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LONDON
12/02/2012

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Theatre

Absent Friends, Harold Pinter Theatre - review
Theatre: First night: Absent Friends makes grief funny - a rare feat. And although Alan Ayckbourn's 1974 play is a period piece, its sharp understanding of psychology feels up-to-date....read

The Heresy of Love, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon - review
Theatre: While too many scenes are earnestly loquacious, there's power in Helen Edmundson's positive feminist vision of Juana In�s de la Cruz....read

Suspiro Flamenco/Manuela Carrasco, Sadler's Wells - review
Theatre: This is flamenco with roots as deep and old as dance itself - a woman letting the music inhabit her, and calling on the spirits to do likewise....read

Sex With a Stranger, Trafalgar Studios - review
Theatre: First night: Phillip Breen's intimate production is absorbing and the committed performances make this a satisfying, unsettling experience....read

Masterclass, Vaudeville - review
Theatre: This is exactly what the title says: the occasion for a magisterial and classy performance from Tyne Daly as the wildly popular soprano Maria Callas....read

My play's a big noise at Old Vic but I thought no one would stage it
Theatre: It has become the highest-grossing Old Vic show since Kevin Spacey took over at the theatre's helm....read

The Rodin Project / Russell Maliphant Company - review
Theatre: Russell Maliphant's new work opens, appropriately enough given the artist who inspired it, like a fin de si�cle fantasy of classical Greece....read

Angle: Repentance / Behind the Lines - review
Theatre: Angle is a theatre company which sets out to discovers new playwrights, developing and presenting work by previously unheard voices....read

The Changeling, Young Vic - review
Theatre: First night: Jam, jelly and custard do not usually play a large part in The Changeling. The opening night shows a messy approach to a tale of tragedy and vengeance....read

Wayne McGregor/Candoco/Hofesh Shechter, Sadler's Wells - review
Theatre: At first sight this evening was a pretty disparate bit of packaging. An excerpt from Wayne McGregor's FAR was followed by Set and Reset/Reset, Candoco Dance Company's reworking of an Eighties minimalist classic by Trisha Brown....read

The Dream/Song of the Earth/Royal Ballet, Covent Garden - review
Theatre: The unenviable task of making us forget that there was ever a Sergei Polunin at the Royal Ballet fell to Steven McRae, and was made all the more difficult by the role in which he had to do it....read

The Pitchfork Disney, Arcola - review
Theatre: Ridley's writing delights in metaphor and is often intriguing, yet it's rather too effortfully enigmatic. Ultimately the surrealism and operatic gestures feel punishing....read

She Stoops to Conquer, National (Olivier) - review
Theatre: First night: She Stoops To Conquer is almost 240 years old, but Oliver Goldsmith's tightly plotted play seems wonderfully youthful in this fizzy production....read

Port Authority, Southwark Playhouse - review
Theatre: Despite flashes of lyricism and humour this production doesn't grip us. Although McPherson's piece is inherently static, the decision to seat the actors in front of an array of empty crates emphasises the lack of vitality....read

Street star's West End coronation
Theatre: Former Coronation Street actress Katherine Kelly has been hailed as a new star of the West End stage after swapping leopardskin and Lycra for the corsets of 18th Century comedy....read

Midnight Tango, Aldwych Theatre - review
Theatre: Strictly Come Dancing stars Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace hang their tango showcase on a narrative thread - twinned tales of a boy overcoming his sleazy rival to win the girl, and an elderly couple rekindling the fire in their relationship....read

Men in Motion, Sadler's Wells - review
Theatre: Striking passages - like the intimately simple waltzes between the men which end with Sillis throwing himself foetally into Putrov's arms - but too much stodge between them....read

Tattoos, tutus and tantrums at Royal Ballet
Theatre: Dance company's party-loving star sleeps it off after making a dramatic exit....read

The House of Bernarda Alba, Almeida - review
Theatre: In Bijan Sheibani's production of Federico Garc�a Lorca's final play, the action has been transposed from rural Spain to Iran. It's a decision that feels wilful....read

The Taming of the Shrew, RST - review
Theatre: There's an intriguing statistic in the programme. Between 1908 and 1944, The Taming of the Shrew was staged almost every year in Stratford. Since 1960, however, there have been a more modest 13 RSC versions....read

The Trial of Ubu, Hampstead Theatre - review
Theatre: First night: Courtroom drama is always popular, and Simon Stephens subverts the conventions of the genre in this sharply contemporary piece, inventively directed by Katie Mitchell....read