Treats - TNT
2nd April 2007
After all the media speculation, Billie Piper made it to opening night to give a creditable performance. Piper stars as translator Ann, who's just replaced her abusive, live-in boyfriend with the office bore, an accommodating mother's boy who makes the mistake of inviting her philandering ex round to dinner — even though he's just been given a bloody nose. Inspired by Ibsen's The Doll's House, Christopher Hampton's meticulously structured 1976 play paints a depressing picture of the way women choose their mates (and of the behaviour they are prepared to tolerate) without ever explaining their compliance. Laurence Fox's dithering Patrick and Kris Marshall's manipulative Dave convince at opposite ends of the macho spectrum, while Piper displays a touching vulnerability in this darkly comic, triangular drama with a very black heart indeed.
Louise Kingsley

A Midsummer Night's Dream - TNT
2nd April 2007

Tim Supple's vibrant touring Indian production puts the physical before the verbal in an exuberant multilingual version of Shakespeare's famous comedy,with words taking a poor second place to sheer passion and colourful design.There are some inspired moments — Titania wound into a cocoon of brilliant red; Joy Fernandes' excellent Bottom, turned amorous ass with enormous ears and butternut squash appendage; acrobatic fairies tearing through a vast paper backdrop. With its mix of English, Hindi, Tamil and half a dozen other languages, you may find yourself floundering if you don't know the story, but it's a sexy, sensual feast for the eye and — on a visceral level at least — an unqualified success.
Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road NW1, 0870-389 1846, Until 21st April

Leaves - TNT
2nd April 2007

Lucy Caldwell won the 2006 George Devine Award for this sensitive play about a Belfast teenager coming back home after attempting to commit suicide during her first term as a London university student. On the eve of her return, only her youngest sister Poppy (not quite 12 and delightfully played by Daisy Maguire) seems excited about her imminent arrival. Caldwell successfully captures the nervous apprehensiveness of her parents and middle sister who realise that things can never be quite as they were, and have to find ways of coping with a newly fragile Lori. Francis O'Connor's prettily dreamlike set suggests the protective atmosphere of a happy childhood (despite the city's troubles) and although the cause of Lori's near-fatal depression is never fully explained, this is a promising debut from a thoughtful new writer. Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, Sloane Square, SW1, Call 020-7565 5000. Until 7th April

Louise Kingsley

Things Of Dry Hours - TNT
26th March 2007

White American dramatist Naomi Wallace tries to get under the skin of unemployed black labourer Tice and his young widowed daughter, Cali, in this Depression-era drama set in Alabama. She earns a pittance washing sheets, while he (with a bible in one hand and the Communist Manifesto in the other) fervidly, covertly, seeks potential converts. They live in dread of an unexpected knock at the door — but when it comes, it isn't the Ku Klux Klan but an illiterate white worker in need of sanctuary. Colin McFarlane's proselytising Tice and Lorna Brown's suspicious, feisty Cali are excellent, but though Wallace is to be commended for exploring an obscure aspect of American history, the result is too overwritten and over-symbolic for its own dramatic good.

Gate, Pembridge Road W11, 020-7229 0706. Until March 31

Louise Kingsley

The Entertainer - TNT
26th March 2007

A year after the ground-breaking success of his Look Back in Anger in 1956, John Osborne penned this critique of post-war Britain, using the demise of the music hall as a metaphor for the decline of the British Empire. Punctuating scenes of Archie Rice's uncomfortably dysfunctional home life with his end-of-pier patter, Osborne paints a jaundiced view of the future of both family and country. Robert Lindsay makes a bitter, irredeemably sleazy, yet dapper Archie (a bit too accomplished, perhaps, for such a washed-up, third-rate performer, but memorably "dead behind the eyes" emotionally). He gets first-rate support from John Normington as his bigoted father and from Pam Ferris as his long-suffering second wife, drowning her misery in gin as they wait for news of their captured soldier son in this surprisingly topical state-of-the-nation drama.
Old Vic, The Cut, SE1, 0870-060 6628. Until May 19

The Caretaker - TNT
26th March 2007

The current unofficial Pinter fest continues with some inspired casting — Hogwarts' Filch as the filthy, stinking tramp who is invited into the equally squalid, junk-strewn bed-sit of mentally troubled Aston and is offered the job of caretaker. With his cadaverous features and lanky frame, David Bradley seems born to play the part of Davies, the xenophobic vagrant whose plans to pick up his papers from Sidcup are as unlikely to materialise as the garden shed which his host intends to build. His ungrateful, wheedling manner contrasts effectively with Con O'Neill's sluggish, damaged Aston, and (as Aston's taunting younger brother) EastEnders' Nigel Harman brings a sharp, controlled menace to this impressive revival.
Tricycle, Kilburn High Rd, NW6, 020-7328 1000. Until April 14

LOUISE KINGSLEY

Equus TNT
19th March 2007

The psychological precepts which influenced Peter Shaffer's 1973 sensation may have been largely overturned, but this disturbing investigation into the psyche of an inarticulate teenage boy who has viciously blinded six horses is still unsettling, not least in its portrayal of the psychiatrist, Dysart, who treats him. Forsaking his Harry Potter mantle, Daniel Radcliffe lays himself quite literally bare and acquits himself more than adequately as the troubled 17-year-old whose fascination with all things equine takes an unusual form. Richard Griffiths is a subtly nuanced Dysart who questions his own profession but, more disconcertingly, envies the passion which fuelled his young patient's horrific crime. The argument may be suspect, but, as an imaginative, visually memorable and often intense drama, Thea Sharrock's well-cast revival definitely delivers.

• Gielgud, Shaftesbury Ave, W1, 0870-890 5501. Until June 9



King of Hearts TNT
19th March 2007

The names may have been changed but responsible Arthur and fast-living Richard are clearly barely disguised incarnations of William and Harry in Alistair Beaton's spirited satire. Nothing is sacred in his latest attack on the monarchy, opportunistic politicians and religious intolerance. The king (after mere months on the throne and decades waiting to get there) is in an irreversible coma, the opposition are gaining points in the opinion polls, and Arthur wants to marry a Muslim. The targets are often obvious, and minor plotlines are too speedily despatched. But this is an entertaining, if not very subtle, romp in which Roddy Maude-Roxby steals the show as a narcoleptic Archbishop of Canterbury who is more concerned with grabbing forty winks than preserving the Church of England.
• Hampstead, Eton Ave, NW3, 020-7722 9301. March 31



Lovely and Misfit TNT
19th March 2007

A wealthy young girl tracks down a forgotten poet, a neurotic mother nags her emotionally fragile teenage son, and a wealthy transvestite thinks he's found the man of his dreams in this trio of one-act plays by Tennessee Williams. Written between 1939 and 1959, they cover familiar territory with their strong autobiographical hints. There's an outsider in each of them, but the most obvious misfit appears in And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens. In which Edward Hughes' lovelorn interior designer tries in vain to tempt a macho sailor into a life of cosy domesticity. Evocatively staged, Aussie director Anna Ledwich's well-acted production of these European premieres succeeds in shedding a little more light on the troubled thoughts of one of America's foremost playwrights.
• Trafalgar Studios 2, Whitehall, SW1, 0870-060 6632. Until March 31

LOUISE KINGSLEY

The Tempest - TNT
12th March

Patrick Stewart's commanding, tetchy Prospero is exiled on an Arctic wasteland of snowy blizzards and shimmering lights in Rupert Goold's visually stunning reinvention of Shakespeare's late play. Here, he plans his revenge and summons spirits — among them Julian Bleach's mesmerising Ariel, who, unusually, is no nimble sprite but a resentful, deathly stalker. Not everything works as well — the comic scenes try too hard to get laughs, and an underpowered Ferdinand makes a disappointing match for his gawkily naïve Miranda. But John Hopkins' plotting Sebastian, Ken Bones' smug usurper and Finbar Lynch's grave, bereaved Alonso give depth to a trio of traitors in a production which sears itself icily into the memory.

LOUISE KINGSLEY

Generations - TNT
5th March
A life-affirming choir and the aroma of frying onions transform this intimate space into a South African kitchen where three generations bicker teasingly about who can or can't cook. But the tentative delight in a new romance is soon diminished as, one by one, the younger members succumb to an unnamed disease (by inference, Aids). As the family is depleted, the spare, circular dialogue is reiterated by those that remain, the tone subtly changing with each repetition. Moving and evocative, this beautifully acted though oblique production of Debbie Tucker Green's new work welcomes you with a smile — but sends you home (a mere 30 minutes later) saddened by the implications of what you have seen.

The Maria at the Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 0-7922 2925
Until March 10

LOUISE KINGSLEY