ajhlovestheatre

NIGHT CITY

 by Max Wilkinson

 directed by Ebenezer Bamgboye

 Southwark Playhouse Borough – The Little, London – until 3 October 2026

 Running time: 85 minutes no interval

 https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/night-city/

The financial and professional instabilities prompted by the “gig” economy that forces workers into ad hoc contractless jobs, a murky nocturnal metropolis steeped in excitement and with a simmering undercurrent of danger: welcome to Night City. Max Wilkinson’s episodic but engaging drama is receiving its world premiere in an abstract, boldly inventive staging by Ebenezer Bamgboye. What it lacks in coherence and clarity, it (mostly) makes up for in sheer theatrical bravura.

Three superb actors play a varied selection of London dwellers trying to carve out their best lives, or at least survival, in an unsympathetic city. Some of them (such as Helena Pipe’s tough but warm carer Tamara) are admirable, even when up against the ropes of an increasingly dehumanising existence, some are appalling (the unscrupulous entrepreneur, played with villainous relish but some subtlety by Jack Ambrose, who sees human welfare as just another commodity to be exploited) and some ping-pong between good and bad as necessitated by what life throws at them. Chief among those are ambitious Tia (Bex Smith), working, for now, as a waitress but only until her ambitions are realised, and cab driver Jack (Ambrose again), whose morality may be malleable but his conscience less so. 

Each creation is vividly sketched and, on the whole, pretty interesting, although the frenetic flash of Bamgboye’s production, which rushes at us with the urgency of a missile, means that it can sometimes take a few moments to work out who is supposed to be who, and what on earth is going on. Spoken lines overlap each other, actors change character within seconds… More elucidation within the chaos would be welcome: the best way to enjoy Night City is probably just to let it wash over you and not worry too much if you’re not getting everything. 

The apparently random plot strands, some of which defy plausibility, do get more-or-less tied up by the end of play, one of them, involving a cantankerous, celebrity name-dropping older woman, played with relish by Smith, particularly satisfyingly. The inclusion of the creation of last year’s Employment Rights Act is vital but could be woven into the text a little more seamlessly, as could a late lurch into courtroom drama. Whatever else, Night City is certainly never boring.

In terms of energy and visuals, it’s dark, sleek and dynamic. Olivia Jamieson’s set of hanging neon tubes encased in chains and all-black costumes frequently suggest a night club, an impression reinforced by Rose Ryan’s frenetic, if slightly overused, choreography. Arnim Freiss’ stark, moody lighting and monochrome video designs of a bustling but vaguely sinister capital add immeasurably to the visual appeal. 

The actors work their socks off, and are generally very impressive, even if the breakneck speed of the character changes occasionally threaten to overwhelm them. Pipe radiates a selfless goodness combined with brusque practicality that rings entirely true for carer Tamara, and Smith has a magnetic presence and lithe physicality. Ambrose is quietly riveting as lost soul Jack, finding real power in his mercurial mood switches and strange but relatable combination of kindness and go-for-broke hedonism. 

If Night City feels more style over substance, and would benefit from a more disciplined approach to storytelling, it is nonetheless a work of considerable ambition and originality. Some of Wilkinson’s writing has a potty-mouthed poeticism that is a bracing delight, and the brilliance of much of Bamgboye’s staging matches it. The show as a whole feels slightly overlong but occasionally undernourished, yet it’s too compelling to write off. Overall, it isn’t a total success, but it’s well worth a look.

KIMBERLY AKIMBO

Book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire based on his own play

Music by Jeanine Tesori

directed by Michael Longhurst 

Hampstead Theatre, London – until 7 November 2026

running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval 

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2026/kimberly-akimbo/

Deserved winner of the 2023 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book and Best Original Score, Kimberly Akimbo is a deeply unconventional musical, and a thoroughly delightful one. It’s a far cry from what one might traditionally expect a Broadway musical to look and sound like, but it’s original yet accessible, small in scale but mighty in craft, ambition, and sheer, beautiful heart. We are so lucky to have it in London.

 New Jersey teenager Kimberly (Maria Friedman in a triumphant stage return) is a musical theatre heroine unlike any other: on the cusp of turning sixteen, she has a rare genetic disorder, affecting one in fifty million, that causes her to age four to five times faster than the average person. “Getting older is my affliction / getting older is your cure” she sings to her classmates at one point, with understandable frustration but an admirable absence of rancour. Note the undramatic way she asserts that people with her disorder usually don’t make it much past the age of sixteen: “it’s just an average though” she trills.

 David Lindsay-Abaire, the author of the original 2010 play, also provides the book and lyrics for the musical which may explain the extraordinary richness of the characters -a bunch of flawed, troubled yet relatable people elbowing their way through life as best they can- and the mastery of a variety of themes and tones that frequently promise one thing then deliver something quite different. Lindsay-Abaire clearly loves this bunch and, by extension, so do we. 

God, these people are messy though: heavily pregnant Mom Pattie (Niamh Perry) is a narcissistic hypochondriac, both arms in plaster from a carpal tunnel syndrome operation and forever making videos for the unborn child she clearly prefers to the under-appreciated diamond she already has, while Dad Buddy (Peter Hannah) is a feckless drunk, albeit one with a big heart. Plus there’s Aunt Debra (Alice Fearn), a convicted felon with a money-making cheque rinsing scheme and a serious lack of accountability, newly returned to the family to upset the moral and ethical apple cart. With this lot at home, it’s no surprise that Kimberly is so taken with her goofy but kind, probably neurodivergent, class mate Seth (Gilli Jones, adorable), who turns out to be an unexpected source of support.

 For Kimberly Akimbo, Lindsay-Abaire teams up again with Jeanine Tesori, his collaborator on the underrated Shrek The Musical. Tesori’s quirky, magical work here feels like a sister score to her stunning compositions for Caroline, Or Change and Fun Home whereby sophisticated, choppy, character-driven sections give way to pastiches of late twentieth century pop and folk that inform the period and characters. 

Thus Kimberly gets a bittersweet “I want” song near the top of the show, then there’s ‘Father Time’, breathtakingly performed by Perry, who is delivering multi-faceted, career-best work here, a gorgeous lullaby for Pattie’s unborn child and possibly for the troubled Kimberly, that goes from whimsical to profound within a few bars, and ‘Better’, a rambunctious, belty, poppy paean to consistently doing entirely the wrong thing with which Fearn stops the show cold. Hannah’s dead-beat Dad gets an improbable patter song that wouldn’t disgrace Gilbert and Sullivan, and the second half features an inspired section that pits a family dispute against a glitzy show choir rehearsal. It’s impressive theatre music that lingers in the memory, and not a single note is wasted.

 Lindsay-Abaire’s writing never descends into sentimentality or sensationalism and is frequently rollickingly funny. When it’s sad though, it really goes there: watch Friedman’s Kimberly’s face when her pregnant mother expresses hope that her next child will turn out better. It’s one of several moments when authentic pain seeps through and the poignancy is almost too much to bear.

Unusually, the UK premiere, directed by Michael Longhurst for Hampstead Theatre with consummate showbiz flair and an absolute mastery of the complex emotions and irresistible humour involved, is more physically elaborate than the Broadway original. Whereas Jessica Stone’s New York staging still bore traces of its modest off-Broadway origins, despite being amplified to such a level that suggested it was aiming to be heard in New Jersey from Manhattan, Longhurst and team have gone all-out, but mercifully the sound design (by Paul Groothuis) is more low key allowing us to hear the often brilliant lyrics.

Designer Soutra Gilmour recreates an entire three storey New Jersey house onstage, then revolves it to become a school corridor, a classroom, a neon-lit ice rink, with Nigel Lilley’s terrific band fully visible on either side of the action. It’s quite an eyeful, dominated by a giant clock as if to remind us that we’re all running out of time, albeit not as fast as poor Kimberly. The garishness of the late 1990s, when the show takes place, is evoked but never mocked.

The London cast is every bit the equal of the original New York company but are sufficiently different that comparisons are invidious. The writing is so good that there are several valid ways to play each role. Victoria Clark won the Tony for her unforgettable Kimberly and it’s hard to imagine that Friedman’s gawkier, more animated, but still very moving take on the role won’t be the front runner for this year’s Olivier award. 

Niamh Perry as her deeply dysfunctional mother is perhaps the biggest revelation here; she has a fabulous voice of course but she also reveals herself to be a comedienne of the highest order, balancing a degree of manic self-absorption with a deep well of feeling suggesting that, in her own screwed-up way, she’s as upset as anybody about her daughter’s health issues. Unlike with the original production, Perry and Fearn actually look as though they could be sisters. Where Bonnie Milligan -another deserving Tony winner for this show- made Debra into a lovable rogue, Fearn plays her feral. She is biliously funny but there’s an unsettling undercurrent of genuine desperation and threat.

Hannah also achieves the remarkable feat of melding together grotesque comedy and heart-rending truth in another sensational performance, and Gilli Jones as the well meaning youngster with innate kindness but a penchant for saying the wrong thing, really tugs at the heartstrings. Sara Hajizadeh, Ronav Jain, Robin Simões da Silva and Aviva Tulley are incredibly endearing, and often laugh-out-loud funny, as a sort of Geek/Greek Chorus of four teenagers, plus their voices really soar.

Primarily, Kimberly Akimbo becomes a show about grabbing life and squeezing every last drop out of it while you still can, and if that doesn’t gladden, then threaten to break, your heart, maybe book an appointment with a cardiologist to check if you even have one. This is life-enhancing theatre, a show you don’t just watch, you fall in love with. To quote one of the best numbers in the score, although pretty much every one is a gem, this’ll “make your shitty life better”. London has an exhilarating new must-see hit.

JANE EYRE

Music and lyrics by Paul Gordon

Book and additional lyrics by John Caird

from the novel by Charlotte Brontë

directed by John Caird and Megan McGinnis

Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London – until 26 October 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/jane-eyre/

This musical adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s beloved novel had a world premiere in Toronto in the late ‘90s (the 1990s, to be clear) and then over two hundred performances on Broadway in 2000/1, and now – finally – arrives in London in a stripped back, stylish staging. Shorn of the bombast and scale of its earlier iterations, John Caird and Paul Gordon’s Jane Eyre emerges as a captivating if relentlessly dark (in every sense) chamber musical, full of terrific music and with some serious dramatic heft, even if it seldom fully realises its emotional promise.

It’s no coincidence that Caird was also one of the co-directors and key creatives on the original English language version of Les Misérables; the pleasurably lachrymose shadow of that epoch-making tuner and subsequent big shows influenced by it during the last couple of decades of the twentieth century, hangs heavy over this show. Jane Eyre as a musical, in 2026, feels decidedly old-fashioned, but not in a “set in the nineteenth century” sort of way, but more that it harks back to the shows of the 1980s and ‘90s when every life setback was marked with a power ballad, irony was not a thing, and everybody was wearing their heart on their period costumes’ sleeves.

This isn’t necessarily a criticism, by the way: composer Paul Gordon writes genuinely memorable tunes, some of the most persuasive and haunting ever created in this melancholic pop sub-genre actually. Listening to these Brontë characters emote full-throatedly in song is frequently a huge pleasure, especially when the voices and arrangements (by Brad Haak and Steve Tyler) are as good as they are here.

Perhaps due to budgetary constraints or maybe to mitigate against comparisons with other productions set in a similar time period, designer Morgan Large hasn’t gone all out with historically accurate costuming or wigs. Bar a few extra bits of dressing (a full length coat for Ashley Gilmour’s film-star handsome Mr Rochester, pinnies and caps for the domestic staff, a white veil for the unfortunate woman in the attic…) everyone is stylishly clad in timeless black, as though permanently cocktail party ready. It’s all a bit, well, sexy, which isn’t automatically a word one might associate with Jane Eyre.

Similarly, there’s no point in trying to recreate the North Yorkshire moors upon which Jane wanders on Southwark Elephant’s stage, so Large, with lighting designer James Whiteside, opts for a striking hybrid of hazy but effective video design, minimal props and furniture, and lots of luscious, mysterious darkness. Caird and co-director Megan McGinnis keep the action moving fluidly, sometimes dynamically, relying on audience imagination to fill in the blanks.

This is a very good-looking show, and that extends to the cast as much as the production. Charlie Burn is so luminously beautiful as Jane that the references in the text to her being “plain” are rendered nonsensical. More importantly though, she effectively conveys the character’s innate goodness and resilience, and if her constant piety can get a little grating that is a feature of the original novel. Vocally, the role is an absolute beast but Burn is equal to it, investing solos such as her galvanising, questing ‘Sweet Liberty’ with a gorgeous combination of purity and power. 

Gilmour makes a dashing leading man, and also has a superb voice. If both he and Burn seem, from a dramatic point-of-views  a little uncomplicated and two-dimensional in these central roles, it may be that the adaptation doesn’t give them an awful lot to work with, beyond sparring gently then belting their faces off while gazing into the middle distance.

In an excellent supporting cast, Gemma Page makes a strong impression as two contrasting older influences on Jane, Eve Shanu-Wilson is glitteringly nasty as the money-fixated Blanche Ingram and Clare Greenway delivers a lovely cameo as the domestic servant privy to the Rochester family’s most shameful secret. Hannah Lindsey and Jonathan Andrew Hume impress in a variety of differing roles and Isabelle Methven makes something fine and affecting out of Helen Burns, the saintly orphanage girl who shows kindness to youthful Jane (Poppy Jason at the performance I saw, and quite wonderful) and instils religious fervour into her. The singing thoughout is, without exception, outstanding, and the vocal arrangements make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up with their sheer beauty. 

Caird’s book does a decent job of recreating Brontë’s frequently grim tale in the first act, but the second act seems over-stuffed with plot. The dalliance with would-be missionary St John Rivers (an ardent Melad Hamidi) is dealt with perfunctorily, as is the matter of Jane’s unexpected financial inheritance. It sometimes feels that each plot point is plonked down in front of us just because it’s in the book, and one can’t help but wonder if excising some bits extraneous to the central love story mightn’t have been beneficial.

Emotionally, the show never really connects as much as it should. There’s a world of unreason and pain lurking in this distressing story encompassing maltreatment of children, untimely death, severe mental illness and trauma, but the musical, for the most part, skates serenely over the surface of it all. It’s a ravishing little jewel of a show for sure, with a huge amount to enjoy, but it’s Jane Eyre-lite. That will be more than enough for many people though, and, short of letting a full symphony orchestra loose on it, the score is unlikely to ever sound better than it does in this version.

THE STORY 

by Tracey Scott Wilson 

directed by Clint Dyer

National Theatre/Olivier Theatre, London – until 24 October 2026 

running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval 

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/the-story/

It has only taken twenty three years for The Story, Tracey Scott Wilson’s hybrid of thriller and race-driven social realism, first seen at New York’s Public Theater, to cross the Atlantic. Watching Clint Dyer’s strident yet leaden UK premiere for the National, I’m not sure it was worth the wait.

 Partially inspired by the disgracing of Washington Post journalist Janet Cooke for fabricating an incendiary news story in the early 1980s, The Story centres on ambitious young Black writer Yvonne (Letitia Wright) determined to make her professional mark unencumbered by perceptions and prejudices related to her skin colour. She starts working at Vanguard, a fictional newspaper, under the watchful, not always approving, eyes of an uncompromising editor (Lorraine Touissant) whose fierceness belies a complicated history with the Civil Rights movement. A white schoolteacher is murdered in a predominantly Black neighbourhood, and Yvonne is all over the story, driven by an encounter with a random young woman named Latisha (Aliyah Odoffin), who appears to have one foot in the urban streets and the other in the more rarified world of advanced education (she speaks multiple languages).

 Scott Wilson tells her story in short, sharp bursts, often having scenes happening concurrently on stage, lines and exchanges criss-crossing between different locations and time frames. It’s not confusing, but it starts to feel like a gimmick pretty early on, one that neither illuminates the plot nor ups the theatrical ante. It does however play havoc with the pace as it becomes awkwardly obvious that actors are waiting to pick up their cues from each other across the vast expanses of the Olivier stage, thereby lending an unhelpfully tentative air to a piece that should come at us like a train. Dyer punctuates these moments with staccato flashes courtesy of lighting designer Paul Anderson and sound designer Benjamin Grant, but it feels more like desperate attempts to enliven a plodding script rather than anything essential or exciting.

 The thinly drawn characters seem more like mouthpieces than flesh-and-blood people, and the stiff, declamatory acting style doesn’t help. The performers appear to have mostly been directed to melodramatically bawl their lines facing front, barely connecting with each other. On the night I saw it, this bizarre delivery and the overwrought dialogue resulted in a couple of unfortunate moments which, though intended to be dramatic and serious, had sections of the audience roaring with unseemly laughter. The plot includes a major second act twist, but the storytelling is so muddy that the effect is more shrug-worthy than revelatory. 

Wright, so good in last year’s Not Your Superwoman at the Bush, appears all at sea on a much larger stage, projecting little more than ongoing irritation for most of the evening, although she achieves a degree of power when Yvonne’s civilised mask slips.  The chemistry between her and Wilf Scolding, otherwise excellent as her white, wealthy boyfriend, is non-existent. Toussaint fares better, and has undeniable stage presence, although there’s only so much anybody can do with a role whose main characteristic seems to be that she’s permanently in a bad mood. Ashley Thomas strikes the same relentless note as a scheming rival journalist, but Odoffin creates something intriguing and authentic out of the mysterious Latisha. 

Schisms within the Black community, social mobility, and journalistic integrity should be fascinating subjects. Here though, they ultimately get flattened by flavourless writing and a staging apparently more concerned with flashy tricks than meaningful substance. The would-be-epic civil unrest final scene is strikingly staged, but cannot disguise that Scott Wilson’s script and the show as a whole ran out of steam long before this point.

Anna Fleischle’s angular, ugly scenic design, which looks conceived for the more traditional proscenium arch stage of the Lyttelton next door rather than the massive open circular space that the Olivier offers, sets the whole play in a school gymnasium. There’s no intelligible reason for this, other than that a couple of the flashback sequences take place in a deprived inner city school, and it just seems like another misfiring aspect of a production that can’t get out of its own way. I didn’t much care for the misconceived Sandra Oh Misanthrope earlier in the summer, but The Story brazenly steals that show’s crown as the National Theatre’s biggest dud of the year.

ANNIE WOBBLER (REVISITED)

                

by Arnold Wesker

 

adapted, directed and performed by Nichola McAuliffe

 

Finborough Theatre, London – until 26 September 2026

 

Running time: 75 minutes no interval

https://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/annie-wobbler-revisited

 

The term “tour de force” gets bandied about with wearisome regularity and frequently some inaccuracy. However, if you want to see what a genuine tour de force looks like, head to the Finborough where award-winning actress and writer Nichola McAuliffe is resurrecting, after forty five years, a series of monologues created for her by that master of unflinching theatrical realism Arnold Wesker.

 The women who comprise Annie Wobbler are variations on the theme of female identity and the masks people adopt, or are forced to wear, to deal with the world at large. In a performance of chameleonic brilliance and with the energy of a dervish, McAuliffe embodies recent graduate Anna, brimming with a relatable combination of self-doubt and bubbly confidence preparing for a hot date and dumbing down her natural intelligence so as not to intimidate the man she’s seeing. 

Then she plays three versions of best-selling author Annabella, the first a genteelly whimsical Irish-accented boozer, the second a fiery, cougar-ish Scottish woman, and the last a sensitive, lonely upper crust matron. If it’s not clear why we are being treated to a trio of contrasting iterations, McAuliffe’s acting and the jagged elegance of Wesker’s language ensure that the confusion is entirely pleasurable.

 The final, and most effective, creation is the eponymous Annie Wobbler, a wistful, garrulous homeless woman, pushing her pitiful cart of possessions around a mainline railway terminus, her fractured mind suspended somewhere between a rosily remembered past as a home help and a dislocating present, adrift in a cosmopolitan modern city she barely recognises. McAuliffe is devastatingly good; neither she nor Wesker patronise Annie, investing her with a bruised, busy dignity and, in her memories, a palpable joy. Annie drinks, not fastidiously, but with the practical, habitual manner of somebody who constantly needs to blunt the edges. 

There are hints of unspecified past trauma (why did she never hold down a job longer than a certain period of time?) for Annie, and McAuliffe conveys a boatload of feeling and barely comprehended memory just by staring into space. She’s spiky too, but her barbed references to foreigners and Jewish people, though deliberately jarring, sound less like prejudice and more like somebody trying to make sense of an increasingly bewildering, unfamiliar world. When she refers to the need for herself to be rubbed out and started again, it tears at your heart. We might feel sadness for Annie Wobbler, even while marvelling at her indomitable spirit and ripe humour, but she never feels sorry for herself. 

In the original production, Annie was costumed by designer Pamela Howard like a Dickensian crone, but this time around she wears a shiny hat vaguely resembling a crown, and that feels more appropriate: this damaged survivor is a queen of sorts, and, in this mighty performance, she haunts our imaginations. McAuliffe never lets her, or us, off the hook…and this is a performance which every drama student in London needs to see.

In all honesty, the attempts to bring Wesker’s gritty, witty text bang up-to-date feel a touch hamfisted. References to the internet and social media are just cosmetic, in a script that actually has a timeless quality: the constraints upon all three women depicted here haven’t, unfortunately, changed very much across nearly five decades. Having Annie Wobbler disport next to a station lavatory sign that includes the non-binary symbol seems more like lip service than anything else, but at least it doesn’t detract from the grim vitality of the writing or McAuliffe’s sensational performance. 

Alex Jennings, James Naughtie and Peter Straker provide striking pre-recorded vocal turns as various men in the various Annie’s lives. Richard House’s lighting and Sebastian Frost’s sound are sharp and sensitive. Ultimately though, this is all about Ms McAuliffe, which is just how the late great Arnold would have wanted it. She’s a thrilling technician with heart, intelligence and, like her author, a deep understanding of flawed humanity, and she holds the audience in her outstretched hand. Do not miss her.

A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY 

by Brian Friel after Ivan Turgenev 

directed by Lyndsey Turner 

Donmar Warehouse, London – until 3 October 2026

running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval 

https://www.donmarwarehouse.com/events/a-month-in-the-country/?instance-type=standard#content-overview

Disappointment, ennui, romantic and erotic yearnings, half-truths that make the day-to-day living that bit more bearable…. all of these things are suffused like smoke though Turgenev’s mid-nineteenth century tragicomedy, revived at the Donmar in Brian Friel’s widely seen 1992 translation. Friel and Turgenev are a good match: A Month In The Country is full of the elegiac indolence and bitter humour that characterises much of the Irish master playwright’s output. It’s also similar to the work of Turgenev’s contemporary fellow countryman Chekhov, who Friel has also extensively adapted, although this never quite matches the depth and universality of the mighty Anton at his best.

Audiences longing to wallow in atmospherics and elegant savagery will find plenty to enjoy here, but anybody in search of something with a bit more oomph may find their patience tested. It’s all mood and no action. Director Lyndsey Turner has form at the Donmar with Friel, having directed several of his plays here including, a decade ago, a heart-stoppingly fine version of his Faith Healer that deserves to be the benchmark by which all future productions for a generation are measured.

This adaptation is exquisitely written and finds the sweet spot between stylishness  and misery so essential to the original script. On a rural Russian estate, sundry malcontents pick away at their unexpressed feelings, guard or bemoan their social standings, and are presided over by landowner’s wife Nataya Petrovna (Sophie Okonedo) who assuages her chronic boredom by meddling in the lives of others.

One of several curious things about Turner’s production is that the actors, while individually fine, sometimes seem to be inhabiting different worlds from each other. Okonedo is brisk, mercurial and often very funny as scheming Natalya, even if her motivations and quicksilver mood changes aren’t always easy to comprehend. 

Thomas Arnold is sensitive, touching and sincere as Arkady, her misused husband, while Patrick Gibson’s gauche, impassioned academic Belyayev and Rachelle Diedericks as the young woman falling for him both seem to be going for a modern realism that gives a jolt of electricity to the proceedings but isn’t mirrored elsewhere.

Daniel Rigby is manically humorous but undeniably effective as a self-serving local doctor while Alastair Petrie plays Rakitin, Natalya’s most ardent admirer, as so low energy that he almost disappears before our very eyes. Amanda Wilkin, all gawky physicality and staring eyes, works hard as a rebellious, snuff-addicted lady’s companion but it comes across as more of a comic turn than a fully realised characterisation, while Jessica Brindle and Jonathan Livingstone paint the lusty servants in similarly broad strokes.

They’re as nothing though compared to the bumbling, mispronouncing German interloper Herr Schaaf, played by Mark Hadfield like something from a 1970s sitcom. The most satisfying performance, by quite a long margin, comes from Susan Brown, utterly perfect as Arkady’s soignée but no-nonsense mother. The scene where she lets on a seismic family secret to her flailing son is beautifully handled. Michael Hodgson finds real pathos in a socially awkward local landowner reduced to being a pawn in other smarter people’s games.

Turner and designer Leslie Travers have updated the time period, possibly by about a century, but not distractingly so. Visually this Month In The Country is a feast of rich autumnal hues (Tim Lutkin’s lighting is particularly evocative) in rueful harmony with the melancholy inner lives of the characters. Travers’ set ingeniously marries the opulence of Arkady Islayev’s house with the verdant landscape of the country estate surrounding it (drawing room furniture is placed directly onto the green lawn, a horizontal cascade of reeds and florals frame a grand arch leading to other interior locations). 

It all looks lovely, and it would perhaps be churlish in a play like this one to complain that there isn’t much in the way of pace, but much of the blocking is pedestrian and the constant raising and lowering of leaf-covered walls to indicate passage of time and scene breaks is rather awkward. The decision to occasionally have Natalya and Rakitin’s inner thoughts booming over the sound system for them to respond to, is an odd one, awkwardly straddling comedy and melodrama; it’s also inconsistent, as though it had been floated during the rehearsal process then neither fully abandoned nor properly explored.

For all these reservations, there is much to savour here. It’s handsomely mounted, and most cast members get moments to shine, albeit seldom in tandem with each other. A quality piece of theatre for sure, but not one that suggests Turgenev’s work has anything startlingly relevant to offer modern audiences. This may not feel like a whole month in the country, but it sure felt longer than just over two hours.

JEEVES TAKES CHARGE

 

by P G Wodehouse 

 

Adapted by James and Edward Duke

 

Co-adapted and directed by Hugh Wooldridge

 

Charing Cross Theatre, London – until 6 September 2026

 

Running time: 2 hours including interval

https://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/theatre/jeeves-takes-charge

 

Connoisseurs of a certain gilded camp silliness that is peculiarly English and entirely inconsequential, should hasten to Charing Cross Theatre, where Jeeves Takes Charge, first seen in the West End in 1980, emerges as though suspended in champagne jelly like a shiny, semi-precious relic from a bygone era. Distilled from P G Wodehouse’s popular though thoroughly archaic Jeeves and Wooster stories, chronicling the misadventures of a bumptious but well meaning early twentieth century high society bon viveur and his wry, all-seeing butler, it doesn’t amount to much beyond amiable, gentle light entertainment, boozy and woozy. 

This revival is exquisitely, lovingly, produced, and features an athletic tour de force solo performance from Sam Harrison. It’s unlikely to gain Wodehouse any new fans but it will be delightful for anybody who books tickets knowing exactly what they’re going to get. Caite Hevner’s set and video designs are particularly impressive. The scenery is a fairly standard fireplace, bay window and sofa arrangement, but the astonishingly precise and technically accomplished video embellishments are extraordinary. A London drawing room transforms in a heartbeat to Brighton seafront, a breathless journey through the countryside, a cosy but naff fete…the list goes on. It’s all beautifully rendered and lends the text an interest that it probably wouldn’t have unaided. 

Script devisers Edward Duke (who starred in the first production, winning an Olivier award) and James Duke have done a capable job of filleting Wodehouse’s madcap original material and compressing it into a series of anecdotes, put over with irrepressible verve by the indefatigable Harrison. He embodies both leading characters, and also the motley crew of other privileged, exotically monikered creations of Wodehouse’s imagination, including Gussie Fink-Nottle, formidable Aunt Agatha and Wooster’s stridently bossy financée Lady Florence Craye. His physical comedy skills are a joy (look out for his attempts to rouse himself from a sofa while severely hung over), and he bites into Wodehouse’s baroque, literate language with a relish that proves contagious.

Personally, I could have lived without the pair of over-enthusiastic public schoolgirls apparently escaped from Daisy Pulls It Off and employed to put up bunting and whip up flagging audience enthusiasm. Hugh Wooldridge’s production probably outstays its welcome by at least ten minutes, and, at least on the night I saw it, was punctuated with rather less helpless laughter than one might have hoped. 

Still, Harrison is superb, the show looks very pretty, and the whole production is suffused with such affection it’s hard not to be charmed. Times have changed but Bertie Wooster remains twinklingly out-of-touch and Jeeves retains his lugubrious wit.

ABIGAIL’S PARTY

by Mike Leigh 

directed by Nadia Fall

Harold Pinter Theatre, London – until 19 September 2026

running time: 2 hours including interval

https://www.haroldpintertheatre.co.uk/shows/abigails-party

“We’re not here to hold conversations, we’re here to enjoy ourselves” – yes Mike Leigh’s Beverly Moss, that mid-1970s gorgon of upward social mobility, suburban marital warfare and aggressively over-the-top home entertaining, is back. This time she’s in the magnetic glamazon form of Tamzin Outhwaite who may just be delivering career-best work in Nadia Fall’s extravagantly kitschy but ultimately dramatically potent revival. 

Abigail’s Party, with its excessive drinking, quips about rape, cheesy pineapple festive snacks, and Demis Roussos references, feels as though it’s locked in a time capsule harking back to the decade that taste forgot. It defies updating and, honestly, if this production wasn’t quite as good as it is, one might be tempted to wonder what relevance it has to today. 

Wisely, Fall allows the script to speak for itself while subtly injecting it with a couple of new emphases that make the characters read slightly differently. The most obvious one is in making the younger neighbours, over-eager nurse Angela and taciturn former footballer Tony (Lauren Patel and Omar Malik), into an Asian couple. As far as I can tell, not a line of dialogue has been changed, but their heritage adds an extra comic piquancy to Angela’s complaint that they never have curry because Tony can’t stand it. More significantly, it lends a new unease to the section where Laurence (Kevin Bishop), Beverly’s increasingly desperate estate agent husband, questions older local resident Sue (Pandora Colin) as to whether she has noticed any significant changes in the area. Bishop, brilliant, lards Laurence’s low level racism with real covert nastiness, spitting out the word “cosmopolitan” like it’s poison. 

Initially, it looks like production the might be on the verge of overdoing the 1970s garishness, especially at the first reveal of Peter McKintosh’s busy, retina-bruising living room set. Remember, when this play was first done in 1977 it was a contemporary piece, nailing the foibles and pretensions of the newly moneyed lower middle classes of the time, not a big ole camp fest. Despite a few overly broad strokes, Fall’s version swiftly hits its comic and dramatic strides most pleasingly. 

Beverly, especially as played here, could be seen as a precursor to the shallow, wealthy TOWIE vulgarians who’ve achieved celebrity status in the last couple of decades. Outhwaite, astonishingly, succeeds in banishing all memories of Alison Steadman’s vivid, borderline grotesque original creation, giving us a Beverly in love with the sound of her own voice, relentlessly self-dramatising but with an edge of sour unhappiness that becomes more and more strident as the gin starts to flow. She’s a suburban diva who sees her lavishly appointed living room as her own personal stage, with anybody else who comes into her orbit as mere bit part players. Her lascivious objectification of hunky Tony is hilariously done, but it’s clearly in reaction to a deeply unsatisfying intimate relationship with the hapless Laurence. It’s a multi-layered performance, laugh-out-loud funny but never at the expense of some sort of manic truth,  and she’s strangely endearing in her lack of empathy and self-awareness. It’s a performance that straddles the divide between barnstorming and brutal reality, with a side-order of spite and camp fabulousness. It’s impossible to take your eyes off this combination of fishwife and suburban queen as she delivers the excruciating banalities in Leigh’s endlessly quotable script with majestic aplomb and total conviction.

Patel’s Angela, pushing a bit hard for the humour at first but eventually becoming hugely endearing, and Malik convince as a couple whose mutual communication is permanently running on empty. Intriguingly and crucially, they achieve, in the play’s harrowing final minutes, the feat of showing us why this pair really do work well together, despite all the odds. Colin, in the least rewarding role as divorcee Sue whose daughter’s unruly gathering down the street gives the play its title, is squirmingly awkward perfection. 

This really is Outhwaite’s show, and she’s so sensational she’s not even upstaged by her wig (at least one assumes it’s a wig) which looks like a cross between a blonde Barbarella-era Jane Fonda and The Wizard of Oz’s Cowardly Lion. Judging from the ecstatic audience reaction, there’s still plenty of life in this 1970s throwback of a play, and it’s hard to imagine a better revival than this one. Other people behaving appallingly are so seldom this much fun. 

BURY THE HATCHET

written by Sasha Wilson

directed by Vicky Moran

an Out Of The Forest production 

Southwark Playhouse Borough – The Little,  London – until 5 September 2026

running time: 75 minutes no interval 

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/bury-the-hatchet/

Bonkers, brief and enjoyable, Out Of The Forest’s Bury The Hatchet is a unique, surprising fusion of cabaret, Grand Guignol horror, courtroom drama and rollicking good fun. This exploration of the Lizzie Borden legend, equal parts factual and fanciful, has been knocking around fringe stages for some eight years, but honestly it’s not hard to see why it keeps coming back. 

The question of whether Lizzie actually did murder her father Andrew and stepmom Abby in the rural family home in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892 is something that has fascinated storytellers and true crime specialists for decades. Furthermore, Bury The Hatchet (there’s a moderately funny running gag that Lizzie can’t tell the difference between a hatchet and an axe) is a fun time in the theatre where you might actually learn something (unlike, say, the 2009 rock musical Lizzie which had two runs here at Southwark but where it was hard to work out what was going on over all the shrieking and posturing). Plus, this must be comparatively cheap to produce (three performers on a unit set) and proves a grand showcase for talent, requiring the trio to be multi-roleing character actors, comics, compères and versatile musicians.

Writer Sasha Wilson leads from the front as an acerbic Lizzie, calm and composed on the surface but convincingly, and alarmingly, unhinged when required. Her sidekicks, Lawrence Boothman and David Leopold, are equally impressive playing everyone else, from a stern judge to Lizzie’s disapproving older sister and the flighty but vaguely sinister Irish maid Bridget. All three are terrific, versatile folk musicians and vocalists.

There’s a vivid pink identifying label attached to every prop, including the fatal hatchet (or is it an axe?!), a period telephone, and sundry other items to aid the storytelling, as well as to the fiddles, guitars and banjos employed by the cast, making them look like a camp cross between exhibits in a museum and pieces of potentially incriminating evidence being used in a forensic investigation. 

The principal visual impact (set by Damien Stanton, costumes by Helen Stewart) is of a sort of low budget, gothic stylishness, and it’s pretty effective. I can’t help but wish Will Alder had found another way of lighting the show by shining lamps straight into the eyes of audience seated in the central section. It may all look wonderfully atmospheric when viewed from an angle but, seated head on, the main visual takeaway is one of acute physical discomfort. 

The story shifts perspective several times between corroborated facts and suppositions about what might have happened, and how Lizzie’s life later turned out. The initial concept of setting the audience up as the jury is only fitfully alighted upon as the show goes on, but the wit of the writing, the sheer theatricality of Vicky Moran’s staging and the quality of the performances collectively provide such an acid rush of pleasure that it doesn’t overly matter.

Bury The Hatchet doesn’t necessarily add anything to the Lizzie Borden narrative that we don’t already know: the Sapphic overtones, intimations of family abuse, the dichotomy between a moneyed, luxurious life and criminal activity of the most heinous order…it’s all here. But it’s presented with such originality and skill that it’s impossible not to be grimly enchanted.

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

by William Shakespeare 

directed by Indiana Lown-Collins

Shakespeare’s Globe, London – in repertoire until 13 September 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval 

https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/loves-labours-lost/

Even the most ardent of Shakespearean aficionados struggle to work up much enthusiasm for Love’s Labour’s Lost. This is the seldom performed comedy where the middle word of the title can sometimes feel like an unfortunate summary of the whole exhausting tale of foresworn romance, territorial conflicts, and deception. It’s lovely then to report that Indiana Lown-Collins’ flamenco-infused new distillation for the Globe is an unexpected delight, as heady and light of heart as it is stomping of foot and strong on bawdy, broad comedy. 

I use the word “distillation” deliberately: the original text has been so cut and messed about with that this Love’s Labour’s Lost feels more like a gorgeous cousin to the Bard’s original than a faithful rendering. Frankly, I’m not complaining, as this play can so often feel precious, dense but deeply tedious. Not this time though, where Lown-Collins and her team serve up Shakespeare with tangy Spanish atmospherics, full-on belly laughs and a bonkers joie de vivre that only the most miserable of curmudgeons could fail to respond to. 

Lown-Collins’ version is both fiery and airy. It’s set in a Spain replete with garish ceramic tiles, sparkling toreador costumes, castanets, a bullfight (mercifully, only simulated and stylised but with real theatrical flair), and where the Princess (a wonderful Norah Lopez Holden, authoritative but multi-layered) is no longer from France and has her sights set on Aragon instead of Aquitaine on behalf of her ailing father.  

The performances are excellent throughout, but it’s the women that are really powerful. Aside from Lopez Holden, who is fast turning into one of the most exciting Shakespeareans of her generation, Bea Segura excels as an enigmatic, strongly accented Rosaline with Jimena Larraguivel like a spitfire in human form as a wild, lovable Jaquenetta. If occasionally the accents obscure the language it’s a fair trade-off given the Spanish authenticity they lend.

The teacher Holofernes has been deliciously reimagined as an insufferable yet strangely irresistible female English tourist, complete with naff outfit, massive cultural insensitivity, and “I Loveth Navarre” beach bag. Katy Stephens is a swaggering, chorizo-chomping delight in the role, and she has form with this sort of thing, having played an equally off-the-wall crowd pleaser as a singing, gender-swapped Leonata in the wartime-set Much Ado in 2022.

The central quartet of scholars – Ned Costello as King of Navarre, Philip Arditti’s Berowne, Philip Labey as Longaville, and Jax Guerrero’s Dumaine – register as potent individual characters and as a charmingly quirky team. The scene where each expresses their love/lust through modern pop songs is a particular highlight. Joshua Hill is likeable and tremendously sexy as cheeky stablehand Costard, whose affection for fellow worker Jaquenetta unleashes all sorts of mayhem.  There’s terrific work, very funny but unexpectedly nuanced, from Daniel Crossley, doubling as an uptight constable and a witty, flamboyant diplomat.

The ravishing design work of Katie Lias and flamenco choreography by Carmen Igarza, as well as a band of musicians as characterful as they’re melodic, add immeasurably to the appeal of a production that turns a play that often seems like hard work into an entrancingly good time. The back of the programme has the quote “if you deny to dance, let’s hold more chat” from Act V, scene two…..but this glorious show definitely favours the dance, and I, for one, am not complaining.