Haymarket Theatre Royal

David Hare may not be the radical political firebrand he once was - a revival of his 1975 play Teeth ‘n’ Smiles is playing a few streets away and shows some of that terrible infancy - but his recent works show an undimmed curiosity in how we’ve created the world around us, channelled through carefully researched history, as in his 2022 play Straight Line Crazy about the architect Robert Moses and his 2019 film The White Crow about the dancer Rudolf Nureyev.Both of those were collaborations with Ralph Fiennes – actor in the former, director of the latter – and that partnership has been fascinating to watch, the two almost like each other’s muses. In a way it feels like the relationship has been building to this: a big portrait of two of the most important actors who ever lived, a history of and an endearing paean to theatre.Dame Ellen Terry and Sir Henry Irving are in no small way the reason audiences get to sit in the Theatre Royal Haymarket and watch Fiennes of an evening. At the end of the 19th century they restored theatre to respectability pretty much for the first time since Shakespeare’s day. Grace Pervades is the story of their time on stage, a winking exploration of traditionalism and populism in theatre that itself is a traditional, populist piece of theatre.The opening moment sets the tone perfectly: director Jeremy Herrin has a grand tableau of a dozen actors appear backlit and framed by a proscenium arch, who then take their places on stage to tell the story of...

For a novel about Edinburgh heroin addicts written in dense Scottish dialogue, Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting has proved to be a remarkably enduring cultural artefact: a book (with numerous sequels), a film, a cult stage play and now – 33 years on – a musical written by Welsh himself. The truth, of course, is that Danny Boyle’s film is its most iconic and definitive form, which this musical pretty much acknowleges: its song list will mix tracks by Welsh plus collaborator Stephen McGuinness with bangers from the movie’s iconic Britpop-era soundtrack (exactly which ones haven’t yet been decided-slash-cleared). It’s hard to exactly imagine a musical about catastrophically crashing out heroin addict criminals in ’90s Edinburgh ending up as a Les Mis-style long-runner, but the show is directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, who has made a very solid fist of directing the live versions of Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses – Trainspotting is significantly edgier source material, but the film was a big hit and they’re clearly leaning into nostalgia for it. Don’t expect any star names, but the lead role of semi-likeable casualty Renton (aka the Ewan McGregor role) goes to Scots actor Robbie Scott (pictured).