AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮ Jada Alberts & Anne-Louise Sarks' Elektra / Orestes Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Anne-Louise Sarks Classic Greek tragedies depict life at its extremities to explore the human condition. Elektra and Orestes are siblings, separated by grievous circumstances, but eventually united by a need for revenge. The death of their father King Agamemnon had torn the family apart. Murdered by their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, the legacy is one of blood drenc

✮✮✮✮ Marco Ramirez's The Royale Bush Theatre | London directed by Madani Younis Six black boxers stand blindfolded, enrounded by a baying white crowd. A smashed bottle signifies the start of the fight. They are left to slug it out, swinging wildly, eyes bound, until one man alone is left standing. The winner is awarded the dubious honour of scrambling for pennies scattered by the mob. But there’s more than coins left in the dust. This is just one of many rich stories that run

✮✮ John Ford's The Broken Heart Sam Wanamaker Playhouse directed by Caroline Steinbeis This play should really be called The Broken Hearts, plural. A beautiful princess's death at the very end is attributed to her "broken heart," but she is merely the last of several characters who meet a sticky finale because they're desperately unhappy with how their romantic entanglements have panned out. Murder, suicide, and self-starvation as well as simply giving up the will to live are

✮✮✮ Molière's Tartuffe Nine Years Theatre | Singapore directed by Nelson Chia The most noble function of humour, is that it allows for difficult things to be said. Taboo subjects are suddenly open for discussion under the guise of laughter, and with a pretence of jest and banter, sensitive issues can be dealt with in a manner so that the likelihood of causing offence is minimalised (and self preservation for the comic is usually secured). Where there is a sore spot, there ine

✮✮✮ Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Aldwych Theatre | London book Douglas McGrath music & lyrics Gerry Goffin | Carole King | Barry Mann | Cynthia Weil directed by Marc Bruni “I can't watch my life like this,” Carole King told her daughter and manager Sherry Kondor after reluctantly attending an early reading of Beautiful, long before it reached Broadway. But 73 year-old King herself turned up at the opening night of this West End transfer, afterwards taking to the stage t

✮✮ Mike Bartlett's Game Almeida Theatre | London directed by Sacha Wares “This is going to be the best, show, ever,” says one of the college students settling into the camouflaged hide of Section D. Her optimism could spring from many things: the maverick redesign of the Almeida’s space; the scattered screens suggesting a multimedia binge; the programme littered with progressively disturbing MailOnline articles. It isn’t your usual school trip to humdrum, hammed-up Shakespear