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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: David Jones.
Cast: David Suchet, Michael Jayston, Richard O'Callaghan, Roger May, Bernard Lloyd, Stuart Milligan, Clifford Rose, Charles Kay, John Franklyn-Robbins, Bruce Purchase, Michael Cronin, Joseph Mydell, Joseph Long, Paul Foster, Maroussia Frank, Christopher Mellows
Description: David Suchet stars in Roger Crane's thriller about the death of Pope John Paul I after just 33 days, investigating the dramatic tensions, crises of faith and political manoeuvrings that occurred in the Vatican.
Trains: Tube: Piccadilly Circus 
Phone: 0870400 0626
Beguiling whodunnit: David Suchet plays a cardinal torn between faith and worldly ambition in The Last Confession
Conspiracy drama: David Suchet plays the charismatic and brooding Cardinal Benelli
I would never have dreamed that the death of an obscure 20th-century Pope could provide inspiration for a beguiling theatrical whodunnit or at least a "did-anyone-do-it?" The Last Confession, premiered and much admired at Chichester's Festival Theatre in May, reveals the limitations of my dreams.
Its author, New York lawyer Roger Crane, regards the death of John Paul I, who died in 1978 of an apparent heart attack 33 days after his installation, as the murderous finale in a Vatican conspiracy drama and the sign of fierce ideological conflict between this radical Pope and reactionary cardinals.
The Last Confession does not merely delve into skulduggery. Crane, whose dialogue often sounds as if sententiously minted by some Hollywood scriptwriter familiar with religious epics, offers no information about what published sources he relied on to level his sensational charges. He does, however, suggest that John Paul's greatest supporter, the self-centred Cardinal Benelli, was prone to such nagging ambition to become Pope that he persuaded himself to be politic and abandon demands for an inquiry into John Paul's death.
The play takes the distinctly tired form of the flashback, from the moribund moment when David Suchet's charismatic, brooding Benelli decides to make a final confession. The last five years of his life begin to be replayed before us.
William Dudley's grand, impressionistic design conceives the Vatican as an imposing prison, with grille-like walls and marble-framed doors, set against a photographic back-projection of St Peter's. David Jones's evocative production hustles smoothly through the dusky corridors of power and reeks of suave menace as cardinals prowl and cluster in false shows of deference.
The laboriously over-extended first half shows the closing phase of Paul VI's undecisive papacy in rickety decline and fall. Something is most amiss. Why does Stuart Milligan's big bruiser of an American, Bishop Marcinkus, plan to sell the Catholic bank of Venice? Will Bernard Lloyd's blustering, conservative Cardinal Villot succeed in getting the liberal Benelli dispatched from the Vatican to distant Zambia or Paraguay? Instead, though, Benelli becomes the influential power-broker who plays the decisive role in securing the election of Richard O'Callaghan's timid, child-like John Paul I.
Having attempted one day to rid himself of cardinals obstructive of reform, the Pope dies the same night. Crane turns to thriller-formatting, with Benelli taking the unofficial role of investigator and chief accuser.
Suchet's impressive Cardinal, a rueful figure who cannot come to terms with his longing for worldly glory at the expense of religious faith, unpacks his heart to Michael Jayston's authoritative, mysterious confessor.
In closing moments of grim irony he burns his confession, as if to obliterate his imperious ego.
• For information, call 0870 4000 626.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
