PARADE - This Is London
Donmar Theatre

Does the West End really need
another musical? The answer is a
resounding ‘Yes’ as far as this absorbing
and troubling production is concerned.
You're unlikely to leave the theatre
humming the tunes, but Alfred Uhry
(book) and Jason Robert Brown (music
and lyrics) have dramatised a true story
exposing the deep-seated prejudice
which led to a blatant miscarriage of
justice and the result is completely
engrossing.
Pencil factory superintendent Leo
Frank was an educated, Jewish New
Yorker who married a Southerner and
moved to Atlanta, Georgia. But he
remained an outsider who never felt at
home nor embraced the idiosyncrasies
of the South. So when, in 1913, a 13
year old white female employee, Mary
Phagan, was found dead in the
basement of their workplace, the locals
and the conviction-hungry police swiftly
accepted the slight circumstantial
evidence and the suspect testimony of a
black employee as proof of his guilt.
Rob Ashford's direction of this 1998
Broadway show is pacey and fluent and,
especially in the trial scenes, his
choreography integrates perfectly with
the ambiguities of the unfolding story.
The cast, too, is excellent. In the
pivotal role of the accused Yankee Leo
Frank, Bertie Carvel has just the right
uncomfortable, hand wringing diss-ease
of a man who doesn't fit in and knows it.
Lara Pulver is touching as the loyal wife
who barely waivers in her belief that the
unemotional workaholic she married
couldn't possibly be a murderer, Gary
Milner is sleekly effective as both a
persistent newshound and a senator who
changes his mind, and Shaun Escoffery
is quite simply sensational as the
prosecution's main witness.

Louise Kingsley

Vincent River - TNT

The truth behind the birth and death of thirty-something Vincent is gradually uncovered in this emotionally powerful revival of Philip Ridley's atmospherically-written two-hander. Lynda Bellingham's superficially tough but ultimately vulnerable working-class Anita exchanges information with the uncomfortable teenager who has been trailing her ever since he found her only son lying bleeding and beaten to a violent death in an East End toilet renowned for its homosexual trysts. In return for facts prised from Mark Field's haunted, reluctant Davey she reveals how, when she was younger, she also was the victim of another kind of intolerance. Now her son's fate has exposed her once again to the prejudices of those around her. As the lives of these two scarred human beings briefly overlap, Ridley shows the damaging concealments that oil the wheels of family life, and, in an intense 90 minutes, creates vivid word pictures which conjure the awfulness of what really happened.
Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1 (0870-060 6632). Until November 17. £22.50

Cloud Nine - TNT

Written in a collaborative process with Joint Stock Theatre Company almost three decades ago, Caryl Churchill's inventively playful comparison of the role of women and repressed minorities (defined either by race or sexuality)in 19th century British colonial Africa and what was then contemporary London is very much a play of two halves. Her exaggerated, cartoonish portrayal of the Brits abroad is mercilessly unforgiving — they may be in charge of the natives, but they're certainly not in control of their own sexual urges. Cheekily, male actor Bo Poraj is cast as subservient Victorian wife Betty (who pays lipservice to the superiority of her pompous husband while being propositioned by both his rampantly bisexual friend and the household nanny) and Nicola Walker plays her adolescent son (who infuriatingly prefers dolls to guns).In the second act, the characters have only aged 25 years but find themselves in '70s London where anything goes and men are no longer seen as protectors. But liberation has brought its own complexities, and Thea Sharrock's supremely well-acted production highlights the ongoing confusion which still spikes the minefield of sexual politics.
Almeida, Almeida St N1 (020-7359 4404). Until December 8

Swimming With Sharks - TNT

Christian Slater adds another eye-catching performance to his West End credits with an abrasive portrayal of Buddy Ackerman, a misogynist, money-making Hollywood producer of crowd-pleasing schlock horror movies who'll play as dirty as a dung beetle to get the No.2 job at the studio. He'd kill his own mother to get where he wants to go.The fast-paced first act of this stage adaptation of George Huang's 1994 film satirises both the movie makers and the audiences who pay to see what they churn out. But the violent and melodramatic plot twists after the interval don't work, and neither Slater's powerhouse performance nor strong support from Matt Smith (as his gofer, Guy, who eventually shows all the signs of turning into as much of a shit as his megalomaniac boss) can salvage the change in tone.
Vaudeville, Strand WC2 (0870-040 0084). Until January 19. £20-£45

The Country Wife - TNT

David Haig gets hilariously apoplectic as a jealous older husband in Jonathan Kent's sprightly revival of William Wycherley's 1675 restoration romp. He's so worried that his new country bumpkin wife will make a cuckold of him that he keeps her under lock and key to prevent her from experiencing the "sophisticated" ways and louche morals of London town. Meanwhile ( in order to gain unlimited access to frustrated city wives, without arousing the suspicions of their wary spouses) dedicated lothario Hunter (a dashing Toby Stephens) puts it about that his stay in France has rendered him impotent. Played completely for laughs on a garish set, there's little sense of the darkness at the heart of a society in which reputation is everything. But the sexual innuendo which fuels every verbal exchange keeps the comedy buoyant, and the idiosyncratic mix of period and contemporary costume suggests that, when it comes to illicit liaisons, not much has changed over the centuries.
Theatre Royal Haymarket, Haymarket, SW1 (0844-844 2353) Until January 12. Tickets £47.50 - £20

The Investigation - TNT

Rather than directly exploring the events of the more recent genocide which tore their own country apart, Rwandan theatre company Urwintore has turned its attention to the Nazi holocaust of sixty years ago. This simplerestaging of Peter Weiss's 1965 verbatim documentary drama about the horrors which occurred in Auschwitz is an attempt to make some sort of sense of a world in which equally unimaginable atrocities can occur all over again.Speaking in French (with surtitles projected on screens flanking the virtually bare stage) the seven actors (playing both witnesses and defendants) make potent points about how human beings struggle to survive no matter what – even if, to enable them to do so, they are forced – or choose – to adopt a dubious moral code. The material (extracted from the Frankfurt War trials of the 60's) is, by now, only too familiar. But this 80 minute production still has the capacity to shock as the accused insist that obeying orders was ample justification for the acts of extermination and abuse which, again and again, they committed against their fellow human beings.
Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 (020-7922 2922). Until 10th November. Tickets £24.50 - £21.50, under 26's £9.50

Glengarry Glen Ross - TNT

With its edgy streetwise dialogue, David Mamet's short, sharp 1983 drama gives a whole new meaning to the concept of 'men in suits'. These guys may look like businessmen, but they're as hungry as sharks for the next big sale and a place at the top of the board. James Macdonald's excellent revival reveals just how devoid of morals these Chicago real estate salesmen are — and not just when dealing with potential buyers. Even when apparently doing a buddy a favour, they'll turn round and bite behind his back. Matthew Marsh is a cold calculator who loses his cool, Jonathan Pryce's aging Shelly Levene is sweatily desperate as he relives past glories and pleads for a another chance, and Aidan Gillen is perhaps the most ruthless of the lot as he schemes and lies to close the crucial deal that will win him a Cadillac.
Apollo Shaftesbury Ave, W1 (0870-830 0200). Until January 12. £17.50-£45 Louise Kingsley