God Of Carnage
Theatre Royal Bath Touring until February 15, 1hr 30mins
Britain gets more mealy-mouthed, censorious and po-faced by the day. Which is why French playwright Yasmina Reza’s comedy – which gives sanctimonious, rich metropolitans a right kicking – still feels so on the money more than a decade after it premiered.
Elizabeth McGovern – Lady Cora from Downton Abbey – stars as Veronica, in whose London sitting room this is set. She’s smug, dead PC, and is writing a book about Sudan. Her husband, rather improbably, is a rough diamond, Michael (Nigel Lindsay), who sells household goods and glories in being uncouth.
Their son, Henry, 11, has had two teeth knocked out by classmate Freddy, whose parents have come over to discuss what to do.
Yasmina Reza’s comedy still feels so on the money more than a decade after it premiered. Elizabeth McGovern leads the cast as the smug and dead PC Veronica (above)
Does Freddy, Veronica asks, understand what he has done? What sort of apology is appropriate, etc? Smiles abound on the precariously thin ice.
The tyke’s mum, Annette, is in ‘wealth management’, her concerned agreeableness concealing a disgust for her husband Alan, an insufferable lawyer who’s constantly bossing clients on his mobile.
After tots of rum, tongues loosen. Real views are vented. The boys’ punch-up soon becomes the cause of a full-on parental war. Marital cracks are exposed, the men attack the women, the fur flies. Beneath an overhead artwork made of ethnological spears, liberal civilisation does a bunk.
Nigel Lindsay is her husband Michael (above) and civilisation vanishes as the couple go to war with another (Alan and Annette) whose son has knocked out their son’s teeth in the playground
Simon Paisley Day – wonderfully obnoxious as Alan – is in the role first played by Ralph Fiennes in London. Annette – whose vomit we get graphically acquainted with – is superbly sketched by Samantha Spiro.
The drunken blurtings, gender warring and outright abuse… all is directed with brio by Lindsay Posner in a translation by Christopher Hampton that relocates the play from Paris.
If this is not in the class of the West End production, it’s because McGovern’s performance is way too mannered. The couples don’t have much inner dimension. This is really more an exercise in dramatic economy: it doesn’t waste time.
I chortled a lot, but some may find these characters too ghastly to be worthy of dissection.
Les Misérables
Sondheim Theatre, London Until October 17, 2hrs 50mins
Rating: 
For months last year, Les Mis ran at the theatre next door to this, while producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh blew almost £14 million refurbishing the Queen’s Theatre. It is now gleamingly revealed anew, renamed after Stephen Sondheim, the great American composer whose tunes few can hum.
No fear of that with Schönberg and Boublil’s legendary musical. Directors Laurence Connor and James Powell have come up with a new-look Les Mis for its 35th year. Gone is the famous stage revolve in Matt Kinley’s design concept, based on the author Victor Hugo’s own inky drawings.
The result is a dark, atmospheric Paris, with starry nightscapes and luminous projections. Paule Constable’s thrilling lighting beams searchlights over the barricades to a 3D sound design (by Mick Potter) of zinging musket balls that had me ducking.
Directors Laurence Connor and James Powell have come up with a new-look Les Mis for its 35th year which it celebrates in the revamped and renamed Sondheim theatre
Do you hear the people sing? They never stop! Jon Robyns proves a mightily powerful Jean Valjean, whose self-sacrifice is at the novel’s core. Bradley Jaden is his weevil persecutor, Javert.
I Dreamed A Dream is very prettily sung by Carrie Hope Fletcher’s delicate Fantine. Shan Ako’s Eponine has bags of character – On My Own is melting – and Ian Hughes (replacing Gerard Carey until the end of February) and Josefina Gabrielle get gales of laughs as the incorrigible, thieving Thénardiers.
There are plenty of creative links with the original production – such as Andreane Neofitou’s superb period costume designs – that assure Les Mis is still what it was. But it’s clear from this major retread that it still has bags of mileage – as does this gorgeously reborn Edwardian theatre.
Cirque Du Soleil: Luzia
Royal Albert Hall, London Until March 1, 2hrs 20mins
Rating: 
After a run of slick but dud shows, Cirque Du Soleil has come up with something truly original.
Described as a ‘waking dream of Mexico’, centre stage in the Albert Hall is a waterfall – how it drains is a mystery – in which birds and fish appear in the droplets. A terrific band matches the heat and exoticism in which the acts are wrapped.
Treats include the twin swing boats – acrobats lethally ping from one to the other in gravity-defying somersaults. There’s a huge-chested strongman doing muscly feats on tottering pairs of flimsy sticks.
Luzia is a welcome return to flying form for this famous circus featuring acrobats, a Tarzan-like aerialist, a strongman and a contortionist (Alexey Golborodko, above)
Two youngsters with astonishing ball skills inject a note of street reality into this surreal world, where a giant puppet jaguar shares a water hole with a twirling, Tarzan-like aerialist overhead and a metal horse chases a butterfly that’s half-woman.
The sole clown bangs on a bit and the contortionist lad folds himself into a dead end.
But director Daniele Finzi Pasca’s truly beautiful production manages to be both mournful and joyous. A return to flying form for this famous circus.