Clive Davis

The actors also seem constrained by Bob Crowley’s narrow design and the use of hydraulics to raise and lower sections of the stage. The Bridge’s auditorium has to be one of the most atmospheric in the country, but here the rising and falling of platforms — which worked so well in Hytner’s magnificent version of Guys and Dolls — becomes more of a distraction. The same is true of Grant Olding’s music, which might as well have been written for yet another TV drama about a maverick detective.

There’s lots of explicit talk about goings-on in the boudoir — the language is very blunt at times. But watching Stephen Mangan, Nicola Walker and Erin Doherty exchange a mix of crude banter and philosophical profundities on the implications of a threesome — or “throuple”, if you prefer — is a little like wandering around a giant erotic emporium on an industrial estate. After the twelfth box of vibrators starts buzzing away, a certain boredom sets in.

Barney Norris’s script — based on a novella by the French writer David Foenkinos — explores obsessive thoughts about the road not taken. Butterfield, better known as the awkward Otis Milburn in the TV series, is very assured, pacing back and forth on a glossy white letterbox set strewn with odd items of furniture and bric-a-brac, including a video camera on which he reprises his first, fateful audition. Imagine an innocent ten-year-old being asked to switch between looking vulnerable, hopeful and cheerful in seconds.

Cameron’s yarn, full of briny bombast, may be an easy target, but the in-jokes are exquisitely delivered. So too are the songs, driven by a trim band led by the musical director Adam Wachter. Drew is a quite astonishing mixture of OTT vocalising and girl-next-door folksiness. Without wishing to give away too many plot twists, I’ll add that Layton Williams makes the transition from playing a louche sailor to a stunningly convincing facsimile of a raging Tina Turner.

While it’s good to see a VIP of Sigourney Weaver’s stature making her belated West End debut — the 75-year-old Hollywood actress is surely bringing in lots of people who haven’t bothered with iambic pentameters since they were at school — she turns in a strangely impersonal performance as Prospero, as if encountering the script for the first time. That all-around household helper, Alexa, could have breathed more life into the lines.

A steely-eyed Anne-Marie Duff drips venom as Regina. Steffan Rhodri is persuasive as the charmless Oscar, whose main pastime, apart from dreaming of riches, is bullying his highly strung wife, Birdie, a member of a grand plantation family. Anna Madeley’s character, a sort of proto-Blanche DuBois is, in fact, the most interesting of all of them; it’s just a pity we don’t see more of her. In the end, however, she, like the rest of the cast, is ground down by the gears of the clockwork plot.

As Leo Bloom, the neurotic accountant-turned-impresario, the rubber-limbed Marc Antolin spins around the floor like a broken Catherine wheel during a fit of hysterics. And there are satisfyingly OTT performances from Trevor Ashley as ultra-camp director Roger De Bris and Harry Morrison as demented Nazi composer and pigeon-fancier Franz Liebkind, who has his chorus line in the form of a row of swastika-wearing bird puppets.

The main problem, inevitably, is that if you’ve seen the screen version of Lauren Weisberger’s novel, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could match Meryl Streep’s gloriously icy performance as magazine editor Miranda Priestly. As anyone who saw her in Ugly Betty knows, Vanessa Williams — who plays Miranda here — can turn on the hauteur. She’s an accomplished singer too, yet you’re still left with the impression that you’re looking at a photocopy of a Technicolor original.

Clark’s melodies are sinuous and restless: it comes as no surprise to see him name-checking that powerhouse folk band Bellowhead in the programme notes. The lyrics, rich in references to the cyclical nature of all life (The Tide Is Comin’ in is a highlight of the second half) form an affecting blend of poetry and the down-to-earth. Chi-San Howard’s choreography is steeped in a sense of community.

The drama, which had its premiere in the US in 2013, is set soon after the election of Barack Obama, giving Wohl an opportunity to indulge in some tired sparring about American parochialism and European worldliness. Irene is a woefully ignorant estate agent from Denver who thinks everything is “cute”. On a rowdy bachelorette party, she picks up the older, enigmatic Manuel who takes her back to an apartment littered with house-moving boxes. There’s an explosion of tipsy, erotic energy at first. Then secrets slowly rise to the surface as Lynette Linton’s production ticks along. Jai Morjaria’s subdued lighting casts shadows in the set designer Frankie Bradshaw’s domestic interior.

It’s a reboot that will appeal most of all to Coogan fans who aren’t familiar with the film, which celebrated its 60th birthday this year. If you do know the original, it’s fun to hear some of the slivers of extra dialogue added by Iannucci and Foley after scrolling through Kubrick’s notebooks and drafts. All the same, set designer Hildegard Bechtler’s war room is never going to look as imposing as Ken Adam’s James Bond-like screen creation. And if the scale model of the B-52, flying high over a video backdrop, gives the second half of the show an undeniable kick, the rest of the production looks cramped in the confines of the Noël Coward.

Perhaps because we’ve seen the approach copied so often in recent years — the opening video sequence where Strong, addressing the media in the street, comes across as a fusion of Blair and Obama, looks decidedly contrived. And the moment when an overheated Oedipus and Jocasta try to have a quick bout of sex behind the backs of family and aides results in some cheesy “baby, baby” soft porn groaning.

His version of the feckless Captain Jack is a leering, gurning loafer who bears more than a passing resemblance to Charlie Chaplin’s tramp. Sit near the front of the stalls and you’ll find Rylance constantly trying to catch your eye as he performs yet another double-take. It’s weirdly laboured, and makes the play’s sudden transition from high jinks to grim melodrama all the harder to take.

O’Riordan ensures that almost every inflection, every gesture, is over-egged in a production that self-consciously mixes the modern and the traditional. There is certainly no danger of forgetting that we are watching a play within a play when the delivery is so emphatic. At the same time, it’s hard to keep track of the storyline when the cast are switching back and forth between characters.

When it was first staged in America a decade ago the piece was entitled Conviction, a slick play on words. Katharine Farmer, who directed Crim’s rape drama Never Not Once at this venue in 2022, doesn’t always seem at ease with the abrupt transitions from soul-searching to sitcom-style humour. The result is that there were moments of laughter at inappropriate moments, especially in an overlong second half. Nevertheless, Dwan always holds our attention. We head home with unanswered questions tumbling around in our head.

The first thing to say about the chamber production by Gordon Greenberg — who has previously staged the musical on the other side of the pond — is that it looks gorgeous. As audience members take their seats on three sides of the cast they are immersed in a world of pétanque and terrace café chatter. Paul Farnsworth’s set glows with a Provencal sheen; Paul Anderson’s lighting evokes the sense of the sun weighing on everyone.

Will this staging dazzle all those youngsters who have virtual reality headsets in their bedrooms? To be honest, I’d expected the track design to be a little more audacious. The actors do pass through the middle of the audience, but after the first couple of circuits it begins to look quite sedate. Mad Max this ain’t. For all the flashing lights, the Troubadour itself, a fair trek from the centre of London, is also a baldly utilitarian venue. But my advice is to ignore the Ikea vibes, and let the songs transport you.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Joe Penhall’s new play arrives just at the moment when the relationship between members of parliament and the people they represent is uppermost in our minds. And the fact that James Corden is making his long overdue return to the London stage, playing a troubled army veteran alongside Line of Duty’s Anna Maxwell Martin as a hard-working backbencher, will surely help at the box office as well. That said, this turns out to be a surprisingly tepid study of a vulnerable man whose life has lost its moorings. Penhall, who has explored mental frailties before in the more accomplished Blue/Orange, a chamber piece set in a psychiatric clinic, is said to have interviewed a number of MPs including

There’s unorthodox casting in the form of Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hastings in Line of Duty), who is playing the actor-manager Fred Graham. He may not be the most potent of singers — at times he seems to be coaxing his voice over the hurdles — but he certainly doesn’t disgrace himself. In the scenes of psychological warfare with the Broadway star Stephanie J Block, who plays Fred’s ex-wife Lilli Vanessi, he exhibits a light comic touch. Block is a dynamic presence, wringing every drop of mirth and venom from the semi-operatic I Hate Men. This Lilli is too strong and self-confident to need the protection of modern-day #MeToo campaigners.

Is that enough of a reason to catch what could possibly be McKellen’s farewell to the West End? I hesitate to say yes because Icke’s marathon modern-day Shakespeare production — which runs to nearly four hours — yields such mixed results. One or two of the performances are fiery: as Hotspur, Samuel Edward-Cook (who doubles as Pistol) delivers martial swagger and raw machismo, while Clare Perkins is a raucous Mistress Quickly. Others fade into the background; warlords are presented with the air of weary bureaucrats. And Hildegard Bechtler’s unassuming set, dominated by expanses of plain brickwork, with the actors pulling back drab curtains to reveal new scenes, provides little to distract the eye.

Fans of Succession certainly won’t complain of being short-changed in terms of pure man-hours: Cox, better known now as the media baron Logan Roy, is the dominant figure in a workmanlike venture, directed by Jeremy Herrin, which, at times, really does feel like it’s wending its way towards the witching hour and beyond. By turns stern and maudlin, Cox is always watchable, but he’s still not able to prevent long-winded confrontations and confessions from slipping into melodrama.

As the adult Jackson tries to perfect every routine, a cynical journalist (Philippa Stefani) hovers nearby, hoping to pick up titbits of gossip. But while we get fleeting references to painkillers, nose jobs and the skin condition vitiligo, the dance sequences assume priority. It will take another, much more candid show to tell the full story of this very American tragedy.

If there’s a problem with many of the other polished songs, it’s that they sometimes seem to have been inserted into the action almost at random. As much as you admire the musicianship of the band, tucked away on the first and second floors, you are often left wondering how exactly the numbers move the story on.

The underworld has never sounded so funky. At a time when jukebox musicals seem to be everywhere, singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell’s captivating folk opera, inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, is a reminder of what musical theatre can achieve when it sets its sights beyond the lowest common denominator.

The sad truth, however, is that Thomas Ostermeier’s sophomoric attempt to drag the Norwegian playwright into the 21st century is so clumsy it might almost be part of some sinister conservative plot to kill off left-wing theatre once and for all.