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Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Aoife Smyth.
Cast: Kate Bowes Renna
Description: Poigant yet witty tale by Alexander Galin, set during the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The Soviet regime is adamant that parts of their capital city's society should not be seen, including the prostitutes. All at once, a small village, some 100 miles outside Moscow, is flooded with night workers. Translated by Michael Glenny and Cathy Porter.
Trains: Tube/BR: Southwark/Waterloo 
Phone: 0207261 9876
Website: www.upandcoming.webeden.co.uk
Moscow's prostitutes were removed from the city before the Olympics arrived in 1980
Playwright Alexander Galin is here to remind us that there is a dark side to the Olympic dream. Galin's focus in Stars is not London 2012 but Moscow 1980, when the Soviet Bloc attempted to show the world a more human face.
This entailed the removal of some other human faces, those of the city's prostitutes. Thus the lights come up on a grotty dormitory hut in the middle of nowhere - full marks to designer Robyn Wilson - where Anna, Maria, Klara and Laura have been forcibly relocated, with light suitcases and heavy emotional baggage.
It's dextrously directed by Aoife Smyth, with powerful turns from Kate Bowes Renna as raddled, ageing Anna and Beatriz Romilly as the febrile, under-age Maria.
Yet this potentially intriguing piece is always slipping just out of our reach and struggles to hang on to the bronze medal.
Ferdydurke
Bloomsbury Theatre
Gordon Street
WC1H 0AH
*
There's no medal for Ferdydurke, the week's other trip behind the Iron Curtain. This nigh-on incomprehensible satire, adapted from the 1937 work of Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz, is saddled with a terrible translation that groans with misplaced colloquialisms.
• Stars until 3 March (020 7261 9876). Ferdydurke until tomorrow (020 7388 8822).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
