WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Theatre as art and artifice
A kaleidoscope of human emotions offered by Andrew Scott’s virtuoso performance as multiple characters gets the thumbs up from MARY CONWAY
AN ASTONISHING FEAT: Andrew Scott
[Marc Brenner] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
Vanya
Duke of York’s Theatre
IT SOUNDS preposterous: the great Chekhov masterpiece Uncle Vanya reduced to a one-man show. But yes, this is the latest sensation to hit the West End in a version co-created by adaptor Simon Stephens, director Sam Yates and actor and erstwhile “hot priest” from Fleabag Andrew Scott.
As if not daring enough that Scott plays all the parts, this highly potent version also abandons its Russian setting, renames its characters and tentatively modernises, turning the demon professor into a self-regarding film-maker and the samovar into a teapot.
Irish accents proliferate and the vast distances of Russia are minimalised to fit the British Isles by suggesting that those made potentially homeless in the play decamp to the Isle of Man.
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MARY CONWAY is blown away by a flawless production of Lynn Nottage’s exquisite tragedy
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
MARY CONWAY recommends a play that some will find more discursive than eventful but one in which the characters glow
