Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and his pal

★★★★★ GOOD ONE A wise-beyond-her-years teen discovers male limitations in a deft indie drama

A wise-beyond-her-years teen discovers male limitations in a deft indie drama

Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskills Forest Preserve in upstate New York. A putative indie classic, writer-director India Donaldson’s psychologically acute feature debut focuses on a self-contained, observant young woman, Sam (Lily Collias), whose skepticism about hard-wired male attitudes grows exponentially over the weekend.

Much Ado About Nothing, RSC, Stratford - Messina FC scores on the bardic football field

 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, RSC, STRATFORD Messina FC scores on the bardic football field

Garish and gossipy, this new production packs a punch between the laughs

Fragile egos abound. An older person (usually a man) has to bring the best out of the stars, but mustn’t neglect the team ethic. Picking the right players is critical. There’s never enough money, because everything that comes in this season is spent on the next. The media, with a sneer never too far from the old guard and its new version alternately snapping and fawning with little in between, has to be placated.

Ghosts, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre - turns out, they do fuck you up

★ GHOSTS, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH Ibsen screams into 2025 in this perfect reimagining

Ten years on, Gary Owen and Rachel O'Riordan top their triumphant Iphigenia in Splott

A single sofa is all we have on stage to attract our eye - the signifier of intimate family evenings, chummy breakfast TV and, more recently, Graham Norton’s bonhomie. Until you catch proper sight of the room’s walls that is, which are not, as you first thought, Duluxed in a bland magnolia shade, nor even panelled with upmarket modernist abstract paintings, befitting of the whiff of wealth that suffuses the space. It’s a man’s head, repeating and repeating and repeating, turned away, bull-necked, present but not present, intimidating from beyond the grave.

Mickalene Thomas, All About Love, Hayward Gallery review - all that glitters

★★★★ MICKALENE THOMAS, ALL ABOUT LOVE, HAYWARD GALLERY The shock of the glue: rhinestones to the ready

The shock of the glue: rhinestones to the ready

On walking into Mikalene Thomas’s exhibition at the Hayward Gallery my first reaction was “get me out of here”. To someone brought up on the paired down, less-is-more aesthetic of minimalism her giant, rhinestone-encrusted portraits are like a kick in the solar plexus – much too big and bright to stomach. Could I be expected to even consider accepting these gaudy monstrosities as art?

Play On!, Lyric Hammersmith review - and give me excess of it!

★★★★★ PLAY ON!, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH The Bard and The Duke in perfect harmony!

Super performances deliver magnificent entertainment

If you saw Upstart Crow on television or on stage in the West End, you’ll know the schtick of Sheldon Epps’ dazzling show Play On! Take a Shakespearean play’s underlying plot and characters and relocate them for wit and giggles. “Make it a musical“, you say? Okay, but who’s going to do the score, who’s going to dare to follow in the footsteps of Lenny and Steve, of Cole, of Elton (okay that one came a bit later)? “Duke Ellington!” Right. You’ve sold it.

The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2, Park Theatre review - if Chekhov did soap operas

★★★★ THE FORSYTE SAGA 1 & 2, PARK THEATRE Epic adaptation still packs a punch

Joseph Millson leads a super cast in a classy production from Troupe Theatre Company

The misadventures and misbehaviours of the English upper-middle class is catnip for TV executives. All those posh types on which us hoi polloi can sit in delicious self-righteous judgement, as we marvel at their cut glass accents, well-tailored clothes and ostentatious wealth. Meanwhile their worlds are always collapsing due to villainy, venality or misconceived virtue. Lovely stuff! 

Frankie Goes To Bollywood, Southbank Centre review - lots of lights, but a dull show

 FRANKIE GOES TO BOLLYWOOD, SOUTHBANK CENTRE Lots of lights, but a dull show 

Bhangra-inspired musical let down by storyline and singing

In the 1960s, Cilla Black was rescued from hat check duties at The Cavern and made a star. In the 1980s, Rick Astley was whisked away from tea-making at the Stock-Aitken-Waterman studios to launch, 30 years later. a billion RickRolls. In the 2020s, Frankie Taylor is spirited away from a Milton Keynes cinema popcorn stand to the bright (and I mean bright) lights of Bollywood. 

The Jetty, BBC One review - lowlife in a Northern town

★★ THE JETTY, BBC ONE Lowlife in a Northern town

Jenna Coleman stars in a dark tale of abuse and exploitation

Jenna Coleman seems to pick her roles with care, whether it’s Queen Victoria, the girlfriend of mass murderer Charles Sobhraj in The Serpent, or “occult detective” Johanna Constantine in The Sandman, but her antennae may have been a bit awry when she climbed aboard this one.

The Jetty is long on atmosphere and scenery but short on plausibility, and hammers away at its themes of abused women and abusive men so relentlessly that there’s not much room for anything else.

Multiple Casualty Incident, The Yard Theatre review - NGO medics in training have problems of their own

★★ MULTIPLE CASUALTY INCIDENT, THE YARD THEATRE Too many tricks from writer and director 

Sami Ibrahim's play examines ethics in a war zone, but pivots to a gimmicky love story

We open on one of those grim, grim training rooms that all offices have – the apologetic sofa, the single electric kettle, the instant coffee. The lighting is too harsh, the chairs too hard, the atmosphere already post-lunch on Wednesday and it’s only 10am on Monday. We’ve all been there – designer, Rosie Elnile certainly has.