1. The Comedy of Errors/ Richard III | Rating: * * * * *
Stop at nothing to see these two invention-crammed stagings from Ed Hall’s all-male Propeller company. The ensemble is at its best, with Richard Clothier hypnotically horrible as the Duke of Gloucester in a Richard III enlivened by choral plainsong, while the rowdily irreverent take on The Comedy of Errors crams more gags into the play than Shakespeare would have thought possible.
On tour until May 7 see www.propeller.org.uk
2. Mogadishu | Rating: * * * * *
New play by Vivienne Franzmann – winner of this year’s Bruntwood Prize – set in an inner-city London school and centring on an incident in which a white teacher gets pushed to the ground by a black pupil, then covers up for him. Matthew Dunster directs.
Manchester Royal Exchange (0161 833 9833)
3. Clybourne Park | Rating: * * * * *
Bruce Norris’s satirical comedy was a smash hit at the Royal Court last year, and has already won Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for best new play. It explores the fault lines between race and property in the United States, with the first act set in 1959, as a white couple prepares to sell to the first black family in a Chicago suburb, and the second in 2009, as a white family tries to buy into what has now become a black neighbourhood. Often outrageously funny, the play is also a provocative study of submerged racial tensions in middle-class America.
Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC1 (0844 482 5120),
4. Faith Healer | Rating: * * * * *
Brian Friel’s masterpiece about life, art, faith and doubt, consisting of four long monologues, sounds daunting, but the writing is so rich and the performances (from Finbar Lynch, Kathy Kiera Clarke and Richard Bremmer) so fine in Simon Godwin’s revival that you hang on every word.
Bristol Old Vic (0117 987 7877), tonight, Mon-Sat
5. King Lear | Rating: * * * * *
Sir Derek Jacobi goes on the road to spread the enlightening example of his triumphant Lear in Michael Grandage’s production.
Touring. See dates here
6. The Constant Wife | Rating: * * * *
Philip Wilson’s exemplary revival of Somerset Maugham’s intellectually fleet and often very funny comedy about a wife who soldiers on when her husband conducts an affair, only to spring a self-emancipating surprise.
Salisbury Playhouse (01722 320333), until Feb 26
7. The Heretic | Rating: * * * *
Cracking new play from Richard Bean in which Juliet Stevenson plays a university earth scientist who is far from convinced that man is the cause of global warming, or that its consequences will be as devastating as her colleagues predict. Her provocative views land her in hot water, but this sharp irreverent play remains funny, touching and optimistic.
Royal Court, London SW1 (020 7565 5000), until March 19
8. The Children’s Hour | Rating: * * * *
Keira Knightley wins her stage spurs as a New England teacher in the Thirties who is accused by a malevolent pupil of having a lesbian affair with a colleague (the excellent Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men). Lillian Hellman’s play has moments of creaky melodrama, but it is atmospherically directed by Ian Rickson and thanks to the excellent performances packs a powerful dramatic punch.
Comedy Theatre, London SW1 (0844 871 7615), until May 7
9. Becky Shaw | Rating: * * * *
Cracking new play by the American dramatist Gina Gionfriddo that offers a deliciously comic analysis of tangled modern relationships with a mixture of irony, wit and moral probing that puts one in mind of a latter-day Jane Austen. It’s superbly acted and directed, often wonderfully funny, and Daisy Haggard offers a comic tour de force in the title role as the ridiculous, possibly sinister but also pitiable failure of a thirtysomething, desperate to get her hands on a rich husband.
Almeida Theatre, London N1 (020 7359 4404), until March 5
10. Twelfth Night | Rating: * * * *
The great director Sir Peter Hall celebrates his 80th birthday with this beautifully spoken, deeply felt staging of Shakespeare’s bittersweet comedy. His own daughter Rebecca Hall, a rising Hollywood star, gives a witty, heartfelt performance as Viola in an unashamedly old-fashioned production in the NT’s studio theatre. Among the fine supporting cast Simon Callow makes a particularly ripe Sir Toby Belch.
National Theatre, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), until March 2
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