This House, National Theatre at Home review – timely revival of brilliant House of Commons drama

★★★★ THIS HOUSE, NATIONAL THEATRE AT HOME Timely revival of brilliant House of Commons drama

James Graham acutely perceives the obsessions and motivations of our times

There is a line of argument that – unfairly – blames playwright James Graham for Dominic Cummings. Would Cummings, some might ask, have achieved the influence he has now if it hadn’t been for his depiction in Graham’s brilliant TV drama Brexit: The Uncivil War in which he was played as an obsessive genius by Benedict Cumberbatch? 

Antony and Cleopatra, National Theatre at Home review – Fiennes and Okonedo triumph in dragging tragedy

★★★ ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, NATIONAL THEATRE AT HOME A triumvirate of talent and a slick set can't speed things along

A triumvirate of talent and a slick set can't in themselves speed things along

Like an asp eating its own tail, the National Theatre's 2018 production of Antony and Cleopatra, streaming on YouTube until 14 May, begins as it will end. Director Simon Godwin's first tableau is the play's finale: Cleopatra (Sophie Okonedo) lies in queenly repose, a snakebite on her neck; her servants, Charmian (Gloria Obianyo) and Iras (Georgia Landers), slump around her.

Album: The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?

★★★★★ THE SOFT PINK TRUTH - SHALL WE GO ON SINNING SO THAT GRACE MAY INCREASE? Drew Daniel ditching mischief and challenging hard times with gentleness

Drew Daniel ditching the mischief and challenging hard times with gentleness

Drew Daniel is never short of concepts, invention or mischief. As one half of Matmos, with his life partner M.C. Schmidt, he has made some 10 official albums and many more collaborative ones – all pushing the boundaries of electronic bricolage and sound processing in the pursuit of extremely complex ideas about American history, plastic surgery, philosophy, queer identity and all that kind of stuff.

#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Hampstead Theatre online review – imbued with an urgent new relevance

Howard Brenton’s docu-drama about the harassment of the Chinese artist is defiantly brilliant

London’s Hampstead Theatre has recently been very successful in bringing some of its best shows to a wider public – despite coronavirus. This week, it’s the turn of Howard Brenton’s #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, which was first staged at this venue in April 2013, and in the intervening years it has gained in resonance and relevance.

Drawing the Line, Hampstead Theatre online review - modern history becomes dark farce

★★★★ DRAWING THE LINE, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Howard Brenton's play offers a lucid account of the Partition of India

Howard Brenton's play offers a lucid account of the Partition of India

This week’s gem from the Hampstead’s vaults is Howard Brenton’s political drama from 2013, telling the extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story of Cyril Radcliffe and his 1947 mission: to arrange the Partition of India in just five weeks.

Wonderland, Hampstead Theatre online review - a major play about the miners

★★★★ WONDERLAND, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE A major play about the miners

Beth Steel award-winner makes for muscular, eerily apposite fare

The talk is of an “economy in ruin [with] unemployment through the roof”: a précis of Britain in lockdown? In fact, this is one of the many eerily apposite remarks to be found in Wonderland, the Beth Steel drama set in the early 1980s that marks the second in the Hampstead Theatre’s sequence of three productions streamed across as many weeks: Howard Brenton’s Drawing the Line comes next, and last.

Mark Townsend: No Return review - a masterclass in journalism

★★★★★ MARK TOWNSEND: NO RETURN A masterclass in journalism

The propulsive story of five Brighton teenagers who became jihadis in Syria

When Amer Deghayes departed for Syria in a truck leaving from Birmingham, a worker from a youth arts organisation in Brighton had been trying to get in touch with him. She wanted to inform Amer, an intelligent and creative 18-year-old who had once harboured journalistic ambitions, that his pitch to develop a project about identity in his hometown had been successful. The Heritage Lottery fund had decided to award him £50,000.

Bacurau review – way-out western

★★★★ BACURAU Way-out western with Sonia Braga and Udo Kier  

Sonia Braga and Udo Kier star in a genre mash-up with lashings of spaghetti sauce

After his two mysterious, tightly-coiled and idiosyncratic first features, Neighbouring Sounds and Aquarius, the masterful Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho lets his hair down with an exhilarating, all-guns-blazing venture into genre.  

Putin: A Russian Spy Story, Channel 4 review - inside the mind of a man without a face

PUTIN: A RUSSIAN SPY STORY, CHANNEL 4 The anatomy of power behind the man in the Kremlin, and where he came from

The anatomy of power behind the man in the Kremlin, and where he came from

Director Nick Green’s new three-parter follows on the heels of his A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad and comparisons are sure to be made between his two subjects.