National Theatre

Clint Dyer and Roy Williams clearly fell in love with the world they created with 2020’s ‘Death of England’. A monologue about white racism written by two Black playwrights, in it Rafe Spall played Michael, a confused man scarred by his troubled upbringing, who ends up having an almighty falling out with his Black best friend Delroy.  ‘The Death of England’ shared universe has grown since: next we heard from Delroy (‘Death of England: Delroy’) then both men (in the film ‘Death of England: Face to Face’). Finally, it’s the turn of the women: Michael’s sister and Delroy’s girlfriend Carly, and Delroy’s mum Denise.  Do you need to have watched the previous three installments to get what’s going on in ‘Death of England: Closing Time’, allegedly the final entry in the series? No, but it wouldn’t hurt. Certainly, if you saw the original it’s nifty to see how the staging and Ultz’s set mirrors it: a big, red cross catwalk like an England flag, with little glass cases lighting up to display props that illustrate the discussion. Carly (Hayley Squires) has taken over the family flower business, and Denise (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) has been sharing the shop, selling patties – an allegory for multiculturalism if ever there was one. But unfortunately, the business has tanked and the shop is about to be taken away from them. The first half is a rambling affair, with monologue and dialogue deployed as the two offer their takes on each other and their men. I’m not sure the series actually NEE

At the start of Alexander Zeldin’s new play Alice, an elderly woman played by Amelda Brown, reflects on her unremarkable life. ‘I am not interesting. I have nothing of interest to tell,’ she says. What follows is two hours of recollection that span eight decades and multiple countries. They are ordinary memories from a life of relative unimportance. But dreary? Never. Written with staggering hyper-realness and dialogue that sounds acutely instinctive, ‘The Confessions’ stretches out to delicately mark the capacity for cruelty, selfishness and determination we all have as human beings.  ‘The Confessions’ follows writer and director Zeldin’s Inequalities trilogy which explored the damning effects of austerity in Britain. His new production, which had its premiere at Vienna’s Festwochen in June this year, is just as unflinching, heartfelt and worthwhile. Based on conversations Zeldin had with his mother during lockdown, his play tells the story of a woman who came of age during Australia’s repressive post-war years, and tracks her gradual growth in strength and move to start a family in England. From an initial 2021 setting, we’re transported back to Alice’s youth. A thick red velvet curtain is pulled back to reveal her younger self – remarkably embodied by Eryn Jean Norvill at first with shaky apprehension and then with stoicism. After failing her exams, Alice is convinced by her parents to marry Graham, a naval officer. But really, she wants to immerse herself in art and acad

The National Theatre hasn't hosted a major musical in some time, with the troubled Christmas show ‘Hex’ being something of a pandemic-era stopgap that played two years in a row after Covid cancelled so much of its original run that it didn’t really get a fair crack at the whip. ‘The Witches’, though, is much more serious stuff, being a major adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved dark kids’ novel about a young boy who lives with his grandmother and stumbles across a conspiracy of villainous witches hoping to turn the world’s children into mice.  This stage version combines the musical theatre debuts of the great British director Lyndsey Turner and playwright Lucy Kirkwood – reuniting a decade after their Almeida smash ‘Chimerica’ – with songs and music from the US composer Dave Malloy (still something of a cult concern in the UK as we’ve yet to stage his great ‘War & Peace’ adaptation ‘Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812’). The musical comes at a fascinating time for Dahl and his legacy: there has been much criticism of recent tweaks to his books to make the language more acceptable to modern audiences, but at the same time Dahl’s personal antisemitism is well-known, and ‘The Witches’ – with its depiction of a powerful conspiracy of hook-nosed women – is often held as a possible manifestation of this in his writing. Hopefully the whole thing will prove to be diabolical good fun, but it’ll be interesting to see if it can realise its full potential without egregiously offen

A real treat here, as the great playwright Alice Birch returns to the National Theatre for her biggest show to date (having previously contributed to the more offbeat projects ‘We Want You To Watch’ and ‘[BLANK]’).  ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ is, of course, ‘Normal People’ screenwriter Birch’s adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s classic tragedy about the eponymous domineering matriarch, who imposes a stifling eight years mourning period upon her five oppressed daughters after the death of her second husband. The great Harriet Walter will play Bernarda in Rebecca Frecknall’s maiden production for the NT, which will also star Isis Hainsworth, who was excellent in Frecknall’s recent ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the Almeida.

Probably the most brilliant American playwright of her generation, every Annie Baker play is a joy: her three works for the NT – ‘The Flick’, ‘John’ and ‘The Antipodes’ – are three full-on masterpieces. And ‘Infinite Life’ could be the fourth. We know relatively little about it at this stage, but apparently it’s a ‘dreamlike’ play about five women on chaise longues, that constitutes ‘a surprisingly funny inquiry into the complexity of suffering, and what it means to desire in a body that’s failing you.’ It’s directed by her regular helmsman James Macdonald, with an American cast of Marylouise Burke, Mia Katigbak, Christina Kirk, Kristine Nielsen, Brenda Pressley and Pete Simpson.