Features

FIVE BEST PLAYS

Hair, (Gielgud Theatre, London)
A joyous production of the mother of all rock musicals, a collection of protest clich�s, love-in songs and hippie high fives among the Greenwich Village “tribe”, in which Gavin Creel’ Claude dreams he doesn’t burn his draft card and instead goes to war in Vietnam. (020 7907 7071) to 8 Jan

Beyond the Horizon/Spring Storm (NT: Cottesloe, London)
These paired productions of early works by major American dramatists are beautifully directed by Laurie Sansom. Beyond the Horizon, Eugene O’Neill’s first full-length play, from 1920, marks the dawn of American tragedy, while 1937’s Spring Storm is the product of a playwriting course undertaken by Tennessee Williams in his mid-twenties and came to light only after his death. (020 7452 3000) to 22 Jul

Shirley Valentine/Educating Rita (Menier Chocolate Factory, London)
A revival on the same bill of two of Willy Russell’s best known plays. Meera Syal stars as the Liverpool woman finding her life beyond the kitchen wall on a Greek island in Glen Walford’s production of the first, while in the second Jeremy Sams ensures two deft and vividly articulated performances from Larry Lamb and Laura Dos Santos. (020 7907 7060) to 8 May

Romeo and Juliet (Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)
Romeo wanders on wearing parka, jeans and earphones in Rupert Goold’s exciting, headlong production. Mariah Gale is brilliant at the adolescent sulkiness of Juliet, while the dangerous street-fighting mood is personified in Jonjo O’Neill’s extraordinary Mercutio. Outstanding. (0844 800 1110) to 27 Aug

Jerusalem (Apollo Theatre, London)
Ian Rickson’s beautifully directed production of Jez Butterworth’s hymn to hippiedom, with the incomparable Mark Rylance leading a peerless cast as a frowsty, vodka-swilling ex-stuntman. (0844 412 4658) to 24 Apr