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‘Sweat’ transfers to the Gielgud Theatre for a short run in June 2019. This review is of its run at the Donmar Warehouse in 2018/19. The core cast is the same. What happens when three generations of certainty and security crumble overnight? Lynn Nottage’s monumental play about class, race and the dignity of labour tells us – and the answers should shame and scare us all. ‘Sweat’ was born out of two years that US playwright Nottage spent visiting the hollowed out post-industrial American city of Reading, PA. But her warm, intimate, polemic-free account of a small group of friends whose fortunes drastically decline between 2000 and 2008 has clear and present parallels with our own country – Stephen Bush’s smart programme essay nails it to London’s diverse working class, and it doesn’t take a degree in anthropology to understand that what goes for America’s declining centres of industry, goes for ours. I was a little apprehensive that Nottage’s extensive research would lead to information overload. But not a bit of it: there are only nine characters, some of them peripheral, but they’re exceptionally well written. Empathy radiates from every word; Nottage’s own sweat has paid off in what is emphatically one of the great American plays. It unfolds in non-chronological order. It begins in 2008, with Patrick Gibson’s Jason – his face bedaubed with white-power prison tattoos – grunting monosyllabically at Sule Rimi’s take-no-shit councillor Evan. We don’t know what’s going on, b

Brace yourself for a shock: ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Broadway-munching musical is not particularly shocking. Sure, there are ‘fucks’ and ‘cunts’ and gags about baby rape – but most of it is deployed ironically; beneath it all, this is a big-hearted affair that pays note-perfect homage to the sounds and spirit of Broadway’s golden age. The strapping young Latter Day Saints missionaries in ‘The Book of Mormon’ are as cartoonish as any ‘South Park’ character, with the endearing alpha-male woodenness of the ‘Team America’ puppets. In other words, they are loveable, well-intentioned idiots, traversing the globe like groups of pious meerkats, convinced they can convert the heathen through sheer politeness. And if they have doubts, then as Stephen Ashfield’s scene-stealingly repressed Elder McKinley declares in glorious faux-Gershwin number ‘Turn it Off’, ‘Don’t feel those feelings – hold them in instead!’ His advice is ignored by the show’s heroes, narcissistic, highly strung Elder Price (Gavin Creel) and dumpy, lying Elder Cunningham (Jared Gertner). The pair are sent to Uganda in an effort to convert a village to Mormonism, a religion that essentially tells the penniless villagers how great distant America is. The locals are not keen: Price cracks and unwisely clashes with a crazed local warlord; Cunningham makes up his own version of Mormonism which involves fucking frogs to cure oneself of Aids. ‘The Book of Mormon’ is, above all, very funny, breath

The film world continues its love affair with werewolves, vampires and all things 'Twilight'. But theatre types have always known witches are where it's at. After its 2006 opening at Apollo Victoria, Oz prequel 'Wicked' continues to fill this massive theatre with an international crowd of voracious consumers (glass of champagne and a choccy for £16 anyone?). But this stylish and bombastic musical still delivers, sailing over its patchy score thanks to a gravity-defying performance from its current leading lady Rachel Tucker, as the intense green-skinned undergrad who goes on to become the Wicked Witch of the West. 'Wicked' is a spectacle that rises or falls around its central performance. In the midst of a gigantic production full of bangs, bells and whistles Tucker, with her small frame and searing vocal ability, simply flies off with the show. She's closely followed by Gina Beck, who plays good girl, Glinda. Glinda and Elphaba's relationship forms the heart of this story and, as the Good Witch, Beck is a consummate clown, playing up the silliness of her character at every turn. But she can raise a tear, too, and her final duet with Tucker, 'For Good', is genuinely heart-rending. The Tim Burton-inspired ensemble oscillate between the hypnotic and grotesque and a sweet but thin voiced Matt Willis charms as the rather superfluous Prince. As in classical ballet, this is all about the women and, even by previous lead Idina Menzel's standards, they are in soaring form here. T

Glance at the posters for ‘The Light in the Piazza’ and it looks like a fairly standard romantic musical; all ’50s frocks and sun-drenched skies. But it’s substantially stranger and more ponderous than that. It follows 26-year-old American tourist Clara, who’s naïve and trusting – a head injury as a child has given her a level of developmental delay. She’s taken round Florence by her anxious mother Margaret, who tries her best to shield her from suitors – until something in the sunlight changes her mind. It’s based on a popular American 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer. This 2008 musical updates it a bit but arguably not enough, especially in its approach to Clara’s disability. Dove Cameron’s performance as Clara has a hint of Disney princess to it, all cooing mannerisms and ditsy sweetness. Craig Lucas’s book doesn’t make much room for the more uncomfortable realities of her situation, in which her mother keeps her in the dark about her condition and shepherds her around like a child. Nor does it really dig into any of the questions raised by Clara’s romance with young local Fabrizio, who also doesn't know her ‘secret’. It’s kind of loosely implied that things are different in Italy; the warmth of Fabrizio’s expansive family will make everything right, will find a role for Clara that her US homeland can’t. This distinctly American faith in Italy’s magical powers shines out more satisfyingly in Adam Guettel’s score; it’s light on tunes, but Opera North’s orchestra brings ou