Dara O'Briain: New Theatre
	2:53pm Wed 7 May 08
	There is an explosive quality to this magnificent stand-up. Dara O'Briain began his set at machine-gun pace and simply did not let up for a moment. Anyone who knows this burly Irishman from his presenting the admirable Mock The Week on television has seen only the acorn of his talent; the packed New Theatre audience saw the finished, oak-tree, product.

	A Doll's House, Oxford Playhouse
	2:38pm Wed 7 May 08
	One of the more downbeat entries in the theatrical canon, A Doll's House is nevertheless a perfect slice of Scandinavian miserablism. It focuses on a young housewife, Nora Helmer (Tilly Gaunt), who seems to be having her cake and eating it for all to see. Indeed, she has a doting husband, three wonderful children and a large house. However it soon emerges that the cheerfulness she aggressively parades around her guests is a façade, and she is desperately unhappy and growing ever more mentally imbalanced. Her personal scales of sanity threaten to tip right over when a secret she has been hiding from her husband for several years comes back to haunt her.

Preview of The Soldier\s Tale, various venues

2:29pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

The moral of The Soldier's Tale, by Igor Stravinsky, libretto by C.F.Ramuz, is as hard-hitting now as it was when first performed in 1918. Essentially this tale informs us that no one can have it all, which in today's world of financial greed is particularly relevant.

	French and Saunders, New Theatre, Oxford
	2:27pm Wed 7 May 08
	No one needs to be told who Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are. They have, as Dawn told us at one point, been performing together for 30 years and have had huge successes on television both separately and together. The Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous were classics, and over the years, their returning series French and Saunders was often genuinely funny.

	The Taming of the Shrew, RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon
	2:21pm Wed 7 May 08
	After a staid and notably gimmick-free production of The Merchant of Venice at Stratford, the same players offer us, by contrast, a Taming of the Shrew whose rollicking tone borders on the excessive. The slapstick approach keeps us smiling throughout - not something that happens often with this play - but at times the relentless playing for laughs becomes a trifle wearisome.

	To Be Straight With You, DV8, The Oxford Playhouse
	10:23am Thu 1 May 08
	Had your critic arrived a minute or two late at the Oxford Playhouse on Wednesday night, this space would now contain something other than a review of DV8's powerful new show, To Be Straight With You. Were I to have been caught short during the 80 minutes of interval-less performance, the review would have concerned only a partially seen production, for there would have been "unfortunately" - the word of the company's announcer - no readmission. But the risk of a strained bladder had, admittedly, been lessened by another DV8 ukase that had denied me (and any other thirsty patrons) a drink at the bar in the five minutes before the show began.

Single Spies, Milton Keynes Theatre

5:19pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

Chief among the many pleasures of Alan Bennett's double-bill Single Spies is that it gives audiences the chance to see an actor - in this case the excellent Diana Quick - represent the profane and sacred in the same evening. First comes the notoriously foul-mouthed thesp Coral Browne in An Englishman Abroad, the tale of how she exported Savile Row tailoring to Moscow for the benefit of the exiled traitor Guy Burgess. Post-interval, actressy mink coat swapped for homely twin-set and pearls, she shows us Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution. In this we find the monarch, for once at a loose end, pottering amid the Buck House art collection, entertaining fears about the provenance of some of the pictures there, even as she (along with the nation's spycatchers) is coming to doubt the authenticity of the man charged with their safe keeping, Sir Anthony Blunt.

	The Merchant of Venice, OFS Studio, Oxford
	5:08pm Wed 30 Apr 08
	One of Shakespeare's most difficult plays is bought to life with passion, sensitivity and humour this week by Oxford theatre company BMH Productions. The Merchant of Venice tells how Christian merchant Antonio (Tom Bateman) becomes indebted to Jewish money lender Shylock on behalf of his friend Bassanio (Tim Goldman). If the debt is not repaid he will forfeit a pound of Antonio's flesh.

	Fiddler on the Roof: New Theatre, Oxford
	5:01pm Wed 30 Apr 08
	Everybody's favourite Jewish-themed musical, Fiddler on the Roof hits town this week (until tomorrow). And with it starring seasoned TV and theatre actor Joe McGann as the world-weary, aphorism-spurting father of five Teyve, it's a definite highlight of the theatrical month.

	An Evening with Blowers: The Oxford Playhouse
	9:12am Thu 24 Apr 08
	The setting for Henry Blofeld's one-man-show was disconcerting: satin curtains, flowers, a golden bedspread, no less. Can an 18-carat toff like Blowers' really have demanded this kitsch?

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