’s Marlow averts his eyes from his intended (Corrie’s Katherine Kelly), yet is ready to ravish her when she disguises herself as a flirty barmaid. David Fynn proves a rather likeable Lumpkin (despite his gross personal habits), Sophie Thompson milks every syllable for laughs as the rustic Mrs Hardcastle with social aspirations, and John Heffernan, with a more subtle approach as Marlow’s foppish sidekick Hastings, confirms that he’s definitely a name to watch.

Olivier at the National, South Bank, SE1 9PX Tube: Waterloo in rep until 21st April(£12 - £45)nationaltheatre.org.uk

Bloody Poetry

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In the summer of 1816, two of England’s great Romantic poets - Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron - met on the shores of Lake Geneva, in an encounter engineered by Claire Clairemont. sometime lover of both and half-sister of Shelley’s then partner (and later wife) Mary, creator of Frankenstein.

Howard Brenton’s 1984 drama imagines that and subsequent meetings of this unconventional quartet in exile as their utopian experiment in free living claims its casualties. Shelley’s abandoned first wife commits suicide, a child falls sick, another is taken from her mother - and Nick Trumble’s Dr. Polidori (Byron’s physician) looks on, an envious outsider, as he reports back to his publisher.

In a play in which the women are consistently let down by the men, it’s the performances of the latter which dominate, with Joe Bannister’s intense Shelley no less controversial in his views or his behaviour than David Sturzaker’s swaggering Byron, who embraces his “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” soubriquet with a reckless indulgence in scandalous excess.

Jermyn Street Theatre, SW1Y 6ST Tube: Piccadilly Circus until 25th February (£18) jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Sex with a Stranger

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Adam seems like a decent enough chap when he picks up Grace after a night’s clubbing. She seems up for it - he certainly is - and in a series of sharp, abruptly blacked-out non-linear scenes they make the long journey back to her flat on the night bus – stopping off on the way for a grope in the park and a kebab.

They’ve got little in common, even less to say to each other. It’s a meeting with only one purpose, but blonde, brassy, micro-skirted Grace grows progressively more insecure the closer they get to her bedroom. Russell Tovey’s Adam, (currently in sales but with web site aspirations) knows exactly what he’s after – and when we then see his live-in partner Ruth ironing his shirt and preparing his supper before he heads out “with the lads” it becomes clear just how calculated his behaviour is.

Stefan Golaszewski’s deft three-hander paints an increasingly cynical picture of male behaviour, capturing the vulnerability and hurt of both Jaime Winstone’s Grace (who has unrevealed secrets of her own) and, especially, Naomi Sheldon’s sad, suspicious Ruth, kind, compliant and emotionally powerless to avert an act of betrayal in Phillip Breen’s austere, effective production.

Trafalgar Studios 2, Whitehall, SW1A 2DY Tube: Charing Cross until 25th Feb (£25) atgtickets.com/trafalgarstudios

Absent Friends

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Death can consolidate old friendships and place a halo on the head of the deceased. The latter is certainly true in Alan Ayckbourn’s wryly amusing 1974 social comedy (kept firmly in period by director Jeremy Herrin) when Katherine Parkinson’s unhappy housewife, Diana, hosts an increasingly uncomfortable get-together to cheer up Colin after the drowning of the fiancée none of the other guests ever met.

But whilst Reece Shearsmith’s beaming Colin seems surprisingly content with his memories and the lost possibility of a blissful relationship, he’s embarrassingly oblivious to the sorry state of his old friends’ marriages. Diana’s husband (Steffan Rhodri) has shagged everything in sight – including Kara Tointon’s morose, gum-chewing Evelyn, married to infuriatingly fidgety cheapskate John (David Armand). Old mate Gordon (unseen, overweight and tucked up in bed with yet another ailment) is constantly on the phone pestering Elizabeth Berrington’s obliging Marge.

Punctuated with the awkward silences of people who don’t really like each other forced together over tea and sandwiches, this acutely observed early play oozes disappointment and discontent, exposing their reluctance to interact with the bereaved and – as the afternoon progresses - laying bare the unsustainable myth of “happy ever after.”

Harold Pinter, Panton Street, SW1Y 4DN Tube: Piccadilly Circus until 14th April (£15-£49.50) absentfriendstheplay.com

The Changeling

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Pity the poor wardrobe mistress and stage hands left to clear up the mess created by the citizens of Alicante in Joe Hill-Gibbins’ modern dress revival of Middleton and Rowley’s parallel-plotted 1622 tragedy

The wedding vittles are flung, smeared and smothered all over cast and set, nuptials are celebrated in an orgy of jelly and custard, and an unwanted fiancé is drowned in the punchbowl when his betrothed meets someone more to her taste.

Jessica Raine (currently the demure lead in Call the Midwife on TV) gives Beatrice-Joanna a hard-hearted determination – first in the cruel insults she heaps on infatuated manservant De Flores (Daniel Cerqueira) with his red, flaking skin she finds so repulsive, then in her decision to employ him to despatch the suitor chosen for her by her father. What she doesn’t anticipate, however, is that it’s her body, not her money he’ll claim as his reward.

Either meshed in above (in a nod to the subplot set in the local lunatic asylum) or seated in enclosed pews at ground level, we watch as this Jacobean tragedy unfolds – not with restraint, but with more than a touch of black humour as blood flows, virginity is tested and characters emerge from cupboards.

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 8LZTube: Southwark / Waterloountil 25th February (£17.50) youngvic.org

Travelling Light

TNT

Antony Sher relishes every syllable he utters as Jacob, the Jewish timber merchant with a passion to see his family on film in Nicholas Wright’s sentimental, fictionalised account of the birth of motion pictures.

In flashback, Paul Jesson’s immigrant LA mogul (now Maurice Montgomery, then Motl Mendl) relives the moments when, at the dawn of the 20th century, he returned to his Eastern European shtetl, inherited a cinematograph and fell in love with both the possibilities of images that moved and his photogenic assistant.

Events are tied up a little too tidily - and the characters tend to the stereotypic. But Wright comes up with some entertaining explanations of the origins of continuity, cutting and close-ups, and, as black and white images are projected overhead, it’s hard to resist the frustrated enthusiasm of young Motl (Damien Molony) as he discovers the possibilities of an emergent art form and, in true Hollywood fashion, clashes with his backer, Jacob.

Lyttelton at the National, South Bank, SE1 9PX Tube: Waterloo in rep until 2nd June (£12 - £45) nationaltheatre.org.uk

The Trial of Ubu

TNT

Director Katie Mitchell’s frequently admirable work often feels more like an indulgent experiment than a production - and this latest work is a case in point There are elements to admire in her interpretation of Simon Stephens’ new satire on the inadequacies of the legal system, but it severely strains one’s patience – especially in the opening section, a mercifully abbreviated version of Alfred Jarry’s 1896 Ubu Roi, enacted by foul-mouthed puppets, in which the tyrant despatches judges, bankers and the landed gentry with all the crudity of a seaside Punch and Judy show.

It sets the scene for what is to follow as Lizzie Clachan’s curved set opens out to a booth at an international tribunal where, decades later, a crumbling and briefly seen Ubu is on trial for crimes against humanity. Kate Duchêne and Nikki Amuka-Bird are remarkable as the simultaneous interpreters translating over 400 days of gruelling evidence in near monotones, their faces and movements subtly registering their reactions to the despot’s cruelty. But despite its short running time, this proves an uninvolving evening with little dramatic impact.

Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EU Tube: Swiss Cottage until 25th February ( £22-£29) hampsteadtheatre.com

Constellations

TNT

Aspects of quantum mechanics and string theory are distilled into an often amusing, increasingly touching sparring match lasting just over an hour in Nick Payne’s playfully clever two-hander. White balloons float above the bare, raised square on which beekeeper Roland and cosmologist Marianne bump into each other, like random molecules.

Every encounter yields a different outcome as their relationship develops – or doesn’t. Some consequences are determined by changing circumstance, others by decisions made in a universe (or parallel universe) where “several outcomes can co-exist simultaneously.” But although many choices can be made along the way, some things remain inevitable.

With its numerous, subtly altered replays Michael Longhurst’s in-the-round production makes considerable demands on the actors and Rafe Spall (down to earth, gentle, straightforward) and Sally Hawkins (nervy, needy, bright) negotiate every nuanced repetition to perfection.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS (020 7565 5000) Tube: Sloane Square Until 11th Feb (£20, Mondays £10) royalcourttheatre.com

The Madness of George III

TNT

David Haig is, quite simply, superb in Christopher Luscombe’s unmissable revival of Alan Bennett’s witty, well-informed 1991 account of a king out of his wits and plagued by a bewildering array of symptoms.

The monarch’s burning skin, blurred vision and extreme logorrhoea confounded the leading physicians of the day and led to a raft of futile treatments (from brutal blistering to violent purges and detailed inspection of the resulting royal stool) as they attempted to restore him to the physical and mental health necessary to maintain political stability.

There’s strong support from Beatie Edney’s devoted Queen Charlotte (his beloved “Mrs King” before illness takes over), Clive Francis’s no-nonsense Lincolnshire clergyman turned doctor, Nicholas Rowe’s sombre Prime Minister Pitt in denial about the king’s condition, and Christopher Keegan’s rotund Prince of Wales with his eye on the throne.

But this is Haig’s evening. Jovially likeable when well, immensely moving in undignified suffering, his is a performance which has “award-winning” written all over it.

Apollo Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 7EZ (0844 412 4658) Tube: Piccadilly Circus Until 31st March (£20.00 - £65.00) nimaxtheatres.com

The Sea Plays

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The damp murkiness of this dank subterranean venue under Waterloo station is perfectly suited to Eugene O’Neill’s trio of early one act plays, (1914-1917) which drew on his own experiences at sea.

Stokers, stripped to the waist, shovel furiously to feed the ship’s red-hot furnace as the audience takes its seats in the main playing area where, in Bound East for Cardiff, a young merchant seaman lies dying, well before his time, after falling during a storm. Then, in In the Zone, a package hidden under a mattress casts wartime suspicion on a member of the crew of the ammunition-carrying S.S. Glencairn. Finally, we’re back on land for The Long Voyage Home in which a Swedish sailor’s good intentions to remain sober are scuppered by a drugged drink forced on him in a squalid dive. His money, his dreams of buying a farm - and possibly his life too -are all at risk as he’s dragged off to serve an unsolicited stint aboard an infamous vessel.

American Kenneth Hoyt’s production is strong on atmosphere, thanks in no small measure to Van Santvoord’s striking design, and O’Neill’s depiction of the miserable limitations of a seafaring existence – physically exhausting and far from family for years at a time – reveals the roots of inspiration for several of his later plays.

The Old Vic Tunnels, Station Approach Rd, SE1 8SW 0844 871 7628 Tube: Waterloo Until 18th February £20 (under 25’s £12) oldvictunnels.com