Any chance to see a play by Alan Bennett is always a shot in the arm and so the opportunity to see a double bill is doubly welcome. The determined and dedicated Teddington Theatre Club based in Hampton have put together an intriguing couple of one-act plays. A Visit from Miss Prothero and An Englishman Abroad. The latter is usually paired with A Question of Attribution in a double bill Single Spies. Director Jenny Hobson …

To mark the centenary of the Amritsar massacre (1919) director Phil Willmott has set Othello (1601) somewhere in India. For a British audience familiar with A Passage to India (1924) or The Raj Quartet (1975) or indeed the film Gandhi (1982) this works. We can more readily get to grips with racial, social and gender dynamics. Othello (Matthew Wade) is here a conflicted collaborator in British rule. A general in the Indian army who has …

As we approach the centenary of The Armistice of 11th November 1918, the Jermyn Street Theatre is doing its bit by putting on a series of plays that explore different aspects of this world defining historical moment. The contribution of troops from across the British Empire has been insufficiently celebrated so it is most welcome that Billy Bishop Goes to War is having an extended run. The most performed play in Canadian theatre Billy Bishop …

The Taming of the Shrew is usually called a comedy but it seems to me more like a problem play. This is confirmed in the current production at the Tristan Bates Theatre, part of the Actors Centre in Covent Garden. Performed using the cue script technique used in Elizabethan theatres this version of The Taming of the Shrew brings out the power dynamics between the genders. This is a fascinating insight which sheds fresh light …

What do you do when your boyfriend dumps you because he sees you as a dumb blonde? Get a law degree of course! That, in a nutshell, is the plot of Legally Blonde The Musical. The show is an adrenaline rush of joy and fun that just keeps getting better and better. At the end you just want it to start all over again. It’s that good. I would pay for a ticket just to …