AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮✮ Shakespeare's King Lear Barbican Theatre | London directed by Gregory Doran Glenda Jackson's must-see Lear at the Old Vic may be getting all the headlines right now, but Greg Doran's Stratford-to-London RSC transfer is the better production. I'd rank Doran's husband Antony Sher above even my two favourite Lears of recent years: Jonathan Pryce at the Almeida and Derek Jacobi at the Donmar. Also, I've never seen the play's complicated sub-plots staged with such compelling

✮✮✮✮ 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