... Honk! Landor Trevor Nunn's announcement that the National Theatre will be staging George Stiles and Anthony Drewe's show at the end of the year could overshadow this, its London premiere, but it would be a great shame if it does. Plunge! Productions may not have the NT's resources, but the company has still been true to the wit, charm and integrity of this musical adaptation of Hans Christian ...

... Staging shows its roar power Lyceum The Lion King Though I am not predisposed in favour of those managements which think that because its customers can afford to pay £30 or £40 for a seat they will also take happily to spending £2 on a can of Coke and forking out large sums for merchandise have to admit that this stage ver sion of the Disney animated film is a spectacular delight. For this ...

... 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 ...

... Family Viewing King's Head The four actors involved in this bloated and ugly satire form something of a composite and likeable Frankenstein trying to animate a lifeless carcass. No bolt of lightning is forthcoming however, and the play lies dead on the operating table. Ostensibly a comedy, Trevor Baxter has in fact written an ill- judged, heavy-handed and finally offensive rant on consumer ...

... Hymns Lyric, Hammersmith Frantic Assembly's latest show blends psychological drama, stylised acting, dance and even acrobatics to make visual the emotional turmoil of four men unaccustomed to verbally expressing themselves. The quartet, played by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett, Simon Rees and Karl Sullivan, are old mates coping with the suicide of a fifth friend. As scenes of speech alternate or ...

... The Rise, Fall and Rise of Gyro Prune Edinburgh Lung Ha's. Scotland's only professional theatre company for performers with learning disabilities, makes a strong return to the Traverse with this new play by John Harvey, directed by Lung Ha's founder Pete Clerke. Much theatre of this ilk is devised to give expression to its performers' lives. Harvey, however, has taken a fairly standard poverty ...

... Macbeth High Wycombe/Touring English Touring Opera has revived Robert Chevara's staging of Verdi's work, which I did not much care for originally. The chorus still tends to amble around and rhubarb away, the witches still twitch and writhe as though in an infant school show, but the overall drama now seems stronger. The change of conductor is less happy. Martin Andre has proved his worth in ...