AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮ Shakespeare's Hamlet Almeida Theatre | London directed by Robert Icke Nothing quite divides the camps like a starry Hamlet, and the past few years have seen many. Battle lines seem to be drawn along whether it is the star or the vehicle, the man or the machine, that takes precedence. Shakespeare’s greatest play is indivisible from its title role, yet the world of the play matters to an audience – if we don’t believe in it, we can’t believe Hamlet’s torturous relationship

✮ 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

✮✮✮✮ Anne Washburn's Mr Burns Almeida Theatre | London directed by Robert Icke Huddled round a campfire, post-apocalyptic refugees try to remember the words to a sacred text – it’s recited, puzzled over, and elaborated on. This safe spot in a poisoned America? Cape Feare: The Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob’s quest to kill Bart reaches dramatic, gothic heights. It’s no coincidence that these reminiscers refer to its Second Act, or savour lines like sips of salvaged Diet C

✮✮✮✮ George Orwell's 1984 Playhouse Theatre | London directed by Duncan Macmillan & Robert Icke Theatre adaptations of classic novels would probably go in several critics’ personal Room 101s – especially those with narrators, or, heaven forfend, voiceovers. But this latest transfer from Islington powerhouse the Almeida Theatre manages to be intensely literary without any of the staid, storytelling bookishness that can plague the genre. Together, Duncan Macmillan and Robert Ic