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

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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

Cheap Flights - Fascinating Aida

TNT

They’ve said goodbye several times since they were formed in 1983, but Fascinating Aida are back in London and packing in the punters -

thanks not only to the loyal following they’ve built up over the decades but also to their current YouTube sensation which gives the show its name.

With around 8 million hits to date, they’re on to a winner and along with the fans who’ve grown grey over the years, they’re also attracting an appreciative younger audience ready to relish their particular brand of satirical musical cabaret.

Founder member Dillie Keane and Adele Anderson (who joined a year later) will both be 60 next year, but there’s no sign of them mellowing or slowing down. The considerably younger soprano Sarah-Louise Young now completes the anarchic trio and adds a new song of her own praising the benefits of one-night stands.

But Keane and Anderson remain the prime creators and nothing is sacred. From Dignitas to dogging, and from Tesco to surrogate pregnancy (thanks to an obliging orang-utan), their witty lyrics continue to amuse.

Keane still gets into uncomfortable contortions when playing the piano, and the trio go a cappella for the string of short, sharp verses which make up a mock Bulgarian song cycle.

They saved the sparkly gowns for after the interval, but this is intelligent, laugh-out-loud entertainment (with the occasional poignant touch) which is worth seeing no matter what the outfits.

Charing Cross Theatre The Arches Villiers Street WC2N 6NL (020 7907 7075) Until January 7 (£24.50-£29.50) charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

Nutcracker!

TNT

Classical ballet not for you? Then give Matthew Bourne’s inventive reworking of the seasonal favourite a whirl.

Instead of the usual lavish house party he gives us a grim Dickensian orphanage where the meagre Christmas tree is whisked away – along with the hand-me-down presents – as soon as the visiting governors have departed.

All is not doom and gloom however, as, at midnight, orphan Clara’s Nutcracker doll turns into a handsome (if fickle) bare-chested youth who breaks down the walls and sweeps her off to the white winter wonderland of a frozen lake and the heady pink colour burst of Sweetieland.

Here a trio of athletic gobstoppers, a lascivious cherry-topped knickerbocker glory and a quintet of marshmallow girls make dance – and Tchaikovsky’s music – as fun and as accessible as a Busby Berkeley musical, but with added bite.

Sadler’s Wells Rosebery Avenue EC1R 4TN (0844 412 4300) Tube: Angel Until January 22 (£10 - £60) sadlerswells.com

The Ladykillers

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TNT

An elderly, law-abiding widow threatens to scupper the getaway plans of a gang of small time crooks in Graham Linehan’s stage reworking of the classic 1955 Ealing comedy film.

Masquerading as a string quintet lead by Peter Capaldi’s incompetent mastermind, Ben Miller’s knife-wielding gangster with a pathological fear of old ladies, Stephen Wight’s pill-popping spiv with a furniture polishing fetish, Clive Rowe’s several sandwiches short of a picnic ex-boxer, and (best of all) James Fleet’s cross-dressing conman plot a robbery whilst pretending to practise.

There are some clever touches (model cars carry out the heist climbing up the walls of the revolving set) and a handful of running gags (involving a swivelling blackboard, a ridiculously long scarf, and the sheer incompetence of the criminals) which make for an enjoyable evening’s entertainment of slapstick and farce, in which you never for one moment believe that Marcia Warren’s fanciful Mrs Wilberforce will come to any harm in her lopsided house overlooking Kings Cross.

Gielgud Shaftesbury Avenue W1D 6AR (0844 482 5130) Tube: Piccadilly Circus Until April 14 (£12.50-£55) TheLadyKillers.co.uk