... Starry futures Hoxton Hall Circus Space Whichever came first, the venue or the storyline, Hoxton Hall made a perfect setting for the Circus Space diploma students' final show, In Vestments, directed by Chris Cresswell. This tiny room, seating just 100, had been converted back to a music hall (set by Jessica Elliott and Beth Woodyatt) which held ghostly echoes of its past. Music (Toby Parks) ...

... The Jew of Malta Almeida Back in 1965, Clifford Williams showed us that the best way to tackle Marlowe's play, with its inescapable tone of anti-Semitism, was as a black comedy. Michael Grandage has learned that lesson in this production, set by Christopher Oram in a semi circle of stone blocks with entrances conjuring up the unique appearance and feel of Malta with little difficulty. Into ...

... Closer Oxford Patrick Marber's acclaimed play, first staged at the National Theatre in 1997, started its first international tour at the Playhouse. The piece is real nineties contemporary drama, focusing on four sexually-active adults whose lives intertwine. The ensuing discussions and encounters form the basis of the plot, often voiced in equally contemporary language. It is a work meant to ...

... Macbeth Mold Terry Hands' first ever Macbeth takes its cue from the play's many references to dark and night. The black box of Clwyd Theatr Cymru's Emlyn Williams Theatre is darkened by an arena with black walls at its centre. The darkness is emphasised by the spectacular use of spots. Startling lighting design by Hands, together with Matthew Williams' stunning sound, almost becomes another ...

... Political tale still relevant Windsor The Chiltem Hundreds A political chameleon, William Douglas Home gained his first big West End success with this spirited Home Counties comedy about the effect of Labour's 1945 landslide on the Tory heartlands. Beautifully structured and still surprisingly relevant, the play pokes gentle fun at both sides of the Westminster spectrum. It owed its initial ...

... Giselle Birmingham Birmingham Royal Ballet's new Giselle at the Hippodrome is a lavish production danced with precision and grace by principals and company alike, that breaks strikingly into two stylistically distinct halves. Part of this division lies in the ballet itself, with its rusticly romantic Act I and spectral second. But artistic director David Bintley, adapting the PepitaCoralli ...

... Morris dancers step up pace Sadler's Wells Mark Morris Dance Group What bliss, live music to accompany dance. And what dance. Choreographer Mark Morris has the extraordinary ability to generate joy and rapture on stage. His company's first offering, Gloria, was a grippingly primal encounter set to Vivaldi's score. It opens with a young woman walking awkwardly downstage. A young man accompanies ...

... The Magic Idealist Riverside Studios As part of the Italian Festival, Bologna's Teatrino Clandestino makes its UK debut with this work, billed as part bizarre scientific demonstration and part funfair sideshow. Caged in a circus caravan whose sides are iron bars, three characters reconstruct a Victorian electrostatic evening, demons trating the power of electricity by using a Wimshurst ...

... Eugene Onegin White Bear Marking the bicentenary of Alexander Pushkin, this succinct and taut adaptation of his most famous work is startlingly effective. The ghost of Pushkin's poetry haunts this prose version, while philosophical themes underpin the actors' intense and dimensional characterisations. Characters, in Olga Maxi- menkova's fabulous period costumes, appear like splashes of ...

... La Gatta Cenerentola Sadler's Wells More panto than opera buffa, Roberto De Simone's celebration of the Cinderella story is reworked from a Renaissance fairytale by Giambattista Basile. Since 1976, the show has enjoyed cult status in Italy. But with a wordy Neapolitan libretto ana static if spectacular staging by the Media Aetias company, it comes over as a 12Ominute musical entertainment ...

... Hamlet Bristol Emerging young director Gemma Bodinetz, the first woman to tackle this play in a major production for 25 years, has set the action for this Bristol Old Vic version in 1913, with Europe standing on the brink of the First World War. It is a concept that allows unexpected commentary on the madness of mass slaugh ter to emerge naturally, while reflecting on a society caught in ...

... Clavigo Glasgow Lavish costumes and some luxurious performances mark this Citizens Theatre production of Johann Goethe's play. Director Robert David Mac- Donald's translation is staged in a luscious salmon pink, white and black set designed by Philip Witcomb in the Circle Studio. It is through these genteel surroundings that Carlos (Derwent Watson) strides, a vision in mirror shades and camp ...