Between 1851 and 1853, Cranford was published in serial form in Household Words , Charles Dickens's weekly magazine. At that time, its author was generally known as Mrs Gaskell. Only in the 1970s and 1980s, as literary scholarship increasingly recognised her as a major author in her own right, did the name Elizabeth Gaskell become more widely used. This shift in naming reflects changing attitudes towards women writers, but it also points towards one of the central concerns of her fiction. At the heart of this comic masterpiece are the position of women in society and the conventions that both restrict them and create a unique sense of community. That reassessment of Gaskell and her work finds an echo in this latest stage adaptation, which recasts some of the novel's incidents and reshapes its dialogue to make it more accessible to a contemporary audience. However, the essential character of the work is brilliantly maintained. The opening prank, in which Peter dresses as a woman...

The setting for Wits End is the funeral of Martin Becker, father of Cooper, Denise and Yitzy. The older son, Cooper, has not seen his father for fourteen years but, as he often reminds his siblings, was the one who paid for his care. He is a secular Jew who stands in contrast to his younger brother, who is religious and visited their ailing father daily as he suffered from dementia. Denise is the brothers' opinionated, interfering sister, almost a carbon copy of their Aunt Phyllis, who is also attending the funeral. Both are stereotypical Jewish yentas. In fact, none of the characters has any real depth, and the closest the play comes to psychological complexity is Denise's analysis of Yitzy's dependence on their father. While the cast do their best to breathe life into these familiar figures, there is little they can do with such caricatures. The premise is equally familiar. Using occasions such as weddings and funerals to expose the hidden realities of family life is har...

Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 examines gender, stereotyping, hierarchy and politics across two distinct periods. The first act, set in nineteenth-century colonial Africa, is a ruthless satire exposing the rigid gender roles, misogyny, homophobia, racism and jingoism that characterised the period. These are presented through a theatrical style that reflects the conventions of the time, with a proscenium arch, broad characterisation and exaggerated acting. The parody recalls the overstated satire of Gilbert and Sullivan, but this approach robs some of Churchill’s witticisms of their zing. Stuart Thompson’s casting as Betty is another curious element. While Churchill’s insistence on a male actor is thematically understandable, the decision sits awkwardly with the period setting. The conspicuous cross-gender casting draws attention to the modern theatrical artifice and jars with the atmosphere of Victorian authenticity otherwise established, reinforcing the Charley’s Aunt feel of the act. Ac...

Think Moby-Dick meets Waiting for Godot . The title of Daisy Hall’s Dogstar evokes Sirius, the Dog Star, whose rising in the summer sky the ancient Greeks associated with oppressive heat and disease. In this case, it is also the name of the ship on which a handful of nineteenth-century whalers are trapped in the Arctic ice. As the men bicker and banter, their predicament becomes an increasingly explicit existential parable, reinforced by Christian imagery. Justin Edwards plays Babben, an old salt who ultimately makes a Christ-like sacrifice to allow his two companions to return home, or perhaps merely to enter a heavenly hallucination. Adam Rojko Vega’s Gorey is a Barabbas-like bad boy who once lured Babben’s compassionate nephew Charlie into theft, while Abdul Jalloh portrays Sam, the youngest and most obedient of the three. He simply aspires to prove himself a good crew member and eventually to become first mate, and he is singled out to receive gifts from the spirit of the master ...

Generally regarded as Gluck's greatest achievement in French opera, Iphigénie en Tauride premiered in Paris in 1779 and was an immediate success. Today, however, it is rarely performed, and the reasons for its neglect are probably manifold. They range from a contemporary preference for the thrillingly passionate arias of the 19th-century operatic tradition to a widespread lack of familiarity with the myths on which the work is based. Its narrative also eschews the familiar theme of romantic love in favour of an exploration of family loyalty and the complex Greek concept of fate. Gluck's opera draws on the Greek playwright Euripides' treatment of the myth of the cursed house of Atreus. In this version of the story, Iphigénie, who was to have been sacrificed to the gods by her father, Agamemnon, is rescued by Diane and transported to Tauris. There, as a priestess in the temple, she is expected to sacrifice strangers captured by the island's inhabitants. Christine Rice is...

Dorothy Kilgallen is probably not a familiar name to British audiences. She was a prominent American journalist, crime reporter, Broadway columnist and television personality who became a celebrity in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s. Speculations examines her investigations into the death of Marilyn Monroe and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The story is largely a recounting of Kilgallen's conspiracy theories surrounding these two events. Playwright Torben Betts creates the character of Flo, Kilgallen's new nanny, as a pretext for the journalist to narrate her theories. He then inserts scenes between Carlos Marcello, the mob boss, and Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of Kennedy, and between Robert F. Kennedy and Monroe to illustrate these ideas. Lee Newby's set is clever and versatile, switching between the three locations, but the production is less convincing when it comes to period detail. The mob boss, for example, has long hair styl...

When Love Never Dies opened in London in 2010, it received mixed reviews, although it ran for around eighteen months and earned seven Olivier Award nominations, including Best New Musical. However, it never captured the public imagination in the way its predecessor, The Phantom of the Opera , did. Loosely based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1999 novel The Phantom of Manhattan , its book is credited to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ben Elton, Glenn Slater and Forsyth himself. Could it possibly be a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth? In this latest concert version, however, it is the score that takes centre stage, with some fine performances of the musical’s highlights. Jamie Muscato brings a sense of restraint and carefully shaped phrasing to the Phantom’s “’Til I Hear You Sing”, allowing the character’s yearning and anguish to emerge without sacrificing the song’s emotional intensity. Celinde Schoenmaker is a delight as Christine, her voice soaring through “Love Never Dies” with a purity and ...

In 2014, the militant Islamist group Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State, north-eastern Nigeria. The horrific event received considerable press coverage in the West, but Theresa Ikoko’s first professionally produced play brings it to the fore with an intensity and emotional force usually absent from the nightly news as it chronicles the world’s disasters. By introducing us to Tisana, Ruhab and Haleema, she transforms an abstract act of infamy into something personal and profound. From the moment the three appear on stage in a choreographed sequence, Hannah Akhalu, Sewa Zamba and Tara Tijani establish their characters as distinct individuals. Akhalu’s Tisana is shy and tentative, an obedient child who displays extraordinary fortitude in the trials that follow. Zamba’s Ruhab is a mischievous romantic whose aspirations extend little further than finding a boyfriend, while Tijani’s Haleema is a fiercely independent sceptic who punctures both religious and romantic ...

This musical memoir recounts the horrific experiences of pianist Władysław Szpilman during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. His parents and siblings were deported to Treblinka and murdered, while Szpilman escaped deportation and later survived in hiding with the help of others, including a German officer who discovered him towards the end of the war. Often called the Polish George Gershwin, Szpilman’s story becomes a moving object lesson in human cruelty and the demonisation of minorities. Although Szpilman’s experiences are largely narrated rather than dramatised, director Thom Southerland circumvents the lack of drama that can accompany an extended recitation of events by framing the monologue as an imperfectly recalled memory and by keeping the staging visually engaging. Simon Lee’s orchestrations of Szpilman’s popular songs are also a strength. Their melodies are both touching and hummable, and music emerges as a vital component of what makes us human. Daniel Krikler gives a powerful...

Garry Starr is the comic alter ego of Australian actor, writer and performer Damien Warren-Smith. Before Garry Starr: Classic Penguins , there was Garry Starr Performs Everything , a comic look at different theatrical genres, and Garry Starr: Greece Lightning , a humorous take on mythology. The latest one-hour addition to the Starr oeuvre takes as its starting point Penguin Books paperbacks, which aimed to make literature affordable and accessible to everyone. However, the show draws only on the book titles themselves, from Moby Dick to Great Expectations , as the basis for its clowning and physical comedy, much of which revolves around Starr remaining naked throughout. The literary parody is relatively thin, with the silliness and shock value taking precedence. Audience participation is extensive, with members of the audience brought up on stage and a nude Starr body-surfing through the crowd. Ultimately, humour is highly subjective, and this broad approach may not appeal to everyone...