Jekyll & Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson’s ever-compelling “strange case” becomes a solo play, adapted by Gary McNair and performed by Forbes Masson at Dundee Rep earlier this year. Directed by Michael Fentiman, it is the latest addition to Original Theatre’s impressive collection.
Annunciation
“Dance is showing the soul with your body – it’s sacred,” Angelin Preljocaj told the Guardian in 2019. The venerable French choreographer’s spellbinding short piece does just that, exploring the moment the Virgin Mary learns she is carrying the son of God. From Marquee TV.
Weeds
Amanda Wilkin won the 2020 Verity Bargate award for Shedding a Skin, an open-hearted gem of a solo show. Now a cast headed by Lesley Sharp perform her audio drama about climate activism, which again explores generational differences. From Audible.
Tree
Daniel Kitson disappeared up a ladder and into a huge tree for this two-hander staged at the Old Vic in 2015, co-starring Tim Key, peering up from down below. It’s a study of protest and community politics, performed by a pair of comedy masters. On Vimeo.
The Father and the Assassin
“Sometimes to understand the present, you have to go to the past,” said Anupama Chandrasekhar of her play about the murder of Mahatma Gandhi and the surge of Hindu nationalism. Indhu Rubasingham’s 2023 production at the National Theatre is now available from NT at Home.
The Investigator
Yukon Digital Theatre Collective’s interactive storytelling experience, created by playwright Wren Brian, is “set out of time and place, in a world similar to our own, but not ours”. An exploration of complicity and capitalism, it casts you in the role of an investigator who has been sent to question a weaver.
Framed
Pentabus, the rural touring company based in Shropshire, celebrates its 50th birthday with half a dozen digital shorts, the monologues taking place under the duvet, during a trip to the vet and recounting a doorstep encounter in the middle of the night.
Big Night of Musicals
Jason Manford presents a celebration of musicals big, small, old and new at Manchester’s AO Arena, with numbers from A Chorus Line, Hadestown and more. All hail Cedric Neal who cleans up nicely-nicely with Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat from the Bridge’s Guys & Dolls. On BBC iPlayer.
Uncle Vanya
Richmond’s Orange Tree theatre stages Chekhov’s bittersweet masterpiece, with James Lance in the title role. Director Trevor Nunn’s production (surprisingly his first staging of the classic) is available on demand from 16-19 April.
1984
Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, Romesh Ranganathan and Tom Hardy (as Big Brother) all feature in Joe White’s major dramatisation of George Orwell’s novel, with a score composed by Muse’s Matthew Bellamy and Ilan Eshkeri, recorded by the London Metropolitan Orchestra. From Audible.
