Top 10 plays of the week

Top 10 plays of the week

1. The Comedy of Errors/ Richard III | Rating: * * * * *

Stop at nothing to see these two invention-crammed stagings from Ed Hall’s all-male Propeller company. The ensemble is at its best, with Richard Clothier hypnotically horrible as the Duke of Gloucester in a Richard III enlivened by choral plainsong, while the rowdily irreverent take on The Comedy of Errors crams more gags into the play than Shakespeare would have thought possible.

On tour until May 7 see www.propeller.org.uk

2. Mogadishu | Rating: * * * * *

New play by Vivienne Franzmann – winner of this year’s Bruntwood Prize – set in an inner-city London school and centring on an incident in which a white teacher gets pushed to the ground by a black pupil, then covers up for him. Matthew Dunster directs.

Lyric Hammersmith until April 2 (0871 22 117 29)

3. Clybourne Park | Rating: * * * * *

Bruce Norris’s satirical comedy was a smash hit at the Royal Court last year, and has already won Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for best new play. It explores the fault lines between race and property in the United States, with the first act set in 1959, as a white couple prepares to sell to the first black family in a Chicago suburb, and the second in 2009, as a white family tries to buy into what has now become a black neighbourhood. Often outrageously funny, the play is also a provocative study of submerged racial tensions in middle-class America.

Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC1 (0844 482 5120), until May 7

4. King Lear | Rating: * * * * *

Sir Derek Jacobi goes on the road to spread the enlightening example of his triumphant Lear in Michael Grandage’s production.

Touring. See dates here

5. Frankenstein | Rating: * * * *

The National Theatre has a smash hit on its hands with Danny Boyle’s visually thrilling, deeply felt production of Mary Shelley’s resonant Gothic tale in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternate as the scientist and his creature. Only day seats are available at present but a new tranche of tickets is released on Thursday. The show will also be screened at cinemas nationwide on March 17 (with Cumberbatch as the Creature and Miller as Frankenstein) and again on March 24 with the roles reversed.

National Theatre, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), until May 2

6. Million Dollar Quartet | Rating: * * * *

This highly enjoyable jukebox musical is set on the day in December 1956 when Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash jammed together at Sam Phillips’s Sun Records studio in Memphis. The cast is first rate and the rock-and-roll classics are performed with great panache.

Noël Coward Theatre, London WC2 (0844 482 5136), until Oct 1

7. The Children’s Hour | Rating: * * * *

Keira Knightley wins her stage spurs as a New England teacher in the Thirties who is accused by a malevolent pupil of having a lesbian affair with a colleague (the excellent Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men). Lillian Hellman’s play has moments of creaky melodrama, but it is atmospherically directed by Ian Rickson and thanks to the excellent performances packs a powerful dramatic punch.

Comedy Theatre, London SW1 (0844 871 7615), until May 7

8. Corrie! | Rating: * * * *

Jonathan Harvey – a scriptwriter on Coronation Street as well as a terrific playwright – takes the affectionate mickey out of Corrie’s melodramatic absurdities and rejoices in the programme’s very English brand of camp humour. Fiona Buffini’s production – with a cast of five playing more than 50 characters between them – may be a bit rough around the edges, but this show is absolutely bursting with heart and humour.

Sheffield Lyceum (0114 249 6000), Mon-next Sat

9. The Wizard of Oz | Rating: * * *

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s journey down the Yellow Brick Road looks a box office success: Jeremy Sams’s production is slick and pacy, and Robert Jones’s imaginative designs are often inspired. However, somewhere along the way, this chilly musical seems to have lost its heart. The highlights are a splendid Toto and Hannah Waddingham as a superbly malevolent Wicked Witch of the West.

London Palladium, London W1 (0944 412 2957), booking until Sept 17

10. Journey’s End |

David Grindley’s revival of R C Sherriff’s First World War classic about life in the trenches just seems to get better with age. James Norton stars as the tortured Captain Stanhope, Graham Butler as his painfully keen school pal Raleigh. A moving evening; at times, unbearably so.

Richmond Theatre, Surrey (0844 871 7651), Mon-next Sat then touring

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