Royal Court Theatre

This enjoyably feral offering from all-female, historian-led theatre company Dirty Hare is a very unconventional dramatisation of a very specific historical incident: the strange, lurid tale of Anne Gunter. In 1604, during the early reign of the occult-obsessed James I, Alice’s dad Brian Gunter – the richest man in his Oxfordshire village – killed the two sons of local woman Elizabeth Gregory, understandably igniting a feud between the families. Later, Anne grew sick – or (it’s implied here) she just had heavy periods that Brian seized upon as evidence of witchcraft on behalf of Elizabeth, who was (understandably tbf) poisoning the community against him. What is indisputable is that he turned to the courts in an effort to get Elizabeth prosecuted for witchcraft, something he pursued so aggressively that it ended up being put before the king himself. Hence, there remains a lot of documentary evidence for the case, despite its extreme age.  There probably is a conventional historical drama in all this, but that’s definitely not what Dirty Hare have crafted, something you can probably surmise from the company makeup. ‘Gunter’ is devised by the core Dirty Hare team of director Rachel Lemon, actor Julia Grogan (she plays Elizabeth) and Lydia Higman who is – gloriously! – a historian and multi-instrumentalist.  Supplemented by two further actors – Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Norah Lopez Holden play Brian and Anne – ‘Gunter’ is essentially a wild piece of gig theatre. It’s full of gags

A hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and at new Royal Court boss David Byrne’s old theatre the New Diorama, ‘Dugsi Dayz’ returns as the season opener for Byrne’s first year at the Court. Written by Sabrina Ali,  ‘Dugsi Dayz’ is – in a nutshell – a retelling of John Hughes’s classic ’80s flick ‘The Breakfast Club’, which follows four girls who’ve ended up at Saturday detention for reasons they won’t divulge to each other. Poppy Clifford directs.

The first main house play in David Byrne’s reign at the Royal Court is one that was made earlier: following her restaging of her play ‘little scratch’ at his old gaff the New Diorama Theatre, the great Brit auteur director Katie Mitchell remounts her 2019 German adaptation of Maggie Nelson’s ‘Bluets’, an essay on grief, sadness and the colour blue. That’s not to say that this is anything other than a great piece of leftfield programming from Byrne, though: the Court has gone without a really successful Downstairs theatre show for what feels like years – Mitchell’s rep alone is enough to sell ‘Bluets’, but it’s also enough to get a very exciting cast headed by Paddington Bear himself Ben Whishaw, who’ll star alongside Emma D’Arcy and Kayla Meikle. There’s a new English language adaptation of the show by rising star playwright Margaret Perry.

Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s absurdist sexual assault comedy has been a hit in Dublin the past two years and now transfers to the Royal Court as part of David Byrne’s debut season. Faye is struggling in the aftermath of a home invasion – so she asks her brother Naoise to help restage the invasion as a form of exposure therapy. But Naoise has his own disturbing secrets that are about to come out. Oisín Kearney directs. 

The ‘big’ show in this year’s LIFT 2024 programme is the latest from Iranian theatremaker Nassim Soleimanpour, who has become a global cult success for works in which rehearsed actors are absent and an unrehearsed performer – often a celebrity – receives mischievous instructions that usually build into a powerful socially important narrative.   Made in collaboration with leftfield director Omar Elerian, the point of Soleimanpour’s shows is that what happens in them is a surprise to everyone present – especially the performer – so the content of ‘ECHO’ is basically unknown, though we’re promised it will ‘push the boundaries of Soleimanpour’s signature unrehearsed cold reads to the next level’ and will ask us ‘to confront what it feels like to be an immigrant in time’. In any case, his previous shows – notably the sleeper enormo-hit ‘White Rabbit, Red Rabbit’ have been excellent, and you wouldn't bet against a few big names to turn up amongst the readers. 

Even though it was actually commissioned for the Bridge Theatre – which has been unable to stage it because of the blockbuster success of ‘Guys and Dolls’ – Mark Rosenblatt’s ‘Giant’ looks set to be the defining piece of programming of David Byrne’s Royal Court tenure, or certainly of the first year. There’s the director, for a start: Bridge and former National Theatre boss Nicholas Hytner seemed to be the antithesis of what the previous Court regime stood for – he’s not boring, but he’s certainly mainstream. And then there’s the subject: first-time playwright Rosenblatt’s play is about beloved children’s author Roald Dahl’s notorious antisemitism, something most of us are familiar with in the abstract while being vague about the exact details. Not only is it a potentially incendiary subject at a time when Dahl’s back catalogue is being milked on stage and screen like never before, but a play calling out antisemitism feels like a statement intent for Byrne’s time at the Court given the theatre has diced with several antisemitism scandals over the years. Intriguingly ‘Giant’ has a link back to the biggest of those scandals. It co-stars actor Elliot Levey as Dahl’s horrified Jewish agent; Levey is the son-in-law of Ken Loach, director of the scandalous drama ‘Perdition’ that Court shelved in 1987 in the face of protests that it was antisemitic; in 1999 a young Levey actually staged a scrubbed up version of ‘Perdition’ at the Gate Theatre. All very fascinating, though for most n