Haymarket Theatre Royal

Describing the plays of James Graham as ‘history podcast theatre’ would be mean and inaccurate but also a bit true. To be clear, Graham has produced many wonderful works of drama. But even when he’s not at his absolute best dramatically you’ll still come out of one of his historical dramas having learned a lot. The Standard of Living isn’t quite Graham at his best dramatically, because where his finest works have tended to be hyper-fixated on small, manageable periods of history. Here he almost has too much to say about his subject: the great economist John Maynard Keynes. Photo: Manuel HarlanNatalia Osipova and the ensemble Did he want to write a drama about Keynes’ membership of the Bloomsbury Group and the tensions that crept in between the gay economist and his bohemian artist pals when he went to work for the government, and when he later dumbfounded them by bringing home a woman, the blunt Russian ballet star Lydia Lopokova (Natalia Osipova)?  Did he want to write a play about Keynes’ rivalry with the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek (Laurie Kynaston)? Here the two are depicted as genuinely fond of each other, but so aghast at the other’s economic visions that they can’t help but becomes enemies. Or is The Standard of Living about… the standard of living, and Keynes’ belief in not only spending out of a recession, but that an infusion of art – be that the Degas paintings he snaps up for a song at the beginning, or Arts Council England which he founds at the end –...

The plots of these generically-named Peppa Pig stage extravaganzas don’t tend to vary very much, being loosely thematically strung together from the plots of various episodes of the longrunning cartoon. Change has, however, came to Peppa Pig’s kingdom last year with the arrival of Baby Evie, and the newborn piglet is back as Peppa Pig’s Big Family Show returns for second year. The story nominally follows the Pig family as they get ready for Evie’s birth. 

The Nicholas Hytner-era National Theatre was a commercial and cultural juggernaut and yoiu’d struggle to say it had a single emblematic hit: War Horse? One Man, Two Guvnors? The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time? All massive hits but in terms of a single piece of new writing that definied the era it has to be Alan Bennett’s late career smash The History Boys, an account of an unruly class of Sheffield grammar school pupils and their inspirational but morally ambiguous history teacher Hector that took the nation by storm and launched a generation of young male stars.  Twenty years down the line, Hytner is revisiting it for a limited run at the Haymarket, in what we’re seemingly promised will be something a little more involved than a facimile of the original 2004 production. It feels like both money in the bank and quite a daring gesture to risk the play’s reputation: while Bennett doesn’t condone Hector’s worst actions, you can imagine any revival in a post-#MeToo, post-Russell Brand-era as liable to cause controversy.  Time will tell, and it ma be that the revival – currently looking at a single average length limited run – will drift by without causing a fuss. The other thing worth looking out for is who gets cast: although some haven’t forgiven the original production for giving us James Corden, it did undeniably launch – or at least showcase - a whole host of future stars, and it”ll be fascinating to see if Hytner and co can pull it off again.

Matt Smith returns to the stage for the first time since 2024 to play an alien masquerading as a human who becomes increasingly fascinated by human society. No, not that alien masquerading as a human who becomes increasingly fascinated by human society. But rather the protagonist of Matt Haig’s novel The Humans – a techncially nameless entity who possesses Cambridge mathematician Andrew Martin in an effort to sabotage humanity. But being forced to live Martin’s life gives the extraterrestrial doubts about the whole business. Jeremy Herrin directs this stage adaptation of Haig’s satirical thriller, which is adapted by the prolific Jack Thorne – a dab hand at depicting unearthly and otherworldly events on stage.