Matthew Bourne’s revival of Play Without Words, 10 years on from its premiere, proves that the original success of the production can – and has – been extended to the 21st century.

Refreshing and mysterious, the plot is taken from Joseph Losey’s 1963 film The Servant, telling the story of an upper-class young man, his fiancée and their servants; each portrayed by three dancers and each working to maintain the fascination of the separation and the multiple possibilities of many lives under one roof. The three facets narrate different versions of the story, which adds intrigue and ambiguity to the storyline and the characters, increasing the illusion of the entire performance and the allure of the sexy Chelsea socialites, which are so often at the forefront of the media’s mind, both in the 21st century and throughout the 1960s.

As in every one of his productions, Bourne inextricably links the narrative to the dancers’ technical ability. The dressing and undressing – culturally and socially – of the young man Anthony by his manservant particularly stands out. The mixing of stylish movement with the practicalities of providing for the masters was performed with emotional skill, interchanging humour with the delicate naivety of the rich and privileged. The role reversal that occurred between the menservants and the Anthonies enabled the dancers, particularly Adam Maskell’s Anthony, to display a great variety of talent through their ability to convey different levels of emotion. Combining excellent technique and physicality with the perfect execution of movement, the maids worked to weave the narrative together through their brilliant characterisation.

Whilst the final moments of the production were ambiguous, they seemed a suitable end considering the multiple partnering and emotive, technical qualities that were prevalent throughout. With the constant shift of choices and characters, Bourne appears to highlight the potential mindsets of those with money and power, presuming they can have everything all ways and always.

It is remarkable as well that one can find anything, let alone much, to like in Thomas Magill himself. A martyr to his cause, Magill pounds the streets of Innisfree, running errands for his mammy and keeping tabs on the behaviour of the locals. Magill is God’s messenger in Innisfree and his work is that of the Lord. He means well yet his uncompromising, passionate faith does not endear him to his neighbours. As Murphy rushes around the stage accompanied only by a series of tape players, the recordings we hear serve not just to animate an imagined population but to emphasise Thomas’ total disconnection with the world around him and the people within it. He is distanced from it all, unable to properly engage with real life, real people and their foibles. He is a nuisance, disliked and disheartened.

He isn’t perfect either. Thomas is controlling, obsessive and sometimes unpleasant. He is unable to relate to any of those around him, save perhaps his mammy, and this loneliness that drives him to desperation leads him ultimately to an act of utmost cruelty. Here again, though maddened by guilt, Thomas is distanced from his actions by his recordings. The truth will out, however, and while I won’t say what he does, I will say that it must be true, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Not so at South Downs, where Spear rules the English roost and tradition is the order of the day. What to do then, if rather than worship at the altar – metaphorical or not – of convention one looks beyond the school gates? At just 14, pupil and unwilling stooge John Blakemore’s attempts to rewrite the rules are rejected, stifled and punished. Thrown into an unwelcome environment, he struggles not just to make friends with others but to make friends with himself. Youth, we are reminded, is not the same as immaturity and from a shaky start to a smiling conclusion we see Blakemore find his feet. Freed, ironically, from the burden of tradition he can at last imagine a future outside of the cage. Alex Lawther gives an excellent performance as Blakemore, well supported by Jonathan Bailey as Duffield and Nicholas Farrell as the Reverend Eric Dewley, a man perhaps not as comfortable with tradition as he would like to be.

Farrell returns to give a truly astonishing performance as Andrew Crocker-Harris, a man of the Classics and traditions older than the world we live in. He rules his classroom with the proverbial rod of iron while, at home, rules are broken, and Crocker-Harris with them. Like South Downs, The Browning Version is a portrait first and foremost of the loneliness that inflicts itself upon our two protagonists, stemming from the realisation that one’s own self-image is not what is seen by everyone else. Watching Crocker-Harris is much like watching Blakemore; both searching for their place and being shown the way. As Blakemore is championed by the prefect Duffield, Crocker-Harris is buoyed by a most unlikely combination: first, a pupil, Taplow – a lovely performance from Liam Morton – and then an adulterer. Make what you will of Crocker Harris’ wife’s cruelty but I choose to remember Taplow’s kindness simply as an act that reminds an ageing fellow why he chose the path he did. Frank Hunter’s contribution is ambiguous, while Mark Umbers as Frank Hunter does well to lend a certain sympathy to the relationship between the men.

As the curtain closes, Crocker-Harris, like Blakemore, is smiling. He has not won, not by a long shot, but he is no longer losing quite as badly. As he leaves that place of rules and humiliation, we are reminded that perhaps the most revolutionary action of all might be the act of kindness that brings a tear to the eye and opens the door to the future.

We go to the theatre perhaps to escape and be drawn into another world, to think, to laugh, to cry. But occasionally we see something that breaks the mould and surpasses our expectations, staying with us long after we leave the auditorium.

War Horse has humble roots at the National Theatre, where it was so successful that after a second run the creative team rose proudly with the show through to the West End, and now to the international stage on Broadway and in Toronto, Canada. It may seem to have won every theatre award under the sun (including two Olivier Awards and five Tony awards) and hold a record for the highest weekly gross for a West End play, but War Horse has retained its appealing modest nature, avoiding that flamboyant ‘big show’ feel. So what is it about it that audiences cannot resist?

The show centres around Albert, a young man who becomes unbreakably bonded to Joey, a horse on his parents’ farm. Albert is devastated when his father sends Joey to battle in WWI, and the story follows the journeys of the two characters as they fight for their country whilst trying to reunite. The story is adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book, and both the plot and the way it’s portrayed on stage are moulded beautifully, not forgetting a smattering of humour amongst the depths to bring the audience back to earth. Well-placed additions of authentic country melodies and singing help bring emotion to a peak.

Despite all these captivating ingredients, the main factor that creates widespread curiosity and awe is what the BBC show famously called ‘animal magic’. How on earth could you stage a live play where the main character and several of its co-stars are equines? Unlike making the film, there’s only one shot each night, not to mention trying to manage half a dozen horses backstage. The answer, breathtakingly realistic puppets, keeps the audience engrossed throughout, and you find yourself becoming heart-wrenchingly attached to Joey. The elegance and grace, the attention to detail, the fluidity; before you know it Joey is real, and he ensures that your eyes remain glued to the stage.

Tears were aplenty and emotions were running high as the audience filed out, but without anyone being sure why. And perhaps it’s the best shows where you can’t put your finger on exactly what’s moving; simply every successful component comes together and forms a masterpiece.

Rob (William Owen) is an investment banker. It’s not going all that well though. He’s not particularly good at it and he finds it stifling, oppressive and it gives him nosebleeds. So he decides to jump ship before he’s politely pushed and do something he finds valuable instead. Having dabbled in teaching he heads for the classroom full of aspirations and good intentions; he’s not just going to teach them English, he’s going to teach them about life.

Of course they aren’t particularly interested, in fact his words of wisdom are so rooted in his own life they can barely understand him. Morrison’s rather depressing point seems to be that in a world of individuals it’s very hard to connect; we end up as bespoke shapes that never quite mesh.

It’s a play that has plenty of merits, but it’s undermined by being over written. Morrison, you feel, doesn’t quite trust in “less is more” and he succumbs to the temptation of showing us too much, a temptation that a stronger editor would have overcome. Still his central character is complex and intriguing (beautifully played by the excellent Owen) and there are some ear catching lines too, my favourite coming from the pragmatic, quietly spoken head teacher who says of his students “they can still remember what oblivion feels like.”

Alison McDowall’s inventive set works well too, blending the classroom and the outside world neatly and reminding us that the influence of our schooldays is never far away.  Helen Skiera’s sound design is equally imaginative – indeed early on it’s scene stealing – while the supporting cast are, for the most part, strong. It all adds to the nagging sense that this is a production with high values that should have been more tautly constructed.

Peter Clapp

Brightest And Best runs at the The Half Moon, Herne Hill until 10 March

14 years on and after c

The world-dominating musical merges crime with celebrity in the cut-throat, cabaret world of 1930’s Chicago. Roxie Hart (Sarah Soetaert) is awaiting trial for the murder of her lover, after her long suffering, sweet natured husband Amos Hart (James Doherty) finally twigs that she’s not as virtuous as he first thought. But under the $5000 dollar wing of lawyer Billy Flynn (Terence Maynard), she becomes a criminal star, outshining her fellow inmate Velma Kelly (Rachel McDowall) and setting up a battle for their lives and celebrity status.

With the support of an on-stage jazz band the cast tell the story through a series of world famous cabaret songs from All That Jazz to When You’re Good To Mama. In some ways this makes for a paired down experience. There’s barely a change to the set and hardly a special effect in sight, everything rests on the music and dance, neither of which disappoints. The opening number oozes with sexual tension and from the get go there’s a sense that the characters want nothing more than to be adored, a conviction that leads them to near ruin.

The petite Soetaert returns to the role of Roxie, giving her a Marilyn Monroe sweetness that belies a manipulative mind. She’s charming throughout and is the backbone that holds the show together. McDowall’s Velma Kelly makes for her perfect Vaudevillian partner; at 6 ft she looms over the petite Soetaert, all cut-throat and dominating, her daddy long-legs physique still hugely graceful.

There’s little doubt that Chicago is one of the modern classics, a stalwart of Broadway and the West End, and what’s more it’s a slice of musical history that’s well worth catching.

Peter Clapp

Chicago is booking until 26 Jan 2013 at the Garrick theatre

If, in Love Story, love is represented either by the absence of transgression or apology, elsewhere it might present itself in sacrifice, devotion or white-hot desire. In Frantic Assembly’s Lovesong, love presents itself in all these different guises, as the company explores the love between one couple and the life, or lives, they live together.

They are lives shown not ‘in order’, but in snapshot, reminding us that although a life is linear – its course decided and defined by what is said, or done, and why – Lovesong gives room for movement, for manoeuvre, for reflection not only on what was and is but on what might have been, who might have been, and how.

As it stands, William and Margaret, later Billy and Maggie, appear, often simultaneously, at both the beginning and the end of their lives together. These lives, we learn early on, have not been easy or uncomplicated, but they have been marked throughout with a love that comes to define the couple both as individuals and in unison. In youth, full of love and lust and only the highest of hopes, William and Margaret fall over themselves, and each other, to demonstrate their love, to celebrate and perform it and to press themselves indelibly together, forever. Later in life, reflecting not only on what has come before but on what will, sadly but inevitably, come ‘after’, Billy and Maggie unpack not only the physical souvenirs but the memories of their time together and the ways in which they have been moulded by their attachment to each other.

Not all the memories are good – the finest line is traced at times between what happened and what ‘might have been’ – but regardless of these troubles, William and Margaret have become Billy and Maggie, together at the end as at the beginning, joined by a love that may have changed, may have been forced to, but that remains as strong as ever. Moments in which all four actors are on stage, as the present and the past collide or simply co-exist, demonstrate perfectly the need each couple has for the other, the ways in which it is as impossible to escape who you were as who you have become.

It is in the presentation of this that Frantic Assembly, as ever, excels. Seamlessly blending dialogue with heart-wrenching moments of music and movement, the company’s commitment not only to the physical and internal lives of their characters, but of the ways in which these can be presented and performed, results in a truly beautiful production, at times unexpected but always first class.

The love story we see in Lovesong is no fairy-tale, rather it is one couple’s song, their truth. Lovesong explores the ways in which we might become the people we are, were and still might be, if only we allow for love, for the incomprehensible, giant unknown to sweep us repeatedly away.

Lovesong runs at the Lyric Hammersmith until 4 February and tickets start from £12.50.

Kate Richards TheatreFix Reviewer

Ballet, contemporary and modern twists are heavily featured throughout the various show’s listings, leaving every theatregoer inundated with choice of style, venue, and atmosphere. I can’t think of anything more Christmassy than a timeless production of The Nutcracker, and last night I paid a visit to the London Coliseum to see the fantastic English National Ballet dancers sparkle to their hearts’ content.

What should I expect?
In a nutshell, the show completely dazzled me. If you want diamantes, frolics and spectacular effects then this version of The Nutcracker is for you. Wayne Eagling has produced yet another outstanding production which was neither too childlike for the adults nor too far removed for the many children in the audience who were completely enthralled.

Humour ran throughout the fast-moving plot and images of many family Christmases were reflected in Eagling’s precise choreography and the immense technical skill of the dancers. The Mouse King, danced by James Streeter, was particularly outstanding in his intense portrayal of his fight with the Nutcracker, and Elena Glurdjidze completed embodiment Clara’s passion and devotion to the Nutcracker. Eagling utilised the backdrop of snowy Edwardian London which perfectly complemented the festive tale alongside Tchaikovsky’s famous score. The audience was taken on a hot air balloon ride across the London skyline to The Land of Snow and then beyond to the magical Puppet Theatre where more talent and precision were waiting. Such talent continued throughout the evening through the dancers’ additional roles created from so many corners of the world, providing even more Christmas excitement. The Mouse King was, of course, eventually vanquished in this perfect happily-ever-after tale.

Do I need to know anything about dance?
Not at all. The pure beauty of the dancers will whisk you away on a sparkling adventure to The Land of Snow, suspending disbelief in such a classic Christmas production.

It might be worth noting, however, some of the impressive facts and figures that add the background of this magical version of The Nutcracker. For example, there are 400 Swarovski elements sewn onto each of the nine Sugar Plum Fairy costumes, with the value of these amounting to approximately £10,000 in total, generously donated to the company. That’s a lot of diamantes! Each Sugar Plum Fairy costume requires over £2000 of man hours and fabric, which reminds the audience that behind this superb interpretation of the classic story lays the rest of the team that placed the show on stage.

How much will it cost?
Tickets at the London Coliseum range from £10-£67 to making English National Ballet’s Nutcracker extremely accessible to Christmas budgets.

Wayne Eagling’s The Nutcracker runs at the London Coliseum until 30 December 2011.

Jessica Wilson TheatreFix Reviewer

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Walking into the auditorium at Southwark Playhouse, the beautiful pop-up style set stood like an open page, waiting to tell us a story. When the show began, the stage came to life as bright projections whizzed over the castle and its walls, transforming it into many different landscapes and homes and interacting with the actors in a way that made the magic feel more real. The storytelling felt like an amalgamation of the traditional and the modern – the voiceovers lending a wink to the classic story tape and the flying projections offering filmic visuals.

However, despite its impressive array of storytelling techniques, the piece fell short at actually telling a story. The characterisation was as two-dimensional as the set and there wasn’t enough character development to make the audience really care what happened to their hero and heroine at all. Whilst I completely appreciate the difficulties of compressing a complex story into a short amount of time, the piece really did suffer by paying more attention to impressive visuals than to the story itself.

There were some lovely moments in the show where the visuals and stage action really came together, but these moments were too few and far between to create the necessary magic for the audience. Daniel Ings made a very watchable Howl however, with buckets of charisma and delightfully over the top acting. Indeed there was an element of pantomime to the piece (no bad thing in my book) but it was lacking the joy and life which makes a pantomime so fun to watch.

Howl’s Moving Castle was very watchable but it lacked that magic touch to get me in the festive mood.

Collette McCarthy TheatreFix Reviewer

Howl’s Moving Castle plays at the Southwark Playhouse until 7 January.