Royal Court Theatre

Following the Royal Court’s huge 2024 success Giant, here’s another play that suggests that under new artistic director David Byrne, the theatre is becoming a good place to see really smart, really sharp political work.This one is by South African writer Amy Jephta, and whirls brilliantly around a super simple idea: a smart new build cul-de-sac in a nice part of town in South Africa, where suddenly a shack pops up. Three couples who live on the road plot to get rid of the entity that’s dragging the value of their houses down, and Jephta whips up a lot of issues, mainly gentrification, race and class. But as directed by Nancy Medina it’s all done with such a huge sense of humour and a frenzied energy – not to mention the toe-curling awkwardness of some of the conversations – that it’s a constant joy to watch.We start in the very tasteful home of the only Black couple in the neighbourhood. Mimi M Khayisa plays snob Bonolo, who has a vintage cheese knife and a wine aerator, while at the same time insisting she is the defender of poor Black communities. Her husband Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) has managed to escape a poor childhood to end up in a high-paying financial job.They invite their next door neighbours, white couple Chris and Lynette, for drinks, and the conversation ripples with assumptions. ‘I’m in securities,’ Sihle says to Chris. ‘Which security company is that?’ says Chris. There’s a younger couple, too, Jess and Andrew, who have overstretched themselves to buy their...

While David Byrne’s initial run of programming at the Royal Court hasn’t looked a whole lot like his tenure at the New Diorama Theatre, here comes a very familiar company. Devised theatre duo Kandinsky – aka Lauren Mooney and James Yeatman – were mainstays of Diorama, with at least one show a year, and now they make their Court debut with this intriguing ‘gothic sci-fi horror’ about a dead woman who is resurrected in an artificial body 15 years after she died in a car accident.

If it’s still a little early to get a clear handle on David Byrne’s programming at the Royal Court – because new plays take years from comissioning to programing – then he’s certainly brought in a few big names you doubt would have found a berth under his predecessor Vicky Featherstone. If the headline grabber in his first year was Nicholas Hytner directing a very starry, Nicholas Hytner-style cast in the excellent Giant, then the biggie from year two is clearly Robert Icke. Although as leftfield aesthetically as many Court alumni, the fact his career has largely been based around revivals of classics has meant new writing powerhouse the Royal Court has technically been off limits to him. However, as writer-director, Icke’s updated versions of the classics has pretty much been new plays in their own rights – he just happens to have not technically made one without some basis in a pre-existing work of drama. His Court debut Manhunt will see him do exactly that however: it’s an original drama based upon the life and death of Raoul Moat, the Newcastle man who went on the run after murdering his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend in 2010, culminating a manhunt with morbid and unexpected consequences.  Icke spoke a little about the show in his recent interview with us, which is about the most that has been said about it publicly, but expect a bit of money to be thrown behind it as it’s a co-production between the Court and West End super-producer Sonia Friedman. Icke pretty much...

Sarah Kane’s final play 4.48 Psychosis is one of the most famous productions in Royal Court Theatre history, not least for the circumstances under which it was originally staged: just 18 months after hear death, the bleak piece – which is in many ways closer to a poem than a play, with no discernible characters – was memorably described by the Guardian’s Michael Billington as ‘a 75-minute suicide note’.  This revival comes precisely 25 years on, in the Court’s tiny Upstairs theatre where the play originated, and sees director James Macdonald reunite with his original creative team and the original cast – particularly notable because one of them was RSC co-artistic director Daniel Evans. Despite how faithful it is to the past in many ways, the plan is not to simply restage a quarter century old production, but reinvent the play anew and perhaps banish the spectre of Kane’s death from proceedings. The play is, after all, endlessly malleable and open to interpretation. Inevitably this will sell out incredibly quickly as the decision to stage upstairs means supply will inevitably outstrip demand. As an RSC co-production – perhaps the cost of securing Evans’s services – it will go on to the more spacious Other Space in Stratford, with a final performance taking place, rather extraordinarily, at 4.48 in the morning.