Retrograde. Stanley Townsend, Ivanno Jeremiah & Oliver Johnstone. Photo: Marc Brenner.

Ryan Calais Cameron's play Retrograde is set in 1950s Hollywood when a twenty-something struggling actor, Sidney Poitier (Ivanno Jeremiah), is on the verge of signing a deal with a film studio.

Peppy young writer Bobby (Oliver Johnstone) is on his last chance and has a great part for Sidney, one that is different from the usual, stereotypical roles set aside for black actors.

Lawyer and fixer Mr Parks (Stanley Townsend) has the contract that could launch both of them but before Sidney signs it, there are terms attached.

Retrograde might be set 70-odd years ago but there is a lot that resonates today, particularly with what is going on over the pond.

Back then, alongside racial segregation, it was a time of fear, when those who didn't believe and endorse the 'right' things weren't only ostracised, but their careers were crushed by blacklisting, and they could potentially end up in jail.

McCarthyism made it the Wild West of chosen morals, and personal beliefs could not be separated from the ability to do certain jobs.

Taking the right stance for people and businesses was everything–or suffer the consequences. Sound familiar?

Theatre director Scott Le Crass

Theatre director Scott Le Crass tells me about directing James McDermott’s play Jab a second time, whether comedy is harder than drama and what his dream play to direct would be.

Jab, which is set during the pandemic, originally opened at the Finborough Theatre last year, and now it's coming to the Park Theatre. What's it like directing it a second time, and are you making any changes?

Scott Le Crass: I really like to revisit plays that I've previously directed because having that time in between gives you a little bit of distance. I think that’s quite interesting because firstly, your life experiences sometimes shape how you work.

I'm different from the person I was a year ago in the way that I might see things.

And also, I think what's really interesting is there are lots of things online at the moment talking about it being five years since the pandemic, so there's an extra year distance that people have got.

The way I think we see it is slightly altered, so it's nice to be able to approach it again.

But not a lot has changed; there are a few sequences in terms of movement, but the text and the story are pretty much the same. Some of the design is different as well.

Jab is a dark, domestic comedy. Is it harder directing comedy than a straight drama?

I think comedy can span so many different things. Comedy is quite broad, and I think that as long as you're true with that, that’s something that will see you through in a really positive way.

Comedy is about truth, so in answer to that question, I think it can be harder because sometimes we feel like there's a tendency to lean into the laughs or play to the audience. And I think black comedy, in particular, is quite specific in its tone and its approach. So, I think it can be harder, yes.

Julia McDermott in Weather Girl. Credit: Pamela Raith Photography

The character in Brian Watkins' monologue play Weather Girl is called Stacey (Julia McDermott) which was slightly disconcerting because that's my real name (Stan is a nickname), and it's not the sort of name usually used for stage characters.

But, the fact that it is disconcerting is appropriate, Weather Girl is a disconcerting dichotomy of a play.

Stacey is a California weather girl who has to get up at 4am and be cheery while wild fires are wrecking homes and lives around her. 

In the studio, she is all smiles, quips and glamour, but outside, she is keeping an eye on her homeless, drug-addict mom, who has forgotten who she is. Stacey always sips from a large, fancy water bottle, except it actually contains prosecco.

When she is offered a 'promotion' in desert-city Phoenix, it tips her over the edge, and her life spirals into a car crash - figuratively and literally.

Jamie Bisping, Sara Hazemi, Paul Thornley and Ruby Stokes in The Habits, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Genevieve Girling

The Habits is set in a board game cafe where Jess (Ruby Stokes), Maryn (Sara Hazemi) and Milo (Jamie Bisping) meet to escape into a world of Dungeons & Dragons dwarfs, wizards and the mysterious Nightmare King.

Cafe owner Dennis (Paul Thornley) is also running away from something, and it's not just the fact that everyone else is playing Monopoly.

But real life is knocking against the door of their created fantasy landscape. It's there in the banter and bickering about Brexit, politics and gender, which influences how they treat other characters in the game.

There is also the real life that is closer to home that tumbles into the game through their conversations and phone call interruptions: the stressful job, the reluctance to commit to anything and the raw grief.

The stage is set up 'in the round' with just a table and chairs in the middle. Knowing the game-playing setting, I was a little worried at the start that the characters might spend a lot of their time sitting with their back to chunks of the audience. 

Luke Thallon in Hamlet for the RSC

I've seen a lot of Hamlet's, and watching director Rupert Goold and Luke Thallon's take on 'the Dane', it struck me that we haven't really had a mad Hamlet for a long time.

The prince might say that he is putting on an antic disposition and, as Polonius observes, make 'pregnant' comments, but there is something painfully cracked in his behaviour. There is an edge and danger that points to loss of mental control...but more of that in a moment.

It is a stormy production set on a large ship called the Elsinore in the early 1900s. The text has been tweaked with references to water replacing those about the ground and earth. The stage tilts as danger swells. 

The action is compressed into an evening and night, which heightens the tension and makes sense of Hamlet's tussle with his faculties - a lot happens very quickly.

Sensible edits, such as the players only performing the mime rather than repeating the play with words, make this a pacey production. There is no distraction of relations with Norway; the focus is very much on the royal court and Hamlet's deteriorating behaviour.

Luke Thallon's is a Hamlet that made my heart ache for the pain he seemed to be going through. He starts in a melancholy grief and descends from there to a point where he develops twitches and ticks as if the mental anguish is too much for his body to bear.

I've seen productions where the same actor plays the ghost and Claudius. Here, the ghost (Anton Lesser) pops up as other characters, causing Hamlet to recoil. Does it suggest his mind playing tricks on him, a form of paranoid delusion?

The last play I saw Cate Blanchett in, I described at the time as a 'tedious two hours', so I was keen to see her in something different - and better.

In The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre, she isn't the only star casting joined by Tom Burke (Trigorin), Emma Corrin (Nina), Tanya Reynolds (Masha), Jason Watkins (Pyotr) and Kodi Smit McPhee (Konstantin).

It's a modern adaptation of Chekhov's play by Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier, which shifts the focus more onto the women and emphasises themes of the sense of self and purpose through art and creativity.

Set on the lakeside next to a pontoon which juts out into the audience, there is a tall crop of rushes as a backdrop, which provides a 'secret' entry point to what appears to be a fairly secluded and idyllic spot to hang out on warm days and evenings. The rushes are also a place for people to hide and eavesdrop on those lounging on the assortment of chairs.

The pontoon is where Konstantin stages his fateful play.

But there is a little less Konstantin in this production; his absences suit the 'out of sight, out of mind' attitude of his mother, Irina (Blanchett). Her eyes are only for the slouchy-shorts-wearing Trigorin.

Deliciously OTT

Blanchett ratchetts up the 'look at me' side of famous actress Irina. She is deliciously OTT but not in a hammy way.

What she wears is a combination of attention-grabbing and 'dress for the age you want to be'. It's urban and young, and out of place in the country, like Irina.

Shalisha James-Davis, David Shields and Emma Pallant in Punch. Photo: Marc Brenner

Jacob Dunne (David Shields) is an unruly youth from 'The Meadows' in Nottingham, an experimentally-designed, 1970s council estate that has created rat runs of dark alley for youths to play or move around undetected.

It's described as like being in a live video game by Jacob, and is a place with two paths: keep your head down or drugs and gangs. Struggling in school and seeing no future prospects, he chooses the latter, using his fists to maintain status within his friendship group. 

A good night out is drink, drugs and a fight until, with just one punch, tragedy strikes.

What life could or should Jacob have after he has killed James Hodgkinson, a young man out for a drink with his dad after watching the cricket? Besides a short prison sentence, what justice is there for James's parents, Joan (Julia Hesmondhalgh) and David (Tony Hirst)?

James Graham's play, Punch, is based on Jacob Dunne's book Right From Wrong and was originally produced for Nottingham Playhouse.

The fast-paced first half uses clever lighting by Robbie Butler and movement by Leanne Pinder to transport us into the world of Jacob - school, estate, church, pub, clubs and home with his despairing mum (Emma Pallant).

A more contemplative second half carries punches of a different sort. This isn't about retaliation for the loss of an innocent life but taking a much more challenging but ultimately more fulfilling conciliatory path.

Cassie Bradley and Barney White in One Day When We Were Young, Park Theatre. Photo: Danny Kaan

One Day When We Were Young at the Park Theatre is a 2011 play by Nick Payne that starts on the eve of a young soldier's deployment during WW2, where he is spending the night with his girlfriend.  They promise to wait for each other and build a life together after the war.

Leonard (Barney White) isn't scared of going to war as much as he is about losing Violet (Cassie Bradley) while he is away.

We leave them with bombs falling and jump ahead to two encounters first when they are in their 40s, then later to when they are elderly.

It is quickly apparent that Violet didn't wait. Was it that young love is fleeting, merely a brief infatuation? Did circumstances get in the way? How long was Leonard away?

The problem is that the information about why this youthful love fizzled out is scant. Given the awkwardness between the two on their romantic evening together and subsequent encounters, did they ever really love each other?

Video review transcript:

It was great being back at the Bridge Theatre and getting to see one of my favourite plays, Richard II, this production starring Jonathan Bailey.

The Bridge Theatre is a fantastic, flexible performance space, and in this production, it's used really well. It's a thrust stage, bits of scenery and set are popping up from underneath the stage.

It's all done very, very seamlessly and slickly.

The actors leave at various different points, sometimes through the audience, sometimes they're in the audience. There's a lot going on, and I liked it for that.

It's a play of lots of contrast, contrast in costumes, styling, temperament and tone, particularly between Richard and Bolingbroke and within Richard himself.

Jonathan Bailey's portrayal plays a multi-faceted character with lots of different personality traits coming in.

Actor and writer Jack Holden had a huge hit with Cruise in 2022, and I think he might have done it again with Kenrex, which has transferred to the Southwark Playhouse from Sheffield.

Based on a true story in the small isolated town of Skidmore, Missouri, Ken Rex McElroy is a piece of work. He's a dangerous bully, sensitive to any slight, and engages in a menu of criminal behaviour: theft, intimidation, abduction and statutory rape among his indictments.

And yet, despite being hauled in front of the justice system 21 times, with the help of a clever lawyer and targeted threats, he always manages to get off.

Then, one day, he shoots the local greengrocer over a petty argument and it pushes the community over the edge.

Kenrex is a play of successful, skilful layers that combine to make something extraordinary. It's a gripping thriller of a story brought vividly to life by Jack Holden and musician John Patrick Elliot.

Jack Holden plays all the characters transforming in a blink with just a change of stance and voice. He transports you to Skidmore, painting a colourful picture of the town and the events from that fateful time with descriptions, radio broadcasts, phone calls, interrogations, and reenactments of key moments.