When some 18th-century diaries written by the founder of Harford House are discovered, his descendant Fenella calls in two academics, Abi and Marva, to examine them. The manuscripts, which detail Harford’s involvement in the slave trade, soon prove to be far more than a mere catalogue, and the complex history of Britain’s role in the enslavement of Africans acquires a distinctly human face. The subject is a fraught one, with strong, often ahistorical and unnuanced opinions drowning out the complicated reality. Winsome Pinnock has written a fascinating and richly funny play that shows how this heritage touches three women, each in a very different way. Pinnock manages to explore the complexity of her subject with extraordinary humour and humanity. This is theatre at its finest, taking on a difficult subject, humanising it, making it dramatically compelling and avoiding the needlessly didactic. There is much to learn and much to ponder in this play, but it is also deeply entertaining. Sy...

When a class of students meets to study The Crucible , the play takes on a radical new interpretation and some small town secrets begin to surface. Kimberly Belflower has crafted a work that updates Arthur Miller’s allegory, in which the Salem witch trials prefigure 1950s America’s obsession with communism and Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare, a period that smeared the reputations of many innocent people. Set in 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, John Proctor is the Villain explores sexual exploitation and the challenge of persuading others to believe what cannot easily be proven when the powers that be are not on side. While Miller’s commentary focused on mob hysteria, which reinforced the prevailing orthodoxy, Belflower examines the other side of the question. How do the voiceless assert themselves in the face of entrenched authority? Dónal Finn is utterly compelling as the cool young English teacher Mr Smith, who draws the best from his class. It is a performance that will reso...

When the timid and impecunious Miss Beringer moves into her new lodgings, she is warmly received by her sympathetic and kindly landlady, Mrs Amorest. However, her relationship with her fellow lodger soon proves far more fraught. It becomes clear that the formidable, almost malevolent, Mrs Payne covets Miss Beringer’s sole possession of value, a piece of amber given to her by a friend who has moved to India. Written in 1935 by Rodney Ackland and adapted from Hugh Walpole’s earlier novel, the play is a slender Gothic thriller that faintly echoes the macabre sensibilities of a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The narrative itself is insubstantial, and the piece relies heavily on atmosphere and sharply etched characterisation. In both respects, this production proves strikingly effective. Juliette Demoulin’s set design conjures a vivid sense of shabby, faintly sinister decay, while Carla Joy Evans’s costumes are impeccably judged, ranging from the frayed gentility of Mrs Amorest and the uno...

Written in 1979, David Hare’s tale of a 1960s rock icon who has watched the summer of love dissolve into a nightmare of drugs and disillusionment is potent stuff. Maggie Frisby, inevitably reminiscent of Janis Joplin, drinks to excess and has been reduced to performing at a spring dance at Jesus College, Cambridge. The singer is at her lowest ebb, bitter, volatile, and narcissistic. When her sober, sensible ex-husband, who wrote most of her songs, and her cynical, exploitative agent arrive nothing bodes well for this gig. With Frisby and her agent, Saraffian, Hare evokes two of the most enduring stereotypes of the rock 'n' roll world, and Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, and Phil Daniels inhabit them with relish. Taylor is mesmerising as the drunken, unpredictable Maggie, while Daniels could rival Uriah Heep in sheer unctuousness. Both performances are captivating, and when Taylor strides onstage to belt out her hits, the energy is nothing short of explosive. The rest of t...

Although Monet would eventually become one of the most beloved artists of all time, his work was initially derided by the artistic establishment. When he attempted, alongside Renoir and Degas, to exhibit through official channels such as the Paris Salon, run by the Académie des Beaux-Arts , his paintings were repeatedly rejected. In response, these artists participated in the Salon des Refusés of 1863, an exhibition that helped bring attention to what would become Impressionism. A Mirrored Monet presents a musical retelling of the painter’s life, exploring the interplay between his personal experiences and his artistic commitment. At its heart is Monet’s profound love for his first wife, Camille, who served as both muse and model. The production uses the familiar device of an older Monet, convincingly played by Jeff Shankley, reflecting on the actions of his younger self. Through this lens, he recalls with regret how his obsessive dedication to art led him to neglect his wife and fami...

In July 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in Britain. Despite serious concerns about her mental state and the abuse she had endured, the nightclub hostess was convicted of murdering her lover, David Blakely. The government refused to stay her execution. Her death is widely regarded as a watershed moment in shifting public opinion against capital punishment. Ruth The Musical frames her story in retrospect, as Ellis revisits her life in conversation with the man who will ultimately act as her executioner. Bibi Simpson brings a raw, brittle intensity to the imprisoned Ruth, while Hannah Taylor’s portrayal of her younger self captures both vulnerability and reckless longing. Connor Payne is chillingly effective as David, exuding the careless cruelty of a cad accustomed to having his own way. John Faal impresses both dramatically and vocally as Ruth’s hapless admirer, Desmond. The production gestures towards weighty themes such as class, gender, and the morality of capita...

The first performance of Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk took place in 1904, on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War and the turbulent events of Bloody Sunday, when, in January 1905, Russian troops fired on peaceful protesters. Perhaps foreshadowing these events, the play presents a seemingly blissful world in which Russia’s small middle class retreat to summer chalets, passing their days in idle gossip, romantic entanglements and domestic squabbles. While the characters, unlike the audience, are largely oblivious to the gathering political and social storm, Varvara, the wife of the lawyer Sergei Bassov, and her brother, Vlass, are beginning to question the purpose of their cosseted existence. Nevertheless, for most of the summer folk, the absorbing realities of business, family life and flirtation provide more than enough occupation. This National Theatre production vividly captures that rarefied, artificial milieu, with a typically imaginative set design and resplendent costumes. The impressi...

Vincent van Gogh spent two distinct periods in London. He stayed for two years from 1873 to 1875 before returning briefly in 1876. During his first stay he lodged with Ursula Loyer and fell in love with her daughter, Eugénie, who rejected him. Nicholas Wright’s play Vincent in Brixton reimagines this episode, deepening it into a more intricate emotional entanglement for the young art dealer’s assistant who would later become one of the most celebrated artists of all time. The play presents Van Gogh as a blunt, almost gauche young man with a striking lack of social restraint. His speech is impulsive, unguarded, and at times painfully direct, yet this very openness lends him a disarming vulnerability. Wright uses this quality to explore the tension between naivety and perception, suggesting that the same emotional candour that isolates Vincent also sharpens his artistic vision. The result is a thoughtful meditation on the inner forces that would come to define both his work and his stru...

This latest offering from the English National Ballet presents two works loosely connected by the theme of body and soul. The first, by the renowned choreographer Crystal Pite, is titled Body and Soul (Part 1). Set to a French text that largely describes the dancers’ movements, it unfolds across eight brief scenes. The piece is at its most evocative when Pite deploys a large group of dancers, creating exquisite passages such as the mirroring of the rhythmic surge of waves against the shore. However, the work lacks the narrative richness found in some of Pite’s finest creations, such as Revisor and Assembly Hall . While there are undeniably striking moments and some fine pas de deux , the production also fails to attain the level of her more abstract achievements, such as Figures in Extinction . Even so, encountering Pite’s choreography remains a consistently rewarding experience. The second piece, Proper Conduct , is a new work by Kameron N. Saunders. Divided into three parts, it unf...

Florence Foster Jenkins remains an extraordinary subject for drama, a figure both absurd and oddly admirable: a wealthy socialite who pursued operatic glory with unwavering conviction, but who possessed a voice that was frequently off-key and strained at the top. Her legend rests not only on that mismatch between ambition and ability, but also on her kindness and generosity, which complicate any easy attempt to turn her into a mere figure of ridicule. This production, however, leans too heavily towards the superficial. If the issue for Jenkins was that her performance did not rise to the material, the issue for Glorious!  is that the material does not rise to the level of the performance. Wendi Peters delivers a committed and energetically comic portrayal, but the script gives her limited scope to explore the contradictions that make Jenkins interesting. The arias are amusingly rendered and skilfully judged, yet they are asked to carry a play that too often settles for repetition r...