Olivia Darnley, Mimî M Khayisa, Sifiso Mazibuko, Scott Sparrow in A Good House, Royal Court Theatre. Photo: Camilla Greenwell

Thought-provoking, challenging and funny in a play is a difficult combination to get right, but the production of Amy Jeptha's play A Good House at the Royal Court Theatre does just that.

Bonolo (Mimi M Khayisa) and Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) are relatively new to the neighbourhood of Stillwater when a mysterious shack appears on a vacant plot with no sign of its inhabitants.

The couple are befriended by their neighbours Lynette (Olivia Darnley) and Chris (Scott Sparrow) to be the face of a campaign to get it removed. Awkwardly polite negotiations about what they should do begin over mature brie and good vintage red wine.

Changing wall hangings, sofa positions and cushions represent the different living rooms in this smart, affluent enclave.

First, it is the homes of Banolo and Sihle and Lynette and Scott, but then we meet young couple Jess (Robyn Rainsford) and Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer), whose house looks out onto the shack.

Their gatherings to discuss what the shack means for the neighbourhood and what they should do expose assumptions, resentments and prejudices around race and social status - particularly when it comes to housing. It raises questions about fitting in, authenticity and how far you should go to assimilate.

Madelaine Moore is a freelance theatre director and artistic director of female-focused theatre company The Thelmas with Guleraana Mir. Here, she answers five questions about their new production, Santi & Naz at the Soho Theatre, gender equality in theatre, what she likes to watch and what making theatre is like behind the scenes.

Watch the full chat (11 mins) here.

Santi & Naz debuted at the Vault Festival in 2020; what initially drew you to the play?

It came out of a conversation [with Guleraana] around the time of the 70th anniversary of Partition.

There were a few Partition-set plays on at around that time. The stories were really focused on the trauma and awfulness, which, obviously, is the biggest part of it but was there space for another way of telling this story?

When you read the testimonies around Partition, a lot of women's voices just didn't get heard because, to be blunt, they didn't survive. It's really awful when you hear about what happened to women and girls during that period.

At the same time, I'd been thinking about really intense teenage friendships that girls tend to have, that burn really bright and then fizzle. So, we thought about combining those two ideas.

How do we tell this story that's about Partition but isn't really about Partition? It's about two young women experiencing a huge historical and political event in a tiny village right next to the border of the partition.

We brought in Afshan d’Souza-Lodhi, who co-wrote it with Guleraana, who brought another brilliant perspective that enriched the original story, the rough plot we'd come up with. They fleshed out these characters to make them feel relatable and fun.

Even though it's not a fun period of history, there's a lot of fun in the story. We don't want it to be a history lesson; that's not our job, but we want to ignite interest in the period through these two young girls.

The play's been touring the UK with a new cast and is set to open at the Soho Theatre on 21 January 2025. Is your approach to directing it any different this time around?

It's very different because, by the time the tour was booked, I wasn't available for the first two weeks of rehearsal, so we had to get in associate [director] Vikesh Godhwani, who was involved in the Vault version. I handed it over to him, which I've never done before, I'm a control freak, so that was quite scary for me.

We also didn't realise until quite late that the two actors who'd been in it in Edinburgh in 2023 were not available either. I got casting director Polly Jarrold involved. I came back from Edinburgh halfway through the festival to London, did a casting for it without Vikesh, and then handed it over to him via Zoom for two weeks while I was rehearsing something else. 

I managed to pack in more than 70 theatre visits this year and saw some cracking plays. And some that didn't quite ignite.

My favourite plays of 2024

(In no particular order - links through to written or video reviews):

Oedipus, Wyndhams Theatre (booking until 2 Jan 2025)

Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre

Shifters, Duke of Yorks Theatre

When It Happens to You, Park Theatre

Little Foxes, Young Vic (booking until 8 Feb 2025)

Alma Mater, Almeida Theatre

Cyrano, Park Theatre (booking until 11 Jan 2025)

For Black Boys... Garrick Theatre

Wormholes, Omnibus Theatre

Waiting For Godot, Theatre Royal Haymarket

The Long Run, New Diorama

The Importance of Being Earnest, National Theatre (booking until 25 Jan, 2025)

Least favourite plays of 2024:

Machinal, Old Vic Theatre - I'm a feminist, but...I found the central female character extremely irritating. Sorry, I know a lot of people really liked this play. It's the second production I've seen, and I had a similar response the first time, so nothing to do with the Old Vic.

Seeing Cat On A Hot Tin roof a couple of weeks after The Little Foxes at the Young Vic Theatre, I couldn't help but draw some parallels. Both are period pieces that feature misogyny and unhappy families manoeuvring and manipulating to get their hands on wealth.

In the case of LF, it's about the spoils of a family business deal; in COHTR, it's an inheritance, but the women's lack of leverage in the fight compared to the men is similar. Both also feature strained marriages, but in COHTR, we delve deeper into the reasons.

The patriarch, Big Daddy (Lennie James), is dying, hence the manoeuvring, except in the case of younger, favoured son Brick (Kingsley Ben-Adir), it's left up to his wife Margaret, aka Maggie the Cat (Daisy Edgar-Jones), to make sure they get their fair share.

Brick only has eyes for liquor bottles. The suicide of his best friend - perhaps represented on stage by a mystery piano player (Seb Carrington) - isn't the only thing he is drinking to forget. 

There is little sign of love in Brick and Maggie's marriage, but that isn't unusual among the wider family. Is Brick crueller for simply ignoring Maggie than his father is for showing his blatant disgust for his 'old and fat' wife, Big Mama (Clare Burt)?

Video transcript:

I'm going to have to plead ignorance because when I booked to see The Little Foxes at the Young Vic, or rather, when my friend booked for us, I hadn't heard the play. I didn't know it was an American classic.

I knew nothing about it, but that meant I went into it with no expectations but I can fully understand why it is a classic.

This is such a tight, tense family drama. It has very meaty dialogue with lots of subtext, lots of politics going on in the family - man0euverings, manipulations and people trying to outmanoeuver each other.

Video transcript:

I'm going to come right out and say it: I love this production of the National Theatre's Importance of Being Earnest.

It's a perfect blend of staying faithful to the original, elevating those elements of the original, the wit of Oscar Wilde's script, while adding contemporary embellishments that just lift it.

This is a production that is vibrant. It's colourful, and the costumes are amazing.

It just jumps off the stage. The cast is all-around superb, and their comic timing is fantastic, not only with the script but also with the physical humour that they inject into it.

Tessa Wong, Virginia Gay, and Joseph Evans in Cyrano, Park Theatre. Photo: Craig Sugden

Virginia Gay's effervescent, gender-flipped rom-com version of Cyrano won a Fringe First award and now takes up residence at the Park Theatre.

A Greek Chorus sets a cheeky, humourous tone. Two know each other - 1 (Tessa Wong) and 2 (David Tarkenter), but neither knows 3 (Tanvi Virmani), which becomes a running joke. There are other running jokes.

3 tends to blurt out inappropriate things, while 1 likes to play with metaphors, and 2 is very thespy. Their sage and silly commentary isn't just in the background.

Then we meet Cyrano (Virginia Gay), who has an amazing way with words and an amazingly large nose - we are told, as it's left to our imagination. 

Cyrano falls in love with the beautiful and clever Roxanne (Jessica Whitehurst), who falls in love with the pretty but dim Yan (Joseph Evans). The latter enlists Cyrano to help him woo Roxanne.

Beneath the wit and humour, of which there is plenty, this a sexy, heartfelt story. It is raucous, playful and joyful, but it also has its sad and poignant moments, just as a rom-com should.

There are subtleties, too, such as Cyrano's slow drift into trying to look like Yan - in dress, at least.

In keeping with the original story, it is also an exploration of language and wordplay - the cleverness and snobbishness that can come with that. There are morals to the tale: Sometimes a simpler, more direct language can be just as effective or just be yourself.

Virginia Gay's Cyrano is witty and fun with a party spirit that feels wholly appropriate for the festive season. I'm giving it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cyrano, Park Theatre

Written by Virginia Gay after Edmond Rostand

Directed by Clare Watson

Cast: Virginia Gay, Jessica Whitehurst, Joseph Evans, Tessa Wong, David Tarkenter, Tanvi Virmani

Running time 90 minutes with no interval

Booking until 11 January, for more details and to buy tickets, visit the Park Theatre website

Recently reviewed:

The year is ending on a high, have had a run of mostly cracking plays

Little Foxes, Young Vic (video review) booking until 8 February, 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Importance of Being Earnest (video review) booking until 25 January, 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oedipus, Wyndhams Theatre booking until 2 January ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Tempest, Theatre Royal Drury Lane (video review) booking until 1 February, 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

'This is dreadful,' the old man sat next to me said rudely during Oedipus at the Wyndhams Theatre.

I vigorously ignored him. It wasn't dreadful, far from it. In fact, I was gripped by Robert Icke’s production, which stars Mark Strong as the eponymous character and Lesley Manville as his wife, Jocasta.

Writer/director Robert Icke has a knack for turning grand, classic stories into family-focused dramas, placing them in a contemporary setting with modern references that make them all the more familiar. And there is power in that.

Oedipus is a politician rather than a king, and the story is set on polling day, on what is expected to be his landslide victory.

We first see video footage of him talking to supporters and making two promises if elected: He will reveal his birth certificate to silence debate about his background, and he will also investigate the death of his wife's first husband, Laias.

His brother-in-law Creon (Michael Gould) isn't happy that he has gone off script during the televised address, and if you know the source material, you'll understand that both of those promises are threads that do not need to be pulled.

The stage is dressed as Oedipus' campaign office, complete with a digital clock counting down to when the polls close and the final exit poll is revealed. The clock is also a subliminal countdown to revelations that even the uninitiated will have an inkling are coming.

Reykjavik, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Mark Douet

Richard Bean's new play Reykjavik at the Hampstead Theatre is set in the 1970s among a community of Hull-based trawler fishing men.

It is hard and dangerous work, taking the men away for three weeks at a time as they head further and further into potentially dangerous waters to find fish.

Boats returning without a good catch risk big losses for the owner of the company, Donald Claxton (John Hollingworth), and potentially the sack for the skipper.

But tragedy strikes and one of Claxton's boats sinks in freezing seas off Iceland, resulting in the death of 15 crew. Donald goes from being the disliked "capitalist" boss to being hated by those he employs and their families.

The first half is set in Donald Claxton's dim, solid, dark wood-furnished warehouse office (set design by Anna Reid), where interactions with a string of visitors reveal more of the boss and life in the community.

While Claxton is a businessman, he isn't without heart and respects the traditions built up around tragedies of this sort.

The community is like any other in its mix of relationships and gossip, and long stretches away at sea suit some families and workers more than others. Their's is an inherent practicality in their approach to life and work, but it is wrapped in a thin veil of superstition and myth. 

This is something that gets explored in the second half of the play, which is set in a hotel in Reykjavik where four survivors from the sunken ship are holed up before they get a boat home.

Claxton flies out to meet them, and with visible tensions, they settle in for a night of drinking and storytelling to pass the time.

NYT REP Company, The War of the Worlds, Wilton's Music Hall. Photo: Johan Persson

On 30 October 1938, the broadcast of Orson Wells' radio play version of H G Wells's sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds caused panic. Its realistic news programme style led some to believe a real alien invasion was happening.

In this National Youth Theatre production, created by Rhum + Clay and written with Isley Lynn, people's reaction to the radio play becomes the topic of a podcast by fledgling British podcast journalist Meena (Talitha Christina).

She comes across the story of a New Jersey family who apparently took fright and left their daughter at home to fend for herself. With the 2016 election campaign in full flow, Meena travels to the US to try and find the truth but unearths a bigger story.

The play is injected with snippets of stylised movement that add a quirky edge to the narrative. It mixes the tone and style of 1930s radio drama with a more contemporary feel, which cements the play's themes.