ajhlovestheatre

RON

by Ted Walliker

directed by Lev Govorovski and Ted Walliker

Riverside Studios, London – until 3 July 2026

running time: 1 hour no interval 

https://riversidestudios.co.uk/whats-on/Jf-ron/

Unrequited love can do funny things to a person. If this slippery, unhinged, grimly delightful solo show is to be believed, it can drive one to jealousy, murder, cannibalism, elaborate interior design delusions while under the influence of class A drugs, McDonalds….and stand-up comedy. Although reminiscent of Jack Holden’s Cruise and Kenrex, both of which expanded the monologue form to dazzling technical and storytelling heights, and also Marcelo dos Santos’ Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen which married gay erotic disappointment to edgy stand-up, Ted Walliker’s Ted has a macabre comic sensibility that is entirely its own.

On paper, Walliker’s ubiquitous participation in the show, as writer, performer, co-director and co-designer (with Lev Govorovski), and lighting and sound creator, might seem a tad over-ambitious. In practice though, Ted turns out to be one of the most inspirational, off-the-wall displays of prodigious, singular sheer talent that I can remember in quite some time.

In the promotional materials, the show is subtitled “this is not standup”. Upon entering the theatre and seeing the single spotlit microphone, a comedy set appears to be exactly what we’re in for, an impression reinforced by Walliker’s first appearance as hapless Tony, nervily commenting on the conventions of performance and failing to land his gags. All is not entirely as it seems however, and this deliberately uncertain start belies the wild wild ride in store.

Part of Ron’s considerable power derives from how unexpected it all is, which of course makes it almost impossible to review without spoilers. Suffice to say that Walliker is a remarkable performer, turning on a dime from charming and goofy to borderline terrifying, with the comic instincts of a true clown, and an unsettling ability to present the outrageous and occasionally downright disgusting with a throwaway matter-of-factness that draws you in before leaving you reeling with shock. 

On the surface, Tony is one of life’s followers, socially awkward, perpetually aggrieved and tragically in romantic thrall to loutish Mike, his friend since the age of seven. There’s a lot more to him than that though, a lot of it deeply worrying, some of it hilarious and most of it psychopathic. 

Walliker weaves deftly between the two contrasting men as they embark on a road trip fuelled by booze, spite and misguided indignation at being served with the wrong meal at McDonalds (the eponymous Ron is the unfortunate fast food employee who bungles their order). If you can imagine Tarantino transplanted to the Home Counties you’ll have some idea of what’s going on here, but that description doesn’t convey the quirky lunacy of the humour or the unexpected, but entirely earned, moments of real poignancy. 

Nor does it do justice to the breathless brilliance of the writing. Walliker employs a selection of styles that initially seem to be working against each other – there’s comedy surreal and potty-mouthed, soap operatic angst, overblown poeticism, forensically accurate anatomical descriptions – but make total sense once you have the full picture. 

Technically, the production has a similarly scattershot feel, with complex lighting, sound and music cues, plus an elaborate visual transformation, that fully coalesce by the conclusion of sixty playful, alarming, revelatory minutes. Walliker emerges as a bright new star, his performance as appealing as it is frequently repellent, and his script as gripping as it’s strange and funny. 

Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer and Liz Kingsman’s One Woman Show both started out in modest formats not dissimilar to this one, before moving on to lucrative and much acclaimed further lives. Ron, though not for the squeamish, is a hell of a debut for Riverside Studios as a producing house, and fully deserves a similar level of success as those esteemed titles. It’s that good. 

WE HAD A WORLD 

by Joshua Harmon

directed by Josh Seymour 

Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London – until 4 July 2026

running time: 100 minutes no interval

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2026/we-had-a-world/

Joshua Harmon’s beautifully wrought three hander exploring the turbulent relationship between his mother and her mother, and the far-reaching effects his grandmother has had on his own life, was a critical and commercial success in New York last year. Seeing this note-perfect London premiere directed by Josh Seymour, on Hampstead’s smaller Downstairs stage, though if there’s any justice it’ll have a longer ongoing life, it’s very easy to see why. 

We Had A World is that rare and marvellous thing, a play that is at once intensely personal and specific (these garrulous, angry, loving women could only be Jewish New Yorkers) but also bracingly universal. Who hasn’t felt resentment when their emotional needs aren’t met by those who should love and understand them the most? Who hasn’t sometimes felt like a pawn in an incomprehensible game being played by individuals who should know and behave better? Who hasn’t experienced deep remorse and regret when a tricky, exasperating loved one is no longer around to spar with or check in on? The sensibility, and the tone, which tends to the sentimental but shot through with flashes of gorgeous humour and moments of cold, hard truth, is quintessentially Jewish, but this play is for all of us.

Opening with majestically fierce grandmother Renee (Suzanne Bertish, soaring and searing in a role created last year by Tony winner Joanna Gleason) instructing Joshua to write about their family (“make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible”), Harmon then plays fast and loose with structure as the play zips back and forth through thirty years of rows, upsets, confidences and life-changing moments. Such is the subtle virtuosity of the direction and acting (Ryan Kopel is Joshua, Anna Francolini is his mother Ellen, both are flawless), and the clarity of the writing, that we are never in doubt as to which point we’re at in these people’s lives, despite the unconventional approach to chronology.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Francolini better than she is here as tetchy, tough-talking but seldom unkind career woman Ellen (“I’m a bitch…it’s one of my best qualities”), perpetually feuding with her (unseen) sister and uneasily aware that wayward Renee is a more glamorous and irresistible figure to young Joshua than she herself is. She’s  not really a bitch of course, as Joshua is quick to point out, but she’s spiky and resentful after a lifetime of hurt and disappointment, and it’s abundantly clear how much she loves her son. Francolini’s multi-layered portrayal shines a light into every crevice of this flawed but essentially good woman; she’s bitterly funny and tremendously affecting in the brief moments when Ellen lets her laconic mask slip. 

Kopel is every bit as impressive as Joshua, traversing the years from impressionable teenager entranced by his free-thinking grandmother but loyal to his embattled mom, through coming out as gay, to successful writer, and back again, with a winning combination of grit and charm. He never overplays the youth of Joshua as a kid, suggesting his essential greenness with a slight shift in stance and the tiniest change in vocal tone. It’s beautiful, unshowy work, ceding the spotlight to the women, but pivotal to the overall success of this intimate, sometimes painfully honest piece. 

Bertish makes a triumphant stage return as incorrigible, free-wheeling Renee. As difficult and unpredictable as she’s loving and hilarious, she’s a clear-eyed survivor with a passion for the arts, her grandson, booze and for riling up her daughter, in roughly that order. It’s a fabulous role, hilarious but too richly textured to subside into mere comic schtick and cliché. It’s impossible to take your eyes off Bertish as she cajoles, manipulates, infuriates everyone around her….and she finds an authentic, tragic nobility in Renee’s final demise (“when you have an especially good time, say, my grandmother is thinking of me….Joshua I’m gonna be watching. From above or below, but I’ll be watching”), even as she rails against Trump from her deathbed (“the great United States is at the mercy of this idiot”). The writing and the performance are both unforgettable.

Within a giant fluorescent-lined box, some sticks of furniture and a small, glacier-shaped object that diminishes as the play progresses, serving perhaps as a metaphor for Renee and Ellen’s relationship as well as an emblem of the environmental concerns that trouble Joshua and a nod to the art that this grandmother introduced her beloved grandson to, are all the visual stimuli we get, and all that we need. Still, Seymour and his designers Sarah Beaton (set and costumes) and Joshua Gadsby (lighting) evoke a New York of museums and theatres and oppressive, lived-in homes. It’s all abstract yet it feels vivid and real.

We Had A World is a total pleasure. A complex but deeply felt and entirely accessible family drama that wears its heart upon its sleeve, and is unafraid to put its audience through the wringer when required. It’s generous, compulsive, and healing with its deep understanding and wry observances of how close family relationships work. A must-see.

HIGH SOCIETY

Music and lyrics by Cole Porter

Book by Arthur Kopit

Additional lyrics by Susan Birkenhead

based on the play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry

directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Barbican Theatre, London – until 11 July 2026 then touring 

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/cole-porter-high-society

It’s tempting to contrast this summer’s Barbican musical High Society with the stunning Broadway revival of Anything Goes in 2022, or 2024’s sumptuous, starry Kiss Me, Kate, since they’re all stuffed with beloved Cole Porter numbers and played the same venue….but the comparison isn’t entirely fair. Kiss Me, Kate is a prime example of Golden Age perfection while, even in its rewritten form (the book was heavily revised for the 1980s Lincoln Center production), Anything Goes is a frothily well-crafted theatrical property. Meanwhile High Society was conceived as a film and this stage version, first seen as a Broadway flop in 1998, is a mish-mash of the cherished ‘50s movie and the Philip Barry play The Philadelphia Story upon which it’s based. It’s really a jukebox musical: the soundtrack had nine songs while playwright Arthur Kopit’s adaptation shoehorns in an additional ten Porter favourites, a couple of which, when you listen to the lyrics, don’t feel fully integrated. 

Rachel Kavanaugh’s staging, heading off around the country and to Ireland after this two month run in town, is certainly very attractive to look at. Tom Rogers’ sumptuous scenic design of an ocean-side mansion -a single unit suggesting interiors and exteriors- appears ready to tour, but it’s very much the set for a No.1 tour, augmented by some gorgeous extra pieces, such as magically lit, statuary-filled garden or lavish conservatory. The pastel elegance of Jon Morrell’s costumes and colourful washes of lighting by Howard Hudson are perfect complements; the whole thing is a visual feast, and an aural one too, a seventeen piece band making Porter’s classic tunes snap and sparkle in Larry Blank and Mark Cumberland’s orchestrations. 

Director Kavanaugh doesn’t do much with the material beyond place it prettily onstage, so this precious tale of ultra-rich folk dealing with romantic entanglements, betrayals and misunderstandings in the rarified surroundings of pre-WW2 Long Island plays out with panache, some wit….and almost zero edge. For a night of bland escapism, it works well enough but the emotional temperature never rises above the tepid, the absence of chemistry between Helen George’s spoilt but spirited heiress and Julian Ovenden as Dexter, her torch-carrying ex-husband being a major factor in this. There’s little urgency or sense of real feelings beneath the barbs and quips.

Ovenden is the quintessential old school leading man though, with insouciant charm and humour, good looks, magnetic warmth and a singing voice like melted butter. If he’s pretty much perfect, top-billed George is more serviceable than exciting. She hints at her character’s inability to cope with human frailty and how that repeatedly scuppers her relationships, but doesn’t register much in the way of longing or the fire that makes Tracy Samantha Lord so fascinating to those around her. Her singing and dancing are adequate, and she looks fabulous in the period frocks, but she’s an insipid figure to build a musical around.

Freddie Fox makes a rather wonderful musical theatre debut as Mike Connor, the cynical Left-leaning journalist arrived in Oyster Bay to lampoon the Lords but unexpectedly seduced by the lifestyle. Fox’s singing voice is decent enough but he has a playfulness and lightness of touch that’s just sublime, whether staggering about drunkenly having consumed his body weight in champagne or bug-eyed at the opulence of his surroundings, and he’s a lovely mover. He also achieves that unique combination of camp flamboyance and heterosexual swagger that makes this sort of material fly.

An oddly muted Carly Mercedes Dyer is likeable as his wise-cracking photographer sidekick but doesn’t have as much impact as one might have hoped, and her big second act solo ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ doesn’t sit comfortably in her (usually tremendous) voice. Nigel Lindsay is great fun as boozy, priapic Uncle Willie and David Seadon-Young excels, making comedy and a fully rounded character out of Tracy’s stuffed-shirt, fish-out-of-water new husband-to-be.

There’s fresh, funny work from Naomi Pacquette as the mischievous but whip-smart younger sibling, and from Malcolm Sinclair as the philandering patriarch looking to inveigle his way back into the family fold, though I could have lived without his attempts at singing. Felicity Kendal is an eccentric delight as Margaret ‘Mother’ Lord, gurgingly at odds with the well-drilled shenanigans elsewhere, but with a sense of fun and sly wit that proves irresistible nonetheless.

Anthony Van Laast’s dances are decorative and enjoyable, if seldom particularly exhilarating. Kavanaugh’s staging has a tight pace, though not without its ponderous moments, such as having Tracy twirling briefly and ineffectually behind an upper level French door while Dexter wistfully sings about her from below. Some of the clowning is pretty leaden, notably in a misconceived ‘I Love Paris’ sequence (the song borrowed from Can Can) and in the actual ‘Be A Clown’ number itself. Then there’s a bizarre moment where drunk Tracy and Mike, aiming to go skinny dipping, charge off upstage, completely ignoring the fact that the swimming pool is downstage front (it’s literally right there) ….or are we supposed to surmise that the Lords are so wealthy that they have multiple pools?!

The songs, the frequently ravishing spectacle and the leading men are the main reasons to see this High Society. It’s pleasant and amusing but anybody after a bit of drama and excitement will need to look elsewhere. It’s not vintage musical theatre but it does exactly what it says on the tin.

REDCLIFFE

Book, music and lyrics by Jordan Luke Gage

directed by Paul Foster

Southwark Playhouse – Borough, London – until 4 July 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval 

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/redcliffe/

A solo creative doing the book,  music and lyrics for a musical can result in clarity and cohesion of vision (look at Willy Russell and Blood Brothers or Rupert Holmes with The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Richard O’Brien’s inspirational weirdness for The Rocky Horror Show) or, conversely, a right old mess that suffers because nobody puts the brakes on when necessary (anybody remember Mike Batt’s The Hunting of the Snark or an off-West End abomination by Daniel Abineri entitled Money To Burn which closed between matinee and evening performance during the week of its press night in 2003? No? Good for you….) It’s wonderful to report then that Redcliffe, the new tuner by West End leading man Jordan Luke Gage (& Juliet, Heathers, Bonnie and Clyde, Titanique), belongs most definitely in the former category. This is the most enjoyable, and most emotionally resonant, new British musical since The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and deserves to achieve a similar sort of extended life after this initial Southwark Playhouse season.

What matters about Redcliffe is not that it’s perfect (it isn’t: some of the storytelling needs clarifying, it could lose a song or two and the dialogues between its 18th century setting and the present day would benefit from some finessing) but rather that it has ambition, massive heart, characters we genuinely care about, and some really terrific tunes. It’s also about something real and urgent, being inspired by the true story of Bristolian William Critchard and Londoner Richard Arnold, lovers executed in 1753 for “the detestable crime of buggery”.

It explores, with authentic feeling and some wit, the historical attitudes to homosexuality and the gulf between the cruelty and suspicion gay people were treated with back in the day and the progressive attitudes of the present, while also noting that in some quarters of the world not much has changed. If it’s more of a lament than a celebration, it impressively mixes together a human interest story, pockets of joy, some romance, and a whole lot of heartbreak.

Director Paul Foster has fashioned the material into an entrancing theatrical experience, combining intimacy and epic sweep, the gear changes between raucous pub numbers (de rigeur apparently for any musical with a period working class setting, from The Beggars Opera through Oliver! to Les Mis), church chorales, family recriminations, erotically charged sequences between the two men, and scenes of heartbreaking suffering, are brilliantly managed. The action swirls rhapsodically over Andrew Exeter’s timbered apron stage, an atmospheric space of benches, boxes and endless possibilities, stunningly lit by Matt Hockley, before coming to rest in individual scenes ranging from the euphoric to the harrowing. It’s not always easy to see where Foster’s work ends and Emma Woods’ musical staging begins, and I mean that as the highest compliment. It’s a collaborative process and a whole late-1700s West Country maritime world is created with elegance and economy.

It looks absolutely beautiful, with a timelessness that matches Gage’s frequently gorgeous music which marries together Spring Awakening-style theatrical rock, folk and classical strings (Katy Richardson’s band and the orchestrations of Ben Tomalin and Ben Ferguson are just wonderful). Martin Hanly’s costumes display a similar historical duality, classically cut and contemporary clothing side-by-side, partially faded and with the imprint of other styles, patterns and ages simultaneously visible. It’s a sartorial equivalent of time seeping through and leaving its indelible imprint on individuals across the years; it’s tremendously effective, and another example of the detail which makes this such a staging to savour. 

Perhaps surprisingly, it’s the upbeat and comic numbers that work best, although the choral sections have a surging, haunting quality that thrills the blood. The ballads are memorable and well-crafted but some have a slightly tendency toward the generic. That said, there’s nothing generic about ‘Hurricane’, the epic solo -an aria really- Gage has created for William’s mother. It’s an absolute journey, as Ma Critchard goes from denial to acceptance then defiant allyship, and it requires full throttle vocals and textured, vivid acting; it gets all that and more in a stupendous, white-hot performance by Rebecca Lock that is incontrovertibly the stuff  of which theatregoers indellible memories are made. Even if the rest of the show wasn’t as good as it is, this number would be worth the ticket price alone. Absolutely remarkable. 

Gage plays William with a deeply touching sweetness and sincerity, his performance only becoming showy when he gets to unleash the higher levels of his stratospheric tenor. He’s superb. Opposite him Daniel Krikler makes something truly haunting out of Richard, in a tender, nuanced portrayal that combines gravitas, kindness and sheer unmistakable sex appeal. 

If the male leads impress with their restraint and subtlety, the principal women are more obviously sensational. It takes a special generosity of spirit to write a show which you’re starring in and then give the greatest role to somebody else, but that’s what Gage does here. The Critchley matriarch is a glorious creation, a funny, smart, determined woman with credible quirks, innate intelligence and a complex trajectory in terms of her understanding and personal growth that will likely resonate with any parent with a child outside what is considered the norm. It’s the most demanding and interesting Mother role in a musical since Ragtime and Lock inhabits every note, breath, shade and beat of her: astonishing. Jess Douglas Welsh, in a sympathetic, vivid, altogether wonderful London stage debut, is deeply moving as William’s younger sister Abigail, who also goes on a hell of a journey. Good luck with trying to hold back the tears in the second act when Abigail is trying to sell her hand-stitched kerchiefs for pennies so that she can make up the visiting fee to see her brother in prison; Douglas Welsh will break your heart.

The luxury casting includes golden-voiced Adrian Hansel, superb as the drunken publican who precipitates William and Richard’s tragedy, Melissa Jacques doubling up as a disapproving neighbour and authoritative judge, Steven Serlin’s snarlingly nasty prison guard and Joseph Peacock as the potential suitor Abigail understandably outgrows. The singing throughout is magnificent.

William and Richard’s journey from wariness to declarations of undying love is done a little too swiftly perhaps, but Gage displays an unexpected gift for pithy, humorous dialogue. The shadow of executions of local men accused of homosexuality falling over the initial scenes of cosy domesticity at Christmas is well done though, as is the suggestion from the outset of William’s slight ‘otherness’ even in the context of a family who adores him. There’s a heartstopping moment at the very end when the company drop their Bristolian accents (Redcliffe is an area of that Avon city) and address us with their own voices, to drop some interesting, and shameful, statistics about persecution of gay people in the world we live in right now. It’s an ingenious way of turning a richly enjoyable, rattling good yarn with a strong score into something much more timely and important. Alistair Penman’s refreshingly clear sound design ensures we catch every word.

This is a triumph for Jordan Luke Gage but it’s not a solo achievement; everyone here is working at the top of their game. When Redcliffe soars, it really soars.

DARK OF THE MOON 

Book by Jonathan Prince

Music and lyrics by Lindy Robbins, Dave Bassett and Steve Robson

based on a play by Howard D Richardson and William Berney 

directed by Georgie Rankcom

Charing Cross Theatre, London – until 8 August 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval

https://www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/

It would be nice while watching Dark Of The Moon, jaw dropped in disbelief, to reflect that it’s been a while since we’ve seen an objectively terrible musical on the London stage. But of course we’ve only just had the UK premiere of Korean zombie apocalypse farrago The Last Man over in Southwark. Now, as if to prove that lightning can in fact strike twice, there’s this overwrought yet undernourished effort, blending folklore, portentousness and high camp to frequently hysterical effect. In fairness, this is rather more fun, largely due to the talent involved but also because, like numerous other so-bad-they’re-nearly-good musicals (the original Carrie, Out Of The Blue, Which Witch), quasi-operatic ambition is tethered to a misconceived idea that apparently nobody on the creative team thought to halt, or at least question.

Inspired by a 1940s play and with a score written by a trio of Grammy nominated songwriters (Lindy Robbins, Dave Bassett and Steve Robson), it’s a fanciful tale of rustic Appalachian mountain folk and a coven of witches, aka Conjur people, who exist all around them but are mostly invisible to mortals. In a Little Mermaid-esque twist, one of the Conjur people, John the Witch Boy (yes really, played by Bat Out Of Hell’s Glenn Adamson, all goof, curls and soaring rock tenor) falls for human Barbara Allen (Lauren Jones, a genuine talent who, after starring in Rebecca, Scissorhandz and now this, really deserves a break) and opts to lose his supernatural powers to spend his life with her. 

It’s a supremely silly concept, but in all fairness no more so than the plot of Golden Age musicals such as Brigadoon or Finian’s Rainbow which were more or less contemporary to the original play this is based on. Where Dark Of The Moon really snaps the tether is in its execution. Rather like the Back To The Future musical which was effectively two scores for the price of one (the 1950s versus the 1980s) so this has the Appalachian villagers singing Blue Grass-inspired numbers (all the voices are superb) juxtaposed with a driving rock sound for the witches, heavy on drums and wailing guitars. Sometimes the two discrete styles fuse together, with cacophonous results. Generally though, this sets up the duality of the two worlds quite successfully even if Georgie Rankcom’s unfocused production – prone to aimlessly shuffling characters on and off to deliver the brief scenes in Jonathan Prince’s tortuous book, rather than maintaining any unity of style – seems unsure of how seriously any of this is supposed to be taken. 

Considering religious fervour, miscarriage and a potential lynching are involved, one would assume it’s not intended to be a barrel of laughs but the tone is all over the place. Josie Benson, whose skyscraping, power-packed vocals are authentically thrilling, looks to be having a huge amount of campy fun as the vengeful witchy queen, or Conjur Woman as she’s titled here, while Gary Turner as her more muted cohort plays it relatively straight. 

Then there’s the trio of witches -Al Knott, Jordan Broatch, Apolilly Szwarc, all done up like sexy vampires and gyrating their socks off- who form a sort-of malevolent Greek chorus. Rankcom and choreographer Jane McMurtrie has them jerking, writhing, slithering and hissing (yes, actually hissing) at each other as though in perpetual audition for some demonic reinterpretation of Cats. Lighting designer Jonathan Chan has had the decent idea of illuminating them in a pallid ghost light, in contrast to the more robust, naturalistic colours washing over the humans, but unfortunately the stage at Charing Cross is so small, especially when crowded with Libby Todd’s obtrusively busy wooded set, that the different light states bleed all over each other, sometimes making it a challenge to work out who’s undead and who’s alive. 

Adamson is no actor, with an emotional range that barely extends beyond overjoyed, bewildered or mildly inconvenienced but does well by the considerable demands of the score, while Jones works hard to bring a bit of depth and fire to the underwritten Barbara (who Witch Boy repeatedly and irritatingly calls by her full name of Barbara Allen, presumably lest he thinks he’s addressing Babs Windsor…or Streisand). She’s very appealing, with a cracking voice, and one longs to see her getting to grips with stronger material.

The lyrics throughout are at best undistinguished but musically the show is pretty interesting. There are far too many songs (a dozen in each act!) but they are strong on melody and the exhilaration factor, and it would be remiss of me not to tell you that the audience went wild at the end of some of the real bangers. Realistically, I could see several of these songs ending up on my ‘guilty pleasures’ Spotify playlist. Dillon Kondor’s orchestrations, a hybrid of ultra-loud rock’n’roll band and fiddle-led folksiness, are a real treat, bridging the gap between enchanting and face-melting.

It’s just a shame that most of the book scenes are flat as a pancake and, for all the drama inherent with the story (including a subplot similar to that of Oklahoma! whereby a slightly sinister local – in this case Samuel Murray’s overly youthful Marvin – is obsessed with our heroine), little ever seems at stake. By the time the townspeople go full pitchfork wielding mob on the gormless Wolf Boy we are deep into Disneys Beauty And The Beast territory but without the budget, and I was longing to get out of the theatre.

Maybe this will appeal to musical goers who miss the uncomplicated rock bombast of shows like We Will Rock You and Bat Out Of Hell, or fans of line-dancing (these Appalachians are all over that), but honestly it is hard to see this finding an audience, beyond collectors of you-had-to-be-there-to-believe-it theatrical eccentricity. It’s ultimately more exhausting than exhilarating.

BANK OF DAVE 

Book and lyrics by Rob Madge

Music and lyrics by Pippa Cleary

directed by Nikolai Foster 

Curve, Leicester – until 30 March 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval

https://www.curveonline.co.uk/whats-on/shows/bank-of-dave/

Some stories are so strange they could only be true, and this tale of a Lancashire minibus salesman who opened an independent loans and savings company because major banks weren’t lending to many working class people in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, is one such. Bank Of Dave (his slogan was “Bank On Dave”) has already been the basis for an award-winning TV documentary and a movie, and now it’s a jolly, raucous, big-hearted musical.

Surprisingly though, Dave Fishwick himself (played with a winning combination of brashness and warmth by Sam Lupton) isn’t really the starring role in Pippa Cleary and Rob Madge’s tuner. That honour goes to Hugh, the London lawyer who foregoes the delights of Primrose Hill and the City for the earthier charms of rundown Northern mill town Burnley. Lucca Chadwick-Patel, all ringing tenor, floppy hair and likeable swagger, proves himself an ideal leading man and makes convincing Hugh’s journey from snobbish Southerner to champion of the people.

Madge’s on-the-nose book has a tendency to go for the most obvious humour, and gets a tedious amount of mileage out of the tropes of people from up North being kindly salt-of-the-earth types while Southerners, but especially the bankers naturally, are icy, duplicitous and venal. It’s a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, and the writing, stronger on (literal) knob jokes than finesse, is more efficient than surprising. The script takes liberties with the true story that inspires it, as is pointed out in the shows final moments, one of several where characters refer to the fact that they’re actually in a musical. 

There’s a sense, both in the writing and in Nikolai Foster’s staging, of everything being hurled at the wall to see what sticks, so we get a chorus of bankers dressed as pigs, a SatNav played as a sassy woman, a visual joke involving Coronation Street’s Gail Platt, dancing pensioners, a drag queen modelled on Cher…. It’s kind of messy but it has real charm.

Cleary’s score, pastiching umpteen genres of popular music and reminiscent of her work on the Great British Bake-Off musical a few years back, is similarly scattershot but likeable. Chadwick-Patel gets a roof-raising 11 o’clock power ballad, there’s gospel, a bit of rock, a smidge of Music Hall, some full-throated anthems, and a satirical hip-hop infused number for the blingy London bankers that could have been cut from Operation Mincemeat. If the score doesn’t have a clear identity of its own, it’s at least stirring and moderately tuneful.

Hayley Tamaddon is lovely as Dave’s endlessly supportive and upbeat wife but the show literally doesn’t require her to do anything other than, well, just be supportive and upbeat. Lauryn Redding has more to sink her teeth into as an opinionated local doctor, and brings a cracking voice and formidable comic timing to her role. Claire Moore delivers fine, funny and ultimately very moving work as pub landlady Maureen, as big of heart as she is of mouth, and nails, exquisitely, ‘Nowt To Lose’, a rather wonderful ballad of lost love and grief, one of the few moments where the score doesn’t feel like it’s pushing hard. Joni Ayton-Kent is great fun as Holly’s laconic sidekick, and Samuel Holmes an absolute knockout as a nasty banker pitched half way between panto and Bond villain.

Visually, Foster’s colourful, frequently inventive production strikes a nice balance between working class naturalism and showbiz pizazz. Amy Jane Cook’s set suggests local pub and community centre, but transforms pleasingly into exteriors and more upmarket locations with the help of Ben Cracknell’s malleable lighting and the use of, but not over-reliance on, overhead projections (superb work by Duncan McLean). If Ebony Molina’s choreography is a little over-used, it has some moments of genuine flair.

Bank Of Dave isn’t a great musical but it’s fun; it’s too potty-mouthed to be wholesome exactly, it’s about as subtle as a brick, and some of the singing is more enthusiastic than accurate, but the audience roars its approval. In an increasingly difficult world, there’s a lot to be said for stories about underdogs triumphing, and of good people trying to do the right thing (all profits from Fishwick’s company are ploughed into charity). Like the man himself, its heart is definitely in the right place. 

THE NAME

by Jon Fosse

translated by Gregory Motton

directed by Simon Usher

White Bear Theatre, London – until 6 June 2026

running time: 80 minutes no interval

https://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/whatson/the-name

If you like your stage drama strongly driven by propulsive narrative or vividly drawn characterisation enriched with erudite, elegant language, then you may struggle with The Name. Nobel Prize winning Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse’s 1995 drama, only now receiving its UK premiere in a terse, unvarnished translation from the original Nynorsk by Gregory Motton, exerts a certain intriguing spell, but you have to work with it. 

Centred on the unwilling homecoming of a pregnant young woman to her parents’ rural home, her somewhat ineffectual partner in tow, it’s a muted, elliptical study in miscommunication and the resentment that arises when one’s needs aren’t met. The characters -named just Girl, Boy, Mother, Father, Sister- talk in spiky, self-interested half sentences that don’t always seem to logically follow on from each other, as if to underline that these malcontents are barely listening to anybody else.  

It’s a script that steadfastly refuses to ingratiate. These self-absorbed figures and their non sequitur conversations suggest a Scandinavian Pinter, an impression reinforced by the brief flashes of quirky, brittle humour, and overall sense of domestic nihilism that permeates Simon Usher’s stripped back production. The silences, the spaces between the words, are as important as the words themselves.

Refreshingly neither Usher nor his cast seem interested in endearing the characters to us. Jasmin Dúfa Pitt is shrill, unsympathetic and extremely effective as the pregnant Girl. Marie Thorseth Molnes walks an interesting line between jollity and passive aggression as her strange but hearty sister. Daf Thomas is almost completely unreadable as the unhappy father-to-be. Valerie Gogan and Tony Bell provide probably the most engaging performances as the bewildered parents, finding as much humanity as the writing allows. Jan Martin injects some welcome comedy as the freewheeling, eccentric local man with whom Girl seems to have a romantic, or at least sexual, past and some unfinished business.

Fosse won the Norwegian Ibsen award for this strange but engaging play, and it has been produced fairly regularly throughout Europe. The Name’s impenetrability and deliberately low key tone mean that it will likely mystify and frustrate as many people as it pleases, but it’s fascinating to see a piece that refuses to play by the rules. It’s cool, clever and casts a shadow that persists long after its fleet eighty minute run time.

EQUUS 

by Peter Shaffer

directed by Lindsay Posner

Menier Chocolate Factory, London – until 4 July 2026

Theatre Royal Bath – 14 to 25 July 2026

running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including interval 

https://www.menierchocolatefactory.com/tickets/equus/

https://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/events/equus/

Pitched half way between ritual and psychological thriller, Peter Shaffer’s Equus, which premiered at the National in 1973 before enjoying West End and Broadway transfers, as well as major revivals including the 2007 one which played both sides of the Atlantic and saw Daniel Radcliffe make his adult theatrical debut, plus a film version, has lost surprisingly little of its power to shock and stimulate. Seeing this superb new production by Lindsay Posner for Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Bath with searing leading performances from Toby Stephens and Noah Valentine, it’s not difficult to see this astonishing play’s enduring appeal. 

Valentine gives a sensational, star-making performance as deeply disturbed teenager Alan Strang, who blinds a stable full of horses while in the throws of (literally) naked hysteria, opposite Stephens as Dr Dysart, the equally troubled psychologist trying to help him. Although attitudes to mental health and psychological treatment has altered drastically in the 50+ years since the play (which is actually inspired by a horrifying real incident) was written, Shaffer’s literate but potent script still works it’s dark magic. A second act scene set in a porn cinema further dates the play but once you’ve strapped in for the ride, you’ll be too gripped to care. 

Equus mixes up psychological insight, repression, religious fervour (Alan both worships and fetishes horses), and sexual awakening, with classical mythology (Dysart is fascinated by the ancient Greeks and traces a direct line between his own obsessions and the cult-like devotion of Alan to the horses, and by extension the equine pagan god that gives the play its title). Amongst all the blood-letting and soul-searching, there’s a mordant wit to the writing that helps make the horrors a bit more bearable, if not exactly palatable.

Less monumental than Thea Sharrock’s 2007 revival with Radcliffe and the late Richard Griffiths and less flashy than Ned Bennett’s stunning 2019 version at Stratford East, Posner’s take is, initially at least, more conversational, lower key. Actors watch and contribute from the front row of the audience, and the six young men playing the horses don’t have the huge equine masks favoured by earlier productions. Instead they sit, bare-faced, bare-chested and earth-spattered, at the back observing the humans like silent judges. When they move (stunning choreography by James Cousens), their collective strength, grace and gravitas makes you catch your breath.

The homoeroticism is dialled up to 11: the opening image sees Strang, and Ed Mitchell as Nugget, the principal horse, embracing like lovers; outstanding intimacy coordination work by Clare Foster. So to is the fusion of animal and human, more keenly realised than in any other production I’ve seen, with the result that when the story reaches its terrible, inexorable climax, it carries an authentic emotional punch amongst all the furious distress and as the technical elements ramp up to a heart-pounding crescendo.

Stephens is delivering career highlight work as the child psychiatrist whose personal life is far from satisfactory and is haunted by the idea that ‘healing’ can also mean robbing an individual of all their passion. He makes Shaffer’s lengthy, muscular speeches – arias almost – sound spontaneous and natural, and makes vivid Dysart’s agitation and internal conflict; it’s a tremendous performance that captures every note and layer of this complex man. When he leans into a witticism, his slightly nasal, back-of-the-throat delivery sometimes unexpectedly recalls his late mother, but his triumph here is entirely his own.

The role of Alan requires full throttle commitment for the play to really work, and Valentine – vulnerable, fearless, frightened and frightening – fully delivers. In a flawless supporting cast, Emma Cunniffe is heartbreaking as his mother, torn apart by her jaggedly conflicted feelings about her son, and Bella Aubin radiates goodness, mischief and strength as the stable worker who almost helps Alan to a normal-ish life. Amanda Abbington is magnificent as the sensitive, kindly barrister who brings Strang into Dysart’s orbit. 

Some of Shaffer’s writing is a little over-ripe, indeed there are moments where he could almost be daring us to laugh inappropriately, but it is irresistibly theatrical and Posner has such a sure hand with this material that it never tips over into the risible. Paul Pyant’s lighting washing moodily over Paul Farnsworth’s abstract but forbidding set and Adam Cork’s omnipresent compositions and sound design, add to the shattering overall impact of a production that reeks of quality but isn’t afraid to go for some really big swings in a relatively small space.

For all the intermittent flamboyance of the staging and the massive emotions and passions that are given full rein throughout Equus, it’s the final image of not one but two broken humans hoping for healing and forgiveness that finally haunts and hurts here. This is a thrilling piece of theatre and one that gilds the reputation of one of the most original and ambitious plays from the latter half of the twentieth century.

STAGE KISS

by Sarah Ruhl 

directed by Blanche McIntyre

Hampstead Theatre, London – until 13 June 2026

running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval 

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2026/stage-kiss/

Sarah Ruhl’s 2011 comedy, highly theatrical in setting and execution, is a slippery but ultimately rewarding thing. It’s a playfully meta look at the tension between ‘real life’ and the artificiality of the theatre, and what happens when those things get mixed up. 

Stage Kiss begins with an audition where an actress, named in the programme as simply She, performed with a captivating mix of goofiness and vulnerability by Myanna Buring, is auditioning with a director (Rolf Saxon, sublimely pompous) for an upcoming production. She thinks she’s flunked it but in the next scene she’s into rehearsals; a spoke in the wheel is that her co-star is an ex-lover, He (Patrick Kennedy). Ruhl’s text gives only the sketchiest of details of their previous relationship, interspersed with chunks of the truly heinous romantic comedy that they’re trying to rehearse, but it’s clear it did not end well.

The first half is a little mystifying, not helped by an unusually low energy staging by Blanche McIntyre, but it’s watchable. The short scenes swing between tiffs in rehearsal, snatched conversations in breaks then finally the performance itself. It’s fluffy and fun but the problem with sending up awful theatre is that, as an audience member, you’re still sat there being made to watch something that just isn’t very good, so the joke wears a little thin. Having He and She comment amongst themselves on the quality of the show they’re stuck in doesn’t quite let everyone off the hook, and by the interval the overall impression is of watching a sub par American Noises Off with songs, performed by actors who are better than their material.

Stick with it though, as the markedly different second half is where the real meat both of Ruhl’s script and McIntyre’s production is, and it’s pretty terrific. Since seeing Stage Kiss, I’ve been wracking my brains to think of another play since Thornton Wilder that delivers quite such a startling volte face between its two acts. If the first half seems frustratingly light, the second crackles even as it deliciously wrong-foots the audience, and Ruhl’s dialogue is pithy and sharp.

The latter half, simultaneously truthful and slightly surreal, is darkly funny as it explodes the frippery of act one, interrogating the chasm between the romantic and erotic expectations set up by art, and a reality that’s sometimes stark. If the first section could be shorter and sharper, the two acts cannot exist without each other. 

Stage Kiss also blows wide open any assumptions around the supposed glamour of working in the theatre. She and He are jobbing actors, not stars, concerned as much about money and their frequently difficult personal lives as they are about the integrity of their careers. The set by Robert Innes Hopkins undergoes a couple of transformations, from bare rehearsal room to medium-opulent stage design for the play-within-a-play, but is most effective in act two when it represents the bare-brick basics of the grim urban studio apartment where He dwells. 

Ruhl toys with her audience in the second half: when the curtain goes up on the squalid new location, Buring is still in the emerald gown worn ‘on stage’ in act one. She and He have resumed their relationship, despite having other commitments elsewhere, yet are still running their lines from the earlier play. So just how much of this are we supposed to take at face value? Cue the arrival of his girlfriend, a kind, slightly eccentric mid-westerner, and the emotional stakes are suddenly higher. Jill Winternitz delivers a tiny miracle in this role, creating a multi-layered, endearing character out of just a few moments stagetime. She’s followed by the actress’ husband and daughter, both furious, bewildered and played with glorious comic aplomb by Oliver Dimsdale and Toto Bruin respectively.

You know we’re in truly surreal territory when the warring parties are suddenly singing South Pacific’s ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ in beautiful four-part harmonies, before He and She are rehearsing another shocker of a play. This one’s an eye-wateringly pretentious avant garde ‘masterpiece’ written as well as staged by Saxon’s hilariously earnest director. This time though, the humour is surer in its targets: theatre people will get a kick out of observing He and She going through the obligatory fight call rehearsal while matter-of-factly discussing something totally unrelated to the mutual violence they’re perpetrating. Also, there’s a touching truth to the way Buring’s She re-evaluates her whole life while going through the motions of performance.

It could all feel a bit scattershot but amazingly it doesn’t. Kennedy is excellent as the actor capable of desire, empathy and cruelty all within seconds of each other, and he and Buring make a convincing central team. Stage Kiss takes the old adage that “all the world’s a stage” and runs with it; it sets Ruhl up as a sort of American Pirandello, and ultimately it’s a piece that, despite the shaky start, teases and haunts for a considerable time after you’ve left the theatre. A valuable rediscovery.