Aliya Al-Hassan is UK Managing Editor of BroadwayWorld. A London-based theatre critic and journalist, she has a life-long passion for the arts, with a focus on theatre. She is always keen to promote new work and smaller venues. Follow her on Twitter @aliyajaderosa
In an age of Instant Messenger, Snapchat and Twitter, many of us may have never experienced the quiet thrill of receiving a handwritten, personal letter.
On the face of it, a play based upon a 13-year-old boy being expelled from his naval college for allegedly stealing a five-shilling postal order does not sound like the stuff of captivating drama.
Director Lucy Bailey has solid form with adaptations of Agatha Christie stories; her Olivier-award nominated version of Witness For The Prosecution is currently a hit at County Hall.
At a time when anti-Semitism appears dangerously current and desperate refugees flee their homelands, a revival of Diane Samuels' engrossing play Kindertransport could not be more timely.
In essence, there is not much to Conor McPherson's intimate play; four men drink in a remote Irish pub, entertain a female newcomer with ghost stories and then leave.
Originally intended as a stinging satire on Victorian politics and the House of Lords in particular, Gilbert and Sullivan's supremely silly comic opera Iolanthe is in fine form as it returns to the Coliseum.
Robert Louis Stevenson's gothic thriller has had such an impact on the public psyche that a reference to 'Jekyll and Hyde' is universally known as referring to a person with a dual personality.