Royal Court's New Season and A Disney Nightmare

In this edition:

• Bumper Addition of What To Book including the highlights of The New Season at The Royal Court (which is on sale now)

• Reviews: Cate Blanchett in The Seagull, Tom Hiddleston in Much Ado and a play I walked out of at half time.

A Disney Princess? More Like Snow Shite

The latest Disney adaptation was yanked from prerelease marketing duties - the London premiere was axed - for good reason. I haven’t seen it but reports suggest it “represents a new low for cultural desecration and for a venerable 102-year-old entertainment company that now looks at its source material with a pinched nose of disgust” (The Times). The Snow White star Rachel Zegler, during a now notorious Vanity Fair interview, dismissed the Disney original as a politically retrograde “85-year-old cartoon”. See some reviews below:

It has faced criticism for its look of “an AI-created migraine” and is awash with sentiments so sappy that you rather wish the huntsman would just get over his moral scruples and put us all out of our collective misery. A film seemingly made to line pockets and by people with not even the tiniest glimmer of art in their souls.

To Book

The Women Of Llanrumney at Theatre Royal Stratford East

Patricia Logue’s production received fantastic reviews at the Sherman Theatre last year, and now transfers to Stratford East. Azuka Oforka’s play is set on the Caribbean plantation established by Henry Morgan in the eighteenth century and focuses on profligate plantation owner Elizabeth and two household slaves, Annie and Cerys, and the evolution of their relationship as rebellion builds in the sugar fields outside.

Deaf Republic at The Royal Court

I read Deaf Republic, the epic poem when it was nominated for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2019 and was stunned by it - Kaminsky was born in Odessa and is hard of hearing and the poem tells the story of citizens who speak hand gestures and signs in an unknown conflict. The play will tell the story through a mix of spoken English, sign language, creative captioning and silence alongside an ensemble of aerial performers, puppetry, live cinema and poetry. Presented by Royal Court Theatre and Dead Centre in association with Dublin Theatre Festival and Complicité, it certainly seems ambitious and exciting

Evita at The London Palladium

Jamie Lloyd, Jamie Lloyd. Not a Shakespeare this time but Evita, the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical starringGolden Globe winner Rachel Zegler. It will run from 14 June to 6 September 2025 - the story concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader, activist and actress Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón.

The Unbelievers at The Royal Court

A new play by Nick Payne (Writer of We Live In Time and Constellations) starring Nicola Walker and directed by Marianne Elliott. One of the highlights of this season - and a sign the Royal Court is getting its mojo back under David Byrne.

Porn Play at The Royal Court

Ambika Mod, a rising star from One Day and This Is Going To Hurt makes her Royal Court debut in a play about a dazzling young academic with a secret addiction to violent pornography. Sort of Paradise Lust I imagine (not funny from me - apols). Josie Rourke, former Artistic Director of both the Donmar Warehouse and Bush Theatre, directs.

Reflections

Otherland at The Almeida

I can only review half of this one as I (very uncharacteristically) left at halftime. Standing at the Sky’s Edge writer Chris Bush’s play centres on a couple, Jo and Harry, once unbearable in their happiness. Harry has decided to start to live as a woman, which prompts Jo to realise that they haven’t been happy together for a long time. So each goes their own way, on their own adventure. Harry is the archetypal trans woman on her hero’s worth journey (but very little else) while Gabby heads off to Machu Pichu falls in loves again, gets high, sobs a bit and meets a new partner who pressurises her to have a baby. Meanwhile a heavy handed narrating chorus storms around singing “The world is fucked, let me cling to you”. It’s all very GCSE derived drama and reminded me of a plotless tribute musical (Thriller or We Will Rock You) but without the songs. No doubt it ends in happiness but I came away learning nothing much about the human experience or theatre or the trans journey. It all felt a little patronising the audience to be honest…

Much Ado About Nothing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Jamie Lloyd’s dazzling new production of Much Ado About Nothing bursts onto the Drury Lane stage in a whirlwind of pink confetti and 90s pop. It leans into star power, with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell as Beatrice and Benedick- but their performances transcend celebrity. Both bring wit and emotional depth to Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes. It’s a Shakespeare comedy as it’s meant to be - hammy and playing to the audience.

Lloyd strips away the entire comic subplot of Dogberry to sharpen focus on the love stories: the rekindled spark between Beatrice and Benedick and the ill-fated romance of Claudio and Hero. He heightens the humour, staging elaborate eavesdropping scenes where Hiddleston hides under pink paper and a giant inflatable heart, while Atwell stands frozen in dawning realisation. Their chemistry crackles, culminating in a joyous, crowd-pleasing conclusion. Lloyd’s production is bold, playful and visually spectacular, yet never loses sight of the play’s emotional core. This Much Ado is not just irresistibly fun - it’s one of the finest revivals of the play in years and makes up for the terrible The Tempest Lloyd staged here just before.

The Seagull at The Barbican

Thomas Ostermeier’s latest production, starring Cate Blanchett, is thankfully less grating than I was lead to believe it would be. It’s a bold attempt to modernise Chekhov but often feels chaotic rather than insightful. Fans of Ostermeier may enjoy this glitzy take, co-adapted with Duncan Macmillan. For sceptics, it’s like a Pollock scribbled over with crayons. Blanchett’s star power has made this a sought-after ticket, though the production itself doesn’t quite justify the hype.

To its credit, it embraces sly humour and makes Chekhov’s play a comedy (much as it was originally intended to be). In the early scenes, where Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Konstantin stages his absurd play for his mother Arkadina’s approval, Ostermeier pokes fun at modern avant-garde theatre. Emma Corrin as Nina stages a Cirque du Soleil esque play for the audience onstage to watch with VR headsets. It’s funny and deals brilliantly with an awkward section of the text.

But the sardonic tone that Ostermeier approaches the whole play with leans on predictable gimmicks - characters frequently break the fourth wall via microphone (yawn) while lines are delivered with such nonchalance in the second half that it’s hard to feel any urgency whatsoever. Blanchett is magnetic and gives a sharp yet exaggerated performance, playing Arkadina as an attention-seeker who tap dances, does the splits and dons a T-shirt with her own name. Tom Burke’s Trigorin is excellent but maybe too subdued while Corrin’s Nina brings depth to her inevitable downfall. I hated Magda Willi’s minimalist set, with its pocket-sized cornfield. It felt a bit small for the huge Barbican stage and huge stars on it.

For those eager to see Blanchett, the near sell-out run will satisfy. The queue at the stage door was suffocating. And unlike the National Theatre’s infamous When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, this isn’t punishing. But make no mistake - it’s still a long night.