The Bay At Nice
Menier Chocolate Factory, London Until May 4, 1hr 15mins
Here’s a David Hare play that’s not remotely annoying, unlike most David Hare plays. It has been unseen since it was first staged in 1986, to admiring but tepid reviews.
Here it proves tough, witty, brainy – and with a bravura part for an older actress to be thoroughly grumpy in. Originally it was Irene Worth. Now it’s Penelope Wilton.
If you thought she was unlikeable as Mrs Crawley in Downton Abbey, in this she’s truly fearsome, as Valentina Nrovka, a haughty Russian mum whose wintry smile could blast-freeze a pork chop.
This David Hare play proves tough, witty, brainy – and with a bravura part for an older actress to be thoroughly grumpy in. Originally it was Irene Worth. Now it’s Penelope Wilton
The action is set in a museum in Leningrad in 1956. Stalin is three years dead. Valentina has been invited in to authenticate an unsigned Matisse painting of the play’s title.
She knew him as his young pupil and was, possibly, his lover, among many others. She left bohemian Paris and returned to the Soviet Union pregnant, where she has since made a religion out of not complaining. We all make our choices.
The museum encounter is largely with her half-estranged daughter Sophia, who has come in need of money and moral support in her decision to dump her husband for a much older man – from the sanitation department!
The action is set in a museum in Leningrad in 1956, in an encounter between Wilton’s Valentina and her half-estranged daughter (rising star Ophelia Lovibond, above with David Rintoul)
Cue lots of brittle exchanges, put-downs and brutal frankness. Valentina harangues her daughter for believing divorce will solve her problems and for ‘prattling about rights’.
This 33-year-old play has morphed into a short but bracing assault on our own culture’s addiction to the sort of inane, self-empowerment cobblers spouted by Meghan and Harry.
But there was a let-down on opening night. Penelope Wilton had persistent trouble with her lines. It happens to the best.
Richard Eyre directs with a complete sense of what the play is about and the entire cast impresses: Wilton is truly fearsome and Martin Hutson (above) brilliant as the assistant-curator
She was well protected by rising star Ophelia Lovibond as Sophia, by the brilliant Martin Hutson as the awkward assistant-curator, and by David Rintoul as the daughter’s geriatric new love – a delightful portrait of male futility straight out of the pages of Chekhov.
Richard Eyre directs with a complete sense of what the play’s about.
The real pay-off comes in the second half, when the writing really takes flight. Wilton was totally on top of Valentina’s tremendous, intimate speech about Matisse’s method and his genius.
You are transported out of the chilly Soviet museum and into warm, life-affirming, Mediterranean sunshine. What could be lovelier?
Admissions 1hr 40mins
Trafalgar Studios, London Until May 25, touring until June 22
Rating: 
Entitled white liberals are in the cross-hairs of this provocative American comedy by Joshua Harmon.
Alex Kingston plays Sherri, the utterly anti-racist head of admissions at an exclusive New Hampshire college, desperate to increase the black intake of the school where her husband (Andrew Woodall) is head.
She spews a lot of honeyed pieties about diversity – until her gifted son fails to get into Yale, unlike his non-white friend.
Alex Kingston (above with Margot Leicester) plays an the head of admissions at an exclusive college desperate to increase the black intake in this provocative American comedy
The writing takes a flame-thrower to the race-obsessed, hypocritical white establishment (the sort that over here runs British theatre) in a Right-wing rant from the rejected kid – well played by Ben Edelman.
But the evening then fizzles out when Harmon’s play tries to have the cake it’s already eaten.
And how weird to see a comedy that’s all about race relations with no black characters in it.
admissionsplay.com
The Life I Lead 1hr 50mins
Park Theatre, London Until Saturday, touring until April 7
Rating:
Old-school British actor David Tomlinson returned to our thoughts with the release of Mary Poppins Returns last year. His most famous role was, of course, in the original 1964 film as Mr Banks, the stiff-upper-lip (with moustache) father who disapproves of the carpet- bag-toting flying nanny and her colourful ways with his two litle mites.
The title of this entertaining one-man play by James Kettle, starring Miles Jupp of Rev fame, is that of one of Tomlinson’s songs in the movie, in which he extols the virtues of his well-ordered family life.
As we know, the title song is ironic as Julie Andrews’s iconic governess runs magical rings around the strictly run household.
In this one-man play about Mary Poppins actor David Tomlinson, Miles Jupp delivers the many witty anecdotes with, unsurprisingly for a comic, spot-on timing and a winning charm
David Tomlinson’s own life was also more disordered beneath the calm, genial persona he exuded as an actor, and not without considerable personal trauma.
Not least his relationship with his father, a cantankerous and distant man obsessed with Napoleon, who Tomlinson discovered later in life was living a double life with another family and sired seven children – and that his mother knew all along.
As a father himself, though, Tomlinson coped lovingly with a son, one of the first British children to be diagnosed as autistic.
That’s not all. His first marriage to an American widow ended after a few months when she jumped from a New York building with her two children. Thankfully he was with his second wife for 47 years.
Credit is due to writer James Kettle’s adroit handling of the sadder material, which is never mawkish, and is subtly blended with a comic account of Tomlinson’s years as a jobbing actor
All credit to Kettle’s adroit handling of this sadder material, which is never mawkish, and is subtly blended like a spoonful of sugar with a comic account of Tomlinson’s years as a jobbing actor in pretty minor plays and films.
After laughter at one particularly silly, outré plot, Jupp remarks beadily: ‘Doesn’t sound like much. But Graham Greene saw it twice.’
Noël Coward described him as looking like ‘a very old baby’, and on Mary Poppins he became friends with Walt Disney, leading to roles in Bedknobs And Broomsticks and The Love Bug. But Tomlinson retired gracefully before the offers dried up, even pretending to be his own American agent on the phone to fob off enquirers.
As the man himself, Jupp presents us with a thoroughly decent man who never took anything too seriously and delivers the many witty anecdotes with, unsurprisingly for a comic, spot-on timing and a winning charm that the affable Tomlinson himself would have admired.
Mark Cook
Stones In His Pockets
Touring until August 5 1hr 45mins
Rating: 
A whopping hit almost 20 years ago, Marie Jones’s tragicomedy about a couple of luckless, aimless Irish men who become Hollywood film extras relies on very fleet performances.
Two actors play not only Jake and Charlie but also every other part.
Lindsay Posner’s production is never sufficiently comic, or indeed tragic. Owen Sharpe is hugely energetic but its too full-on while Kevin Trainor is at least more subtle in his shading
Lindsay Posner’s production, however, never seems sufficiently comic, or indeed tragic, and the rapid transitions between roles are often clunky rather than crisp.
There’s naturally an element of caricature in taking on so many characters. As Jake, Owen Sharpe gives a hugely energetic performance, but it’s so full-on it smothers any emotional truth.
Kevin Trainor possesses cheeky charm, but is more subtle in his shading. Even so, the play’s darker messages – about lack of opportunity, failed dreams and male loneliness – rarely hit home.
Holly Williams