The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Bristol Old Vic/Kneehigh/Wise Children online review – ravishing vision of Chagall's early life

★★★★ THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK, WISE CHILDREN Ravishing vision of Chagall's early life

An ingenious depiction of the artist's gravity-defying love

One of Marc Chagall’s last commissions was for a stained-glass window in Chichester Cathedral, which channelled his characteristically exuberant spirituality into a response to the verse from Psalm 150, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord”.

What a Carve Up!, Barn Theatre online review – ingenious whodunnit

★★★★ WHAT A CARVE UP! BARN THEATRE ONLINE Film adaptation of Jonathan Coe’s 1994 bestseller is a postmodern masterpiece

Film adaptation of Jonathan Coe’s 1994 bestseller is a postmodern masterpiece

Classical murder mysteries end with a neat solution — and with the arrest of the perpetrator. Postmodern murder mysteries play games with the genre, turning it upside down and inside out. This film adaptation of What a Carve Up!, Jonathan Coe’s 1994 bestselling novel, is a postmodern crime story — and then some. And then some more. And yet more of more.

15 Heroines, Jermyn Street Theatre online review - putting the women back into Greek myth

★★★★ 15 HEROINES, JERMYN STREET THEATRE ONLINE Putting the women back into Greek myth

Scorching adaptation of Ovid is a welcome theatrical respite from lockdown

Women have an awful time of it in the Greek myths. Raped, abandoned, blamed for murdering people, blamed for not murdering people – you name it, it’s happened to an Ancient Greek woman, and they didn’t even get to talk about it themselves. Ovid picked up on this discrepancy, and, in a rare flash of wokeness, wrote The Heroines, 18 letter-poems from the neglected women of the myths.

Nine Lives, Bridge Theatre review - engaging if slim finale to ambitious solo season

Sparky solo play leaves you wanting yet more

Call him Ishmael, and the Zimbabwe-born, UK-based writer Zodwa Nyoni has done just that. That's the name of the solo character in Nyoni's slight but undeniably affecting 50-minute solo play Nine Lives, which caps a season of monologues at the Bridge Theatre that has functioned as so much cultural balm in these parched times.

The Great Gatsby, Immersive London review – a warm and electric tribute to the book

★★★ THE GREAT GATSBY, IMMERSIVE LONDON Warm, electric tribute to the book

It's a true achievement to feel the chemistry of a cast whirring into action again

The Prohibition-era setting of The Great Gatsby brings an appropriately illicit feel to this bold decision to stage an immersive theatre event in the age of Covid.

Quarter Life Crisis, Bridge Theatre review – slender and superficial

★★ QUARTER LIFE CRISIS, BRIDGE THEATRE Slender and superficial

Return of one-woman show about growing up is disappointingly thin

Success smells sweet. The Bridge Theatre’s pioneering season of one-person plays continues with sell-out performances of David Hare’s Beat the Devil and Fuel’s production of Inua Ellams’s An Evening with an Immigrant, with both having their runs extended.

Hermione Lee: Tom Stoppard, A Life review - the last word on a theatrical wordsmith

★★★★ HERMIONE LEE: TOM STOPPARD, A LIFE The last word on a theatrical wordsmith

Capacious biography pins down an elusive subject

"The older he got, the less he cared about self-concealment," or so it is said of Sir Tom Stoppard, somewhere deep into the 865 pages of Tom Stoppard: A Life, Hermione Lee's capacious (to put it mildly) biography of the British theatre's leading wordsmith.

Nights in the Garden of Spain & Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet, Bridge Theatre review - potent mix of pain and comedy

★★★★ NIGHTS IN THE GARDEN OF SPAIN & MISS FOZZARD FINDS HER FEET, BRIDGE THEATRE Last of the indispensable Alan Bennett double bills

Essential series of Alan Bennett stage pairings comes to an end

Stillness works like a stealth bomb in Nights in the Garden of Spain, in which Tamsin Greig further confirms her status as one of this country's finest actresses.