In Medieval woodcuts depicting the banquet of life, the revellers are unaware that Death sits in their midst as they delight in carnal pleasures. In contrast to that ignorance however, Annie Baker's new play, Infinite Life , deals with characters who have withdrawn from life's banquet and are fasting at a health spa as they try to cope with the chronic pain that is their knowledge of mortality. In the case of the protagonist, Sofi, her pain is ironically associated with her sexuality, so often the means of distraction from the finite nature of the physical world. The four women who are already at the spa when Sofi arrives act almost as a Greek chorus as we come to know her secrets and the source of her awareness of life's pain. Each member of the group is subtly drawn and humorously recognisable. Marylouise Burke, Mia Katigbak, Kristine Nielsen and Brenda Pressley all put in strong performances. Sofi herself is perceptively portrayed by Christina Kirk and her simultaneously

In 2014 Mischief Theatre brought its successful formula of chaos and carnage to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and the results have proven to be a lot of fun. Since 2010, the Mischief gang have been producing works like The Play that Goes Wrong and Magic Goes Wrong and the premise is unchanging: an inept theatre group put on a production where everything is a disaster. The sets fall apart, the props are missing and the actors can't act. There's lots of slapstick silliness and terrific physical comedy. For some, the predictability of all this may rob the experience of the element of surprise that provokes laughter, but for the fans of the franchise it always works. The antics of the bumbling cast and shambolic performance are satisfyingly familiar. While all the usual tropes are present in this particular iteration, things do seem to drag a little in Act I. One reason that the second act might work better is that we get more of the backstory of the actors. The disasters become

Sleeping Beauty Takes A Prick ticks all the pantomime boxes. There's a singalong, the audience gets to shout advice and the outrageous double entendres come thick and fast. Add some silly songs, sweets tossed out, an over-the-top dame whose wardrobe is quite wondrous and you have the total package. Writers Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper don't miss a trick in this LGBTQ+ ode to the genre. The plot is a wild riff on the story of Sleeping Beauty with a gay prince who is cursed not to have sex until he is twenty-one. His wicked uncle takes over his kingdom of Slutvia for one hundred years while the prince and his mother sleep in a spaceship which has brought the prince's alien lover to earth. While many of the prince's problems are caused by his rather inept, lesbian fairy protector, his interfering mother who has her own love life problems doesn't help much. These people have complicated lives, and it all adds up to a raunchy, riotous adult panto that never misses a

This is a delightful tasting menu of an exhibition. Divided into three sections: Capturing the Moment, New Directions, and The Fin de Siècle and Beyond, the presentation brings to the fore some lesser known artists and gives us a new appreciation of the versatility and virtuosity of those we already know. While the usual stars of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements are represented, there are also interesting works from some lesser known artists. Edgar Degas' "Woman at a Window" (1870-71) and Renoir's "Woman with a Veil" (c. 1877-79) stand in lovely contrast both in technique and treatment to Giuseppe de Nittis' "In the Cab" (1880-83). Pissarro's watercolour over graphite "White Frost" (1890) is beautifully evocative, but we were equally taken by Albert Lebourg's "The Artist's Wife and Mother-in-law Reading a Letter by Candlelight" (c. 1878-79) done in charcoal and graphite. The show offers some of

The Mongol Khan is a genre-defying spectacle that incorporates song, dance, puppetry and drama. Created by Mongolia's leading playwright the epic story tells the tragic tale of a leader who is deceived by his wily counsellor into thinking that the latter's son is actually Khan's heir, while the true son is being ignored. Westerners will probably be thinking of Shakespeare's Lear and Iago but there's a dash of The Comedy of Errors , and also a hint of Oedipus Rex . With a cast of over seventy, there are some amazing costumes, spellbinding choreography and clever special effects. It all adds up to an evening that really takes one back to the origins of theatre when people expected a feast of entertainment for their money and would have felt cheated by the contemporary predilection for two acts squeezed into about two hours. In fact, the current production has apparently been abridged for Western tastes and this does take away a bit from the majesty of the piece. Its

Tears for Fears were definitely a standout duo in the 80's, and Emanuel Gat Dance interprets their work in a show that demonstrates lots of thought and provides some striking moments. All the big hits are here: "Mad World," "Shout," "Everybody Wants to Rule The World," "Change," and "Sowing The Seeds Of Love." For fans this will be a wonderful walk down memory lane, and the show certainly captures the introspective, self-reflective side of the themes running through the music. However, for us, what was missing was the more energetic, rebellious, political aspect of the lyrics. With a song like "Shout" we expected a lot more animation and pep. It didn't feel like we were being called upon to "Shout, Shout, Let it all out." The silent interludes between songs, while sometimes effective, also lowered the intensity, and on occasion, could seem unconnected. Almost throughout the show, the lighting is low and murk

This exquisite, small exhibition will be every art lover's cup of tea. Jean-Etienne Liotard is an 18th century artist more celebrated in his time than he is today, but this delightful look at his work should be an important step in rectifying this situation. Liotard worked in a variety of media from oils to ceramics, but his crowning achievement was in pastels. He was a master of this extremely fragile medium, and the central point of the current exhibition is an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast his representation of the same subject, The Lavergne Family Breakfast , in both pastels and in oil. For the first time in almost 250 years, Liotard's masterpieces come together and are placed side by side. The pastel version was acquired by The National Gallery in 2019 and the oil, which was painted almost twenty years later, has been lent from a private collection. Contrasting the two representations highlights how the two media can be employed to deal with volume, tone an

Henry David Thoreau wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” and these three short plays by Ena Lamont Stewart provide a graphic reflection of Thoreau's incisive aphorism. The revival of the three works by Scotland's preeminent female playwright is an opportunity to appreciate both some beautifully etched characterisations and powerful insights into isolation and the challenges of human connection. The first play, "Towards Evening," presents the fraught relationship of an elderly brother and sister who have decided to live together in their later years. Their mutual incomprehension as they strive to overcome the barriers of their upbringing, the imposition of gender roles and differing educational backgrounds are brilliantly rendered by Robert Hands and Janette Foggo. They capture all the nuances of the siblings' tentative reaching out for emotional support across the barrier of the years and their secrets. The second play "Walkies Time f

Comedy as catharsis! From the moment he comes on stage and constantly repeats his age, we see that The Comedian is obsessed by the passage of time and its inevitable result. His signature joke betrays the obsession with death that underlies so much of his humour, and even as he uses sex, drugs and laughter to escape his morose fear, it is ever present. Ironically, he shares this prescription to assuage his pain with a doctor friend, but then, someone enters his life who suffers from cataplexy, a condition which the stranger says means that he could actually die from laughing. The Comedian's modus vivendi is challenged, and he must come to realise that what he is actually fleeing is not the inescapability of time and death, but the realities of life and love. Marcelo Dos Santos has written an insightful, and sometimes brilliant, show that explores the dark sources of comedy and exposes how a painfully self-aware, yet equally self-deceptive, individual can transmute fear into humour

Tug has run up a lot of debts and his mother informs him that he'll have to sell the ancestral castle in order to deal with the situation. It's a dilemma that leads to a lot of silliness and some serious commentary on the state of contemporary British society. While the first act of Rory Mullarkey's new comedy starts on a bit of a wobbly note, the laughs soon start to roll in as Tug (Laurie Kynaston) and his mate, Charlie, played by George Fouracres begin to trade quips in a manner reminiscent of Wilde's Algernon and Jack. Their dialogue is counterpointed by the comments of Mrs Hanratty (Amy Booth-Steel) the Lenin-loving, but consummate housekeeper who recalls J.B. Priestley's prescient Jeeves. The mood is further established and becomes enjoyably familiar when Lady Agrippina (equal parts Nero's mother and Lady Bracknell) appears on the scene. Fenella Woolgar does a splendid job of conjuring up the dowager viscountess and wrings the most from all of her lines. T