For example: arms forked upwards in operatic rebuke at the ingratitude and slipping standards of his court, he suddenly espies and surreptitiously pockets the giveaway car keys of the man he most recently bedded.

The mathematic theorising forecasts hope as well as disaster for the universe, and the story offers the same for its characters. There’s an abundance of laughter – present and deliciously incorrect – in Matthew Warchus’s glorious revival of semi-autobiographical play Present Laughter by Noel Coward (first produced in 1942). And the result was duly lauded. Please, Andrew Scott, with Kitty Archer, flirts and flounces as the vainglorious protagonist, Listen to Times Radio for the latest well-informed debate, expert analysis and breaking news. Not so Mother Courage, though, which is epic in both senses: written after Hitler invaded Poland, but set during the Thirty-Years' War, it is a potent story of one mother’s attempts to profit from conflict, and the huge cost war always takes in the end. It is a sight that has never lost its capacity to startle. It unfolds in three episodes that shelve steeply. The play follows two volunteers in a clinical trial for a new anti-depressant; when they fall for each other, they wonder whether their love is “real”, or a by-product. The supporting cast are just as sparky, especially a poised Indira Varma as (almost ex) wife Liz, but it's inevitable Scott who steals the show. And of course it helps to have a starring turn from the Hot Priest who had the whole world a-flutter after stealing the show in season two of Fleabag. Still with me?

Calderon's play is one of the masterpieces of the Spanish Golden Age. Your dog has a mid-life crisis too! In fact, productions nowadays tend to come down in favour of Antigone and her self-sacrificing intransigence. Intimate Apparel manages to be uplifting without ever losing its irreverent humour. Director Matthew Warchus doesn’t shy away from opportunities for farce. Migraine sufferers should be warned: Rob Howell’s staging is unmerciful on the eye. Review: Present Laughter, The Old Vic 5.0 stars Embarrassingly, I had never seen a production of a Noël Coward play before Present Laughter. But for the fans who stood up to join in the finale, On Your Feet wasn't so much the title, but a call to join the fun. His compatriot Ailyn Perez is absolutely ideal as Micaela, the innocent country girl who is Don José’s conscience.

I’m not sure what you call the opposite, but it’s what happens in The Hunt at Islington’s Almeida. And there’s plenty of pirouetting, too — in a whole range of floaty fabrics. Hansberry died at only 34; one can’t help but wonder what other plays she might have had on this list. He pretends to be Jewish rather than gay, but in the camp meets Horst, a man who reveals the honour in being true to one’s self. The heroine hires a shady type to bump off her fiance. The performances are superb across the board, and I have never seen the careering farce-momentum that the piece develops played with a lovelier disciplined abandon. Horrors! Taut and tense, you see the horror coming but feel desperately compelled to look. Weirdly, it took two high priests of British theatre — David Farr and Rupert Goold — to pull off this anti-miracle of sabotaging a good, if challenging, Danish film about a nursery worker falsely accused of child abuse. Kushner retaliated by putting gay men centre stage in an epic that shows them fighting to forge their private and public destinies. It's high time Fleisser was given her due. “I wish to God he would,” is Monica’s heartfelt comment. Elyot and Amanda are the kind of flighty egotistical couple that can neither live together nor apart. It is set in a kitschy, tat-filled Gettysburg guesthouse, where a fighting young couple interact with the dotty landlady and her blind but visionary friend. Actress 'reassured' Catherine FitzGerald that... SARAH VINE: A doormat? All of this is a little spooky, but also rather emotionally stirring. “The cats have come in on the side of the French,” someone says earnestly. The sensual feel of fine fabric (her means of supporting and expressing herself) is conveyed with gorgeous descriptive power.

PT, A middle-aged woman is buried in a mound of earth first up to the waist then, after the interval, up to the neck. His reluctance to defend himself does, at least, make him inscrutable. Manuel Harlan. So when he twigs to their exploitable mistake, he treats their absurd respect (not to mention their bribes) as long-overdue recognition of his true worth and becomes airborne with grandiosity. On this, Tim Crouch’s glitteringly clever play really delivers – while also being extremely moving. PT, In Gogol's great phantasmagoric farce, an impecunious clerk newly arrived from St Petersburg is mistakenly assumed to be the eponymous inspector by the corrupt mayor and officials of this provincial town. Writing of rare sensitivity and cumulative power. Her imprisoned paedophile killer. But there’s also an unbearable tenderness to the play’s portrayal of young love, hope, and idealism. He in turn romances Nina, Konstantin’s girlfriend and an aspiring actress. I imagine they will be prepared to walk over red hot coals to see him in the flesh. She gets what could be a last chance of happiness but it's destroyed in circumstances that are never sentimentalised. This is, however, very far from a conventional “issue” play in its glorious ambition. Of course, things have changed for women since, but this exceptionally controlled play still unfolds perfectly – and that slam still resonates.

Playwright Farr is best known as the writer of The Night Manager on TV, but I have no idea what moved him to plunder this story for the stage. He lends the hero, Garry Essendine, a mixture of twinkling charm and driving egomania characteristic of the kind of actor-manager Coward was portraying and possibly of the author himself. In Purgatory, she evokes a stifling Catholic ethos: we see two very different rebels (one girl seeks in vain for an abortion) who suffer the humiliation of having to crawl back to the pack. PT, Marieluise Fleisser, the author of these sorely neglected plays, was the lover, protégée, and victim of Bertolt Brecht, and her subject was the lower Bavarian city of her birth. But the author, whose stunning comic timing is immortalised on YouTube, could never have aspired as an actor to Scott’s range, which includes Shakespeare, O’Neill, Ibsen, Chekhov, and astonishing feats in new plays by the likes of Mike Bartlett and Simon Stephens. You don't get much here about the realities of life in revolutionary Cuba, except there's plainly not much disposable income.

This Gloria is more of a Latina exotic than the real Estefan (though like her she's a Cuban-American from Miami) and when it comes to singing she channels the original for all she's worth. But there’s a love story and a tragedy here, that in a well-calibrated production can be very moving. Scott’s fans won’t. PT, This Pulitzer-winning American playwright explores the history of her great-grandmother in early 20th century New York. The reliable and thoughtful seasonal menu may feature rabbit with mustard sauce and excellent chips, or steamed Scottish cod fillet and spinach. There’s a twist towards the end, giving the play punch – plus the tunes are great, of course.

Present Laughter is at the Old Vic, London SE1, until August 10. Tickets for Present Laughter at The Old Vic are now on sale. In his wisdom, Farr has cut the film’s two most sympathetic characters: the hero’s girlfriend and his son’s godfather. Boris Johnson joked 'Rule of Six' would be an excuse to 'not see the in-laws at Christmas' in gag that fell... 'I make mistakes all the time and that's what life's about': Lily James' ill-timed comments about her... Did Lily James call Dominic West's wife about THOSE pictures? Beckett's Winnie prattles away dogged with optimism (“This will have been another happy day”) in a loquacious attempt to stave off hysteria and despair at her encroaching fate.

Although it all lands light as a butterfly, the script is stinging on subjects such as ambition and race relations. Being so very bankable has led to Wilde’s play certainly being over-staged and it now feels thoroughly un-urgent – and then it makes you laugh all over again. There's a stunning scene in which she draws the little boy out of his dogmatic mutism by her repeated, stern insistence that he says “thank you”; it's uplifing in the end but it's not pretty. It’s a spread-eagle Art Deco edifice in bright speckled blue with fan windows and chintzy decoration.


I still detest much of it, especially the flip ending, but I have tried to see it from the viewpoint of those who will watch it next Tuesday on BP Big Screens, Facebook and YouTube. Marivaux is elegantly conscious of the objections. The improbable plot of tangled engagements, lost handbags, invented wicked relatives, and real monstrous aunts runs like clockwork. But a recent revival suggests the play can still crow, whoever plays Rooster.

PT, A supreme example of how a writer can make a play by putting together a triptych of miniatures. It turns out that he has found a dead man's pass book and has substituted his own photo, killing off Sizwe Bansi. PT, Though he described it as “the lightest of light comedies”, Private Lives is the Noel Coward play that one would undoubtedly preserve for posterity. There is a subplot in a madhouse that is designed as a distorted mirror of the main action in its obsession with disguise, lunacy, and sex. He’s suave but also wickedly scathing as matinee idol Garry Essendine, a ruthless charmer who’s desperate to persuade himself that he isn’t slipping into middle age. But as the plot escalates it’s face in hands, fingers running through hair and arms flung into a crucifix. Although Friel throughout maintains a – crucial – ambivalence, the play attains a sort of transcendent grace of its own. You’d be better off renting it for a couple of quid and pocketing the difference. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. Sexual chameleon ... Andrew Scott as Garry Essendine and Enzo Cilenti as Joe Lyppiatt in Present Laughter. Prophetic angels crash through ceilings. Without attempting to update or shift the zany farce for which Coward is celebrated, Warchus succeeds in making this Old Vic production zing with freshness. An alchemist is someone who turns base metal into gold. Registered in England No. HW, The mother of a murdered child. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. A state-of-the-nation show powered by anti-establishment brio, it also precisely captures a contemporary rural community (very sweary, and very funny).

He imposed overt anti-militarism and sensationalising sex, and Fleisser was denounced as a traitor to German womanhood. But it can mean his “epic theatre” is still associated with didacticism, rather than drama. Some of the ripest scenes rely on the sure comic touch of Luke Thallon, as an earnest, manic young playwright who’s excited by rejection, and Kitty Archer impresses as a social butterfly drawn to Garry’s sparkle. Over the course of a few days we see Garry fend off multiple seduction attempts, negotiate with a frenzied playwright and confront his own impending midlife crisis. It’s a dark and thorny work, but a deeply humane one too, by a prolific British writer at her best. Some of the other acting is a bit overpitched and it struck me as gratuitous to have “a majestic but rather effusive society woman” in a wheelchair and on a saline drip. Whether you like the show depends on whether you like the Estefans. Inevitably there are serious ethical problems in acting alongside children in stories of abuse.
The comments below have not been moderated. Warchus may think Coward would approve, because he was gay himself. The big screen audience will enjoy the look of Luca Pisaroni and his acting, but his actual singing is only so-so.

PT, Sophocles's play is still the most powerful ever written about the conflict between our obligations to the state and our duty to the ties of kinship.


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