ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
Black Mountain
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond-upon-Thames
BUILDING dramatic tension is not an easy skill for a playwright to master. Just a word or two, or even a pause, in the wrong place can puncture long spells of hard-earned unease.
In Brad Birch's latest play it is not so much his delicately crafted and intriguing wordplay that bursts the bubble but the deflating lack of substance behind it.
James Grieve's minimalist in-the-round production utilises just a ring of light and a collection of shrill sounds to illuminate the story of a murky love triangle.
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
MAYER WAKEFIELD relishes a witty and uplifting rallying cry for unity, which highlights the erasure of queer women



