AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮ 1/2 Tony Kushner's iHo Hampstead Theatre | London directed by Michael Boyd Tony Kushner's first play at the Hampstead Theatre since Slavs! is a cacophony of ideas with several dramatic high points, but the action is spread too thinly over three and a half hours with two intervals. This was too much for several people sitting near me who made it through the first two parts but did not return to their seats after the second interval. They missed out because the ending bring

✮ David Hare's The Red Barn National Theatre | London directed by Robert Icke Big names mean big excitement. Given the former you long for the latter in David Hare’s stage adaptation of Georges Simenon’s novel La Main, presented here as The Red Barn and directed by Robert Icke. How could you not – Hare is a living legend, one of our social champions, and Icke was the director du jour with 1984 and Oresteia. Ears pricked at portentous dialogue, eyes peeled for visual cues and

✮✮✮✮ Peter Shaffer's Amadeus National Theatre | London directed by Michael Longhurst “If everybody owes God a death,” wrote Anthony Burgess, “then the hard-working artist owes fate an occasional physical or mental breakdown: he cannot build so many new worlds without damaging his own fabric.” Amadeus explores the symbiotic breakdown of two such artists: composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The play is a masterwork of author Peter Shaffer, who passed away thi

✮✮✮✮✮ Ella Hickson's Oil Almeida Theatre | London directed by Carrie Cracknell We live in the age of oil. We have never lived without it, and we take it for granted. Ella Hickson’s fiery new play addresses the importance of renewable energy, but includes a hell of a lot more in its wide scope. Hickson examines the background of oil through history, the cost of imperialism and attitudes towards progress, including, notably, the rise of female independence. We first meet May (A

✮✮✮✮✮ Katori Hall's The Mountaintop Young Vic | London directed by Roy Alexander Weise This is what it’s all about. They say good theatre should leave you feeling as giddy as a bottle of wine: this production does just that. You may even need a bottle of the real stuff after JMK Award-winning director Roy Alexander Weise takes you on his rapturous historical rollercoaster. It may have only been six years since Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop premiered in London and won its Oliv

✮✮✮ 1/2 Kemp Powers' One Night in Miami... Donmar Warehouse | London

✮✮✮ Barney Norris's The Rest of Your Life Bush Theatre | London directed by Miranda Cromwell It’s almost closing time. Nick (Waj Ali) is just about to cash up when Hannah (Rakie Ayola) walks in. She only wants a filter coffee and promises to be no bother, so he lets her stay while he closes up the café. However, Hannah has no intention of sitting quietly. What starts as seemingly innocent chitchat gives way to something more sinister; it transpires that Nick and Hannah are no

✮✮✮✮ Suzan-Lori Parks' Father Comes Home From the Wars The Royal Court Theatre | London directed by Jo Bonney In the week the National Museum of African American History & Culture finally opened its doors in Washington, DC, Suzan-Lori Parks' monumental trilogy about black freedom in the American Civil War is playing to British audiences for the first time. Epic in every sense including length, the three-plays-in-one combine grandiose, almost Homeric poetry with domestic comed

✮✮✮ 1/2 Nathaniel Martello-White's Torn The Royal Court Theatre | London directed by Richard Twyman The Royal Court Upstairs is completely stripped down for Nathaniel Martello-White’s new play. Instead of a traditional theatre space, it now resembles a community centre hall. The walls are white and empty; tea and coffee facilities stand to one side. The audience wander in and sit down on the plastic-backed chairs, while Angel (Adelle Leonce) paces alone, fusses with the layou

✮✮✮✮ Ben Jonson's The Alchemist Barbican Theatre | London directed by Polly Findlay This London transfer from Stratford is pure gold, with all the hallmarks of a glittering summer run that's played to appreciative audiences night after night. The cast of money-hungry villains positively glows with wicked energy without taking itself too seriously - crucial in a play that in the wrong hands can come across as overly moralistic and tediously silly. A high carat RSC production g