Set in 1908 and written in 1938, When We Are Married was produced shortly after the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937, which expanded the grounds for divorce beyond adultery to include cruelty and desertion. At the turn of the century, particularly for the chapel-going middle classes, marriage was firmly understood as a till-death-do-us-part commitment. For Priestley’s original audience, the play’s premise that three couples might discover, after twenty-five years together, that they were not legally married and could therefore make different choices was not only comic but almost subversive. Times have changed, but Priestley’s comedy remains strikingly relevant, especially in its clear-eyed identification of the pressures that can undermine marriage: infidelity, financial anxiety, and bullying abuse. Although these themes are treated lightly, the point behind the laughter remains sharp. The play offers shrewd insight into relationships, class and the hypocrisy that often i...

Riffing on the long-standing rumours that Mary Todd Lincoln was an alcoholic and that her husband harboured homosexual tendencies, Oh, Mary! is a drag extravaganza with a sharp ahistorical and satirical edge. Its humour relies heavily on standard drag tropes. There is abundant mugging, snide asides, sexual puns, and what was once considered blue language. Much of this feels familiar, and the shocked laughter that taboo sexual references once provoked has been dulled by overuse. Indeed, anyone acquainted with the drag genre will see most of the jokes coming well in advance. That said, the production values are notably higher here than those of the average drag show. The set is handsomely appointed, and the use of music to underscore scenes is effective. Cole Escola’s script presents Mary as a bored housewife yearning to become a cabaret star. In an effort to keep Mary away from the bottle, her husband hires a teacher to give her acting lessons. The funniest moments actually emerge from...

In an odd warehouse conversion where his son and daughter live with a strange assortment of inhabitants, a Jewish father joins his children for a Christmas Day meal. Elliot, a secular Jew, represents a generation for whom identity and allegiances are largely unquestioned. His children, however, inhabit a far less certain world. His daughter Tamara is urgently searching for spiritual answers and openly challenges Israel’s actions, even as her former boyfriend has found a new sense of himself through Israeli nationalism. On the other hand, Elliot’s son Noah, who has a non-Jewish girlfriend, is adrift, struggling to locate himself within the tradition that shaped him but no longer anchors him. Sam Grabiner’s Christmas Day explores what it means to be Jewish in contemporary Britain, asking whether it is possible, or even desirable, to maintain or reconcile ethnic, religious, and cultural identity in an assimilative society. While rooted in a specifically Jewish experience, the play’s ques...

This first-rate production of Tom Stoppard’s palimpsestic masterpiece is simply a must-see. When the English poet Flora Crewe travels to India, she sits for a portrait by the Indian painter Nirad Das. Both that portrait and this play reflect the complex melding of cultures that emerged from the British presence in India. Exploring different approaches to art and the presentation of the artist, the drama also exposes the intricate and often fraught political relationship between the two countries whose histories became so deeply intertwined. Flora’s meeting with the Indian painter hints at the complicated dynamic between a dying imperial vision and its colonial subject, while also questioning the epistemological frameworks through which we seek to understand the past. Many years later, Crewe's American biographer meets with her sister Mrs Swan as he attempts to reconstruct that Indian encounter. Both that actual experience and the artistic impression of Crewe created by Das stand in...

“They’re Dancing Cheek to Cheek Again!” The posters and advertising for the original 1935 film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers promised romance, dancing, and songs you would never forget. This current production is every bit as delightful as the original and largely lives up to the film’s hype. The farcical confusions of the love story continue to charm and amuse, and it is refreshing that director Kathleen Marshall has chosen not to update the references. The show is unapologetically presented as a period piece, relying on the quality of its singing and dancing to bridge the gap between eras. With its unforgettable Irving Berlin score and top notch tapping from Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers, it succeeds admirably. Attmore clearly relishes his role, and his exuberance is infectious. As Jerry’s love interest, Dale Tremont, Amara Okereke displays a fine voice, and the couple’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” is a definite highlight. As the comic foils the young lovers, Horace...

Recounting true crime has long been a popular form of entertainment. The act of regaling audiences with tales of criminal horror that both terrify and titillate them arguably reached a peak with the Penny Dreadfuls of the nineteenth century, yet it remains a mainstay of contemporary television. KENREX , a dramatisation of the story of Kenneth Rex McElroy, who terrorised the small Missouri town of Skidmore for nearly two decades, stands as a masterful example of this enduring tradition. With the collusion of his lawyer, McElroy was able to intimidate and brutalise the town’s residents until July 10, 1981, when a long-deferred reckoning finally arrived. Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian have crafted the material for the stage with remarkable skill, and Holden’s performance is nothing short of astonishing. He fully inhabits the many figures ensnared by these grim events, sustaining a breathtaking level of energy as he moves across the stage and transforms into characters as varied as the t...

Taking inspiration from the 1948 Powell and Pressburger film, Matthew Bourne has created a sumptuous interpretation of The Red Shoes that bears his unmistakable signature while honouring Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of artistic obsession. The production possesses a strikingly cinematic quality and moves with remarkable fluidity from scene to scene. Lez Brotherston’s set design masterfully shifts between the world onstage and the more intimate realm behind the curtain, allowing the audience to experience both the external praise afforded to the young dancer Victoria Page and the private turmoil that drives her. Paule Constable’s expressive lighting enriches these transitions with subtle and atmospheric precision. Indeed, the staging of this production is extraordinarily rich, creating layers of visual interest that can border on overwhelming. As Page, Cordelia Braithwaite conveys her character’s emotional struggle with exceptional clarity, capturing the tension between her devotion t...

John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World is a work rich in significance and open to varied interpretation. In his programme notes, Christopher Collins views the play through the contemporary lens of the global migrant crisis and society’s fascination with celebrity. Yet Christy Mahon’s (Christ as Man) symbolic killing of his father, who returns with amusing regularity, also invites a reading of the play as a religious satire in which Synge advances a vision of bold and irreverent humanism. In many respects, this is a radically innovative piece of writing that challenges both social expectations and the established conventions of comedy. This current National Theatre production preserves much of the original’s force and the stark and lyrical set vividly conjures the atmosphere of the west of Ireland. As the eponymous hero, Éanna Hardwicke convincingly portrays the timid youth who, through the fantasies of the townspeople, discovers his identity and is reborn as a figure...

Michael McKeever’s play opens with a long-established gay couple hosting a friend and the latest young man he is dating. The alcohol and the banter are flowing, and we seem to be in familiar comedic territory until an argument breaks out over gay marriage. Mitchell, a writer and Daniel’s partner, considers marriage an unnecessary, heteronormative expression of commitment. The remainder of the play is about Mitchell, and the audience, learning the importance of the institution of marriage for gay couples. Despite some clever dialogue and some good character development, this work is mainly didactic, and when Daniel falls ill, there is an uneasy sense of emotional manipulation which accompanies the lesson that we are being taught. The play also glosses over the truly formidable realities faced by caregivers when a partner develops a chronic condition. In this world both Mitchell and Daniel’s mother are affluent enough to argue over who will assume responsibility for his care without havi...

This year’s big and gloriously gay panto from the “He’s Behind You!” gang has burst into the Charing Cross Theatre, and it has arrived like it owns the place. Beauty and the Beast: A Horny Love Story brings back several familiar faces, including the incomparable Matthew Baldwin, who now plays the mother of two gay children living at a petrol station in the Scottish Highlands. Baldwin is every bit as majestic as you imagine a woman in a fluorescent tabard can be. Laura Anna-Mead playing Bonnie, the frequently ignored lesbian daughter, bounces through the show with a delightful energy, while Matt Kennedy completely charms as Bertie, the titular beauty. As his beastly counterpart Keanu Adolphus Johnson is ferociously fabulous. Chris Lane earns his boos and hisses as Cornelius, the villainous brother whose moral compass has a limp arrow, while Dani Mirels deserves her cheers as the blue-haired enchantress who finds love. However, again this year, it is Baldwin who storms the stage. With a...