Theatre: The Five Best Plays In London
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The Invention of Love Theatre Royal, Haymarket
Tom Stoppard's witty, heartbreaking fantasia on the twin passions of AE Housman: scholarship and an unavailable heterosexual friend.
2
Love Upon the Throne
Comedy Theatre
The Charles and Diana story (well, up to the divorce) presented by the National Theatre of Brent (all two of them). Very funny and oddly touching.
3
Copenhagen
Cottesloe
Michael Frayn's profound and haunting meditation on science, morality and the mysteries of human motivation.
4
Angela Carter Cinderella, Lyric, Hammersmith
The finest mice on the West End stage and heaps more besides.
5
Arabian Nights, Young Vic
Another rich Young Vic Christmas feast attaches jump-leads to the avid audience's imagination.
... AND BEYOND
Martin Guerre
RSC, Cardiff New Theatre
It's third time lucky for this much rewritten Boublil/Schonberg musical. In Conall Morrison's starkly involving production, it finally emerges as a tighter, magnificent show. See review, right
2
Hindle Wakes,
Royal Exchange, Manchester
Spectacularly refurbished after the 996 bombing, this theatre bounces back in fine resilient form with the excellent production that had to be aborted then.
3
The Boy Who Fell Into a Book, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Typically witty and ingenious concept from Alan Ayckbourn - here wearing his children's dramatist hat.
4
Singin' in the Rain, Leicester Haymarket
In Leicester, they are dreaming of a wet - but musical - Christmas with this Paul Kerryson staging of the terrific MGM musical.
5
A Month in the Country Swan Theatre, Stratford
Michael Attenborough's new production of Turgenev's tender tale of love and affection.
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