Anya Ryan

Nodding to Narnia, Peter McKintosh's staging reveals a hidden, magical world from behind a bookcase. It suggests that beyond the shadows of life, there is something beautiful waiting. Even as doubt creeps in, infecting Lewis’s once-unwavering faith, it's an image that hangs in his every thought.

Lots of the amusement comes from Chris’ bubbling anger as everything falls apart. But there’s plenty of physical comedy too – at one point, Robert is held captive inside an enormous Maltesers box, along with the round chocolates. And considering Mischief’s global success, we can safely assume that watching people fall over and forget things is more than enough to get a room giggling en masse – at points, it feels like the whole crowd is in hysterics. When Lewis and Sayer first come onstage, they’re greeted like celebrities with massive cheers. It’s still the sort of stuff best enjoyed with a drink in hand. But if there’s any time to get drunk in the theatre, it’s Christmas, isn’t it?

Does everything really have to be a musical? This adaptation of 13 Going on 30, the beloved 2004 romantic comedy starring Jennifer Garner, joins the hordes of all-singing, all-dancing screen-to-stage conversions clogging up theatre listings. And yes, if you’re a mega fan of the film, written by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, you’ll probably have a perfectly nice time in the audience for this musical, for which they have written the book. However, if you’re in the market for something that deepens or reinvents its source material, prepare to leave cold.

Only a true misery guts could pick faults in Patrick Marber’s revival of Mel Brooks’s The Producers. Expanded in scale and transferred from a run at the Menier Chocolate Factory last Christmas, it delivers one belly laugh after another. And still, there is so much more to this production than good, old-fashioned tomfoolery. Sewn together with an unceasing ability to laugh at itself, it is a musical as radical and joyously subversive as when it first appeared on film in 1967.

With humour that is almost inconceivably up to date – there are references to the couple caught kissing at a recent Coldplay gig, and Baby Reindeer jokes – the night is a flat-out riot. Burlesque is already a cult classic, but this is a glow-up of the highest order. Twenty minutes could be shaved off the running time, and the resolve comes out of nowhere, but it would take industrial-strength scepticism not to fall for this glitter-ordained marvel. If this doesn’t show you how to burlesque, god knows what will.

Arinzé Kene makes Walker as blindly driven as he could possibly be. Frustration explodes from him when his staff do not follow his orders; at one point, he collapses onto the floor and squeals like a petulant child. When the company comes together, the stage is alive with their differences of opinion about who and what they should be. This is a glorious revival that proves Abbensetts’s work deserves and needs to continue to be seen.

Arinzé Kene makes Walker as blindly driven as he could possibly be. Frustration explodes from him when his staff do not follow his orders; at one point, he collapses onto the floor and squeals like a petulant child. When the company comes together, the stage is alive with their differences of opinion about who and what they should be. This is a glorious revival that proves Abbensetts’s work deserves and needs to continue to be seen.

So, mega-fans of Parton might still find some pleasure in hearing Paoluccio perform Parton’s country and western classics. And the doll’s house-like set, designed by Paul Wills, is constructed with such extreme detail, it is a sight to behold. But really, this is a shallow concert rather than intelligent drama.

Despite the drama, the production has a simplicity to it and flows like a lullaby. Accompanied throughout by Cat Beveridge on piano, it sometimes has the feel of a silent film. Staged on Es Devlin’s marvellous glass box set that houses a boardroom cluttered with packing boxes and office chairs and turns slowly on its axis, it is a wonder to behold.

Reviewers are also requested to keep the secrets of White Rabbit Red Rabbit. But what I can say is that it deals in themes of oppression, identity and what it means to be free. Animal metaphors are used as the foundation of the story; they are poignant but also bewildering, which is part of Soleimanpour’s plan. Like the actor each evening, the audience also has to experience the theatrical unknown.

Drummond does not shy away from these thorny areas and the play is at its strongest when it lets uncomfortable, conflicting opinions hang in the air. But, despite a cracker of a final scene, with so much information stuffed into its structure, the overall impact feels more like an overly tailored education than fluid drama.

At its best, Crim’s dialogue is natural, effervescent and brilliant. But as the play progresses, it begins to flow like a series of moral questions rather than an advancing narrative. The crime itself becomes secondary to its fallout, with the characters thrown into a frenzy of uncertainty. In the leading role of Leigh, Lisa Dwan looks increasingly more broken by each interaction with her husband. We watch as she tries to squeeze herself back into her once adoring marriage. But her instinctive physical discomfort gives away the feelings she wants to be able to forget. As Tom, David Sturzaker’s gentle, unthreatening tone grows to become more sinister.

Back to back, the plays make Dyer and Williams’s analysis of Britain’s complications prick even deeper. The men are both stuck in states of contradiction: the difference between their thoughts and feelings are articulated throughout. Their present merges with their past: with a flash of light the language switches from narration to furious action. The world is so vivid that if there’s a weakness here it’s that I longed for more insight into the side characters – there is the sense that this is a series that could roll on, eternally. Full of rage, love, pride and deep bewilderment, these are stories that are grown authentically on British soil and are desperate for a stage.

A musical recounting Jackson’s fame was always going to face an awkward challenge. First, there is the issue that every jukebox musical encounters: how to squeeze well-known songs into a succinct narrative? Then there is the itch to say something fresh about a figure who was a global phenomenon, yet also notoriously enigmatic. But these problems pale in comparison to the issue of Jackson’s own legacy. He was always a man of mystery and a deeply controversial one at that. Since the harrowing 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, it is hard to ignore the repeated allegations of child sexual abuse.