Cindy Marcolina

Too long has been spent on looks and not enough importance has been given to the exploration of the themes. The sociopolitical allegories and the symbolism are mere afterthoughts of a grand spectacle. We don’t truly witness the wealth gap between the Districts, nor do we absorb the reason why the Games exist. Splashes of ideas are thrown in without developing them or unravelling their significance, perhaps in the hopes that the audiences will fill in the gaps with their own knowledge of the franchise. Everything happens too quickly. This is obviously due to the medium’s restrictions, but it’s also the horrid aftermath of having to cut a much longer and more ponderous project.

Innuendos and double-entendres immediately settle in as a second language while they start to excavate the nature of poetry and espionage. They orbit each other with crackling charisma in an ambiguous limbo designed by Joanna Scotcher. Three walls of barn-door lights (Neil Austin) suspend the performance. Brief projection work tells us it’s 1591: Marlowe and Shakespeare, therefore, find themselves collaborating on the three parts of Henry VI between the threats posed by religious imbalance and the secret services. The social unrest of late-Tudor England is the foundation of the story.

Conor says he wants to make music that’s “happy-sad” – the creative team took that line and made it their own mission statement. It’s a bittersweet love letter to 80s Ireland and a tonic for a broken world. The score is infectious, the company is astonishing, the writing is flawless, the production is clever. It’s about family, friendship, angst, strength, all wrapped up in positive nostalgia. In a plethora of safe adaptations, Sing Street stands out uncompromisingly. It belongs on a stage, it warrants being led by actor-musos, and it deserves a long life.

Den Hertog’s vision materialises in the precise pacing of the dialogues and the clear division of physical movement. He toys with the flow between the two bodies, shaking the scenes up regularly so that one of the performances turns waspish and prompts another thematic juncture. Once the jig is up, the balance found in the first 45 minutes flips onto its head. Freeman’s performance explodes into its full potential, making us question who the serene, placid guy from the start was. Added to Lowden’s minuscule changes in bearing, we have a mesmerising spectacle of acting prowess set up by Ireland’s extraordinarily pliable writing.

Always sophisticated, Rosenblatt’s writing is the real star of the show. His ideas burst at the seams, simultaneously intricate and straightforward. He writes a capricious man with a ferocious attitude and very prone to flattery. Lithgow introduces a man of great stature (both figuratively and literally: he towers over everybody at 6’4” with sparse tufts of hair sticking up, making him even taller) who speaks in riddles, charming in his literary devices and colourful descriptions. The renovating process is “the apocalypse” and Jewish people are “that lot”.

Owen revises Ibsen with tact. He doesn’t merely translate the text for a modern audience by making cuts and altering the language: this is a whole new play. He maintains all the original beats, but adds a layer of modern investment to the story, transposing it in a way that makes complete sense in the here and now. The working-class struggle coexists on the same level as wealthy Gen Z ennui and the lack of prospects for new generations. But that’s not the point of this. Oz’s rich-people problems pale in the shadow of the Captain’s deeds. Yet, Owen refrains from introducing his characters as bare vehicles of immorality who come down their ivory tower to deliver a message to the masses. They’re complex creatures who suffer the consequences of the world they live in. The show is tender and raw; domestic abuse becomes a gilded cage.

Greenberg’s direction pays homage to traditional stagecraft in the silliest of ways. Mist and fog come from spray cans, while the actors meticulously scramble to tell their story with physical props and sound cues. Ironically, it’s a refreshing, utterly delightful approach that amps up a refined, in-your-face brand of humour. While the script is rude and unashamed, it manages to remain exceptionally sanitised - think sophisticated adult panto without the callbacks to the audience.

The play might want to be a large invective against war but stays safely sat on the fence as nothing more than a vehicle for historical review. Cotton asks his audience to peer beyond this meeting of minds and search for deeper meaning, but doesn’t add the juicy subtext or linguistic rhythm necessary to make this the theatrical colossus he expects it to be. As it is, it’s an old-fashioned production with an ambiguous raison d’être aimed at the grey pound.

A drastic lack of identity keeps this Richard II moored, making it a standard modern-day adaptation that refuses to delve into anything particular. It’s neither political nor personal enough to leave the same mark that its actors do. There are some clever interpretations, like the gages (gloves thrown in challenge) coming in the shapes of British passports, but they’re drops in an ocean of blandness. Hytner needs to thank the company, his composer, and sound designer: they make the play.

All in all, this is an overlong, lightweight comedy that would benefit from a trim and a rewrite. A tighter comic tempo might also save those jokes that linger too long (like when the two men have a rant over work email lingo while Lisa watches on, as bored as we are after a while). It’s a shame that even those instances that should be comically grand ultimately fall flat, but it’s also difficult to pinpoint the reason they do. It’s not the gift it’s supposed to be. It's innocuous and inoffensive, but also unexciting and very boring.

This Oedipus lives between the lines of family drama and tragic historical-fiction, an intertemporal adaptation that strongly echoes the discussions that preceded the Obama administration and that keep popping up in right-wing circles. You come out of it positively stunned: the unbroken running time heightens the pacing, turning the piece into a breathless marathon towards an inevitable, gory finale worthy of any noble Greek tragedy.

Featuring a starry lineup helmed by Ramin Karimloo and Anoushka Lucas, it technically has everything it takes to be successful. But fame is a fickle friend, and, as we watch Rhodes exploit his popularity for personal gain, this is proof that not even the shiniest, top billed names can lift some stodgy, predictable, utterly lacklustre material. Costello’s rock contributions are one-size-fits-all tunes. They all sound the same with largely formulaic wordplay in tracks that, at times, are incredibly bad. Between a song that proudly declares that nice guys finish last and another rock interlude about how fun it is to be famous, the company try their best

The actual tragedy lies with Tom and Leigh’s son, Nick. Jem Matthews is remarkable as the striking example of an emotionally disenfranchised youth. 23.5 Hours hits so hard because it doesn’t present an outlandish picture of abuse or a creepy groomer; these are our neighbours, our friends. It opens up a startling discourse, especially because Crim never solves the mystery regarding Tom’s actions. It’s an average family with a pretty home (Carla Goodman made some solid interior design choices) and a normal life. He’s a teacher, she’s a nurse. Their child is (well, used to be) a good-natured, well-adjusted student. When did it all go wrong? The writer suggests everything might have been wrong all along.

Adam Dannheisser forgoes the showmanship that’s usually associated with the benevolent patriarch for a line-up of dad jokes and winks thrown at the audience. He towers over everybody, acutely sardonic yet suitably sombre. Dannheisser introduces a devoted, profound man who loves his family and secretly always seeks his wife’s approval. It’s Lara Pulver’s rebuttals as Golde that make his outdated worldviews and backhanded misogyny sting a little less than they would otherwise. She is a force of nature, revealing a powerful voice and an arresting presence.

The stunt cast is joyous. Nick Bottom is a role tailored for Manford. Thick Yorkshire drawl and a larger-than-life personality, what he lacks in acting skills he compensates in presence. It’s to be said, though, that most of the company could have done with more rehearsals, with the quality of the spoken deliveries suffering because of it. Wallace tears the house down as per her usual style; playful and thoughtful at once, she was born to be Bea. Cassius Hackforth completes the trio as Nick’s sensitive and poetic brother Nigel. He and Evelyn Hoskins’s Portia make an adorable star-crossed couple and Shakespeare superfans.

While this iteration doesn’t boast the incredible names it once did (Patrick Page as Hades was a wildcard that resulted in astounding results), the members of the company are each a star by their own accord. They shine brightly with powerhouse performances, but never overshadow or overpower one another. It’s a cohesive and steady group with tremendous voices that would stir the dead themselves.

Scott walks on stage, immediately playful and blasé. What ensues is a mesmerising masterclass in acting: he’s sensational. He quickly and precisely establishes the body language, accent, vocal modulation, and relating props of his different characters, spellbinding the audience. He strips back human emotion to lay its raw wounds bare, revealing family politics and internal tensions in their most basic nature.

This Rebecca is traditional in every way, but it’s most certainly not a classic. Clunky scene changes and unnecessary choral numbers remove the attention from the characters, and what might have started as a beautiful visual homage to the über-famous Hitchcock film with Laurence Olivier stumbles over and ends up in soap-operish territory. It’s a shame that so much has been lost in translation.

The events don't have time to breathe and hit the audience like they should because the company bestow them at an impetuous speed due to obvious timing reasons. A lot is sensibly omitted - from entire figures to situations that only solidify the small details - but one feels the topics shown are left underanalysed. The script ambles between dialogue, narrative, and inner monologue, swiftly going from one to the next with Shakespearean ambition. It largely works, but comes off as a forced artifice used to slide the story along painlessly. Poetic peaks follow clipped exposition while the actors address the crowd like a narrator would the reader.

The whimsical differences in lifestyle inexorably transmute into a sharp commentary and instigate a call to action for a nation that had not yet entered the conflict when the show premiered on Broadway in 1941. It's a bold, uncompromising move for Ellen McDougall to stage it in the face of the Ukrainian war and the perfect opportunity to prove why the Donmar didn't deserve the 100% cut to its Arts Council England funding.