Hedda Gabler - Theatre Royal

IT must be something of a daunting prospect for an actor to tackle a 120-year-old classic, and one that's been translated into English at that.

Perhaps more daunted were the audience for the opening night of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, who may not have known exactly what they'd taken on.

Without a doubt, this was a showcase for the talents of Bond girl Rosamund Pike – as the leading lady - and Robert Glenister, who both more than rose to the challenge.

A darkly comic masterpiece, the show is based around several triangular relationships, with knowledge and understanding on all sides serving only to stretch, pull and strain to the inevitable tragic conclusion.

And yet the audience seemed a little nervous to lose themselves into the action.

A couple of mid-act scene changes wrong-footed the usually compliant Nottingham playgoers with a lone round of applause after a very pregnant pause prompting the others to join in. This was coupled with some rather nervous laughter for the lighter comic or ironic lines spun by the cast.

It was nice to see Anna Carteret, still best known for TV's Juliet Bravo, alongside classical and comedy actor Tim McInnerny (RSC and Blackadder), with Zoe Waites (Doctors, The New Adventures of Robin Hood) and Janet Whiteside (The IT Crowd) as accomplished supports.

But it was the elegant, striking Rosamund Pike who made her presence felt on stage. Sweeping majestically in her gorgeous fitted gowns, she was clearly a woman not to be messed with. And rarely do we see a woman so at home with a pair of equally elegant pistols.

Hedda thought she could get everyone eating out of her hand but of course after seemingly engineering such a result, things unravel spectacularly around her.

Enjoy, by Alan Bennett - Theatre Royal

On the face of it, Enjoy is a straightforward tale of a woman continuing to live in her slum-like back-to-back while it is rebuilt into a living museum of the past.

We find the prime mover behind the development is her estranged son, returning home as a daughter, seemingly to protect his child-like parents against a future they are clearly not ready for.

The ageing couple, convincingly played by Alison Steadman (now best known for the Braithwaites and Gavin & Stacey) and David Troughton (latterly of New Tricks fame), found they were happy discussing their lives with an interloper from the council than with each other. This included frank talk about their sex lives, disability, hopes for the future and regrets of the past.

A sudden death is treated with typical Bennett-style down-to-earth humour paving the way for a no-holds-barred sequence on the potential benefits of death – the ensemble ultimately slightly irked that death was misdiagnosed.

Many questions of life and death are tackled, such as how we don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone, whether it to cling to what we know or seek new horizons, why we delude ourselves from an obvious truth, and how we put on airs and graces only for an audience.

The characters had an audience on stage throughout, being shadowed by local authority officials, ostensibly there to observe “real life” before the terraces were bulldozed. This was a useful tool for the author, the two main characters becoming remarkably self-aware – and painfully cognisant of the truth behind the hidden lives of their two grown-up offspring.

First performed in 1980, this play ages beautifully, with the constant refrain that “we’re in the 20th century now you know” reminding us that for those re-homed to the new museum, that’s where they would stay. For ever.

Present Laughter - Theatre Royal

Dating from 1939, this Noel Coward play could have provided something of a challenge for both the audience and cast alike.

It proves to be complex, multi-layered and ultimately rewarding.

Bringing the past to life was effortless for the company and after the scene-setting of the first act the audience lapped up both the increasingly chaotic situation comedy and the in-jokes for the aficionados of Coward’s work. The humour was served up in a range of guises and varied from the subtle through to farce and even a touch of slapstick.

Yet this was also a thought-provoking production, Questions are asked of who we really are; how much of one’s life is a performance and how we perform differently to our various different personal audiences.

Perhaps the leading man, Garry Essendine – played by Cold Feet’s Robert Bathurst – really is the lonely performer, and despite all his trappings of wealth and success is merely “advancing with every sign of reluctance into middle age”.

If that’s the case then so are the ladies playing opposite him, and their intricate web of relationships must see beyond that performance. Dorothea Myer-Bennett (Dead Man Talking) as Daphne Stillington is blinded by his sophistication while would-be mistress Joanna Lyppiatt (played by Emma Davies who you may know as Anna De Souza from Emmerdale) and Essendine’s kind-of-ex-wife Liz (Serena Evans from Pie in the Sky and The Thin Blue Line) both think they know what’s best for him.

Tim Bouverie, in his first professional role, is another Essendine fan sucked into his circle and plays with such conviction you wonder if he’ll stalk the lead even after the curtain falls. And with Belinda Lang (2Point4 Children) on stage and also directing it’s a formidable line-up.

It works. It’s a play of its time which stands the test of time and is well worth a look

Remembering Michael Foot (he came to Nottingham, you know!)

Remembering the politician Michael Foot, two main images come to my mind - from when I was a child growing up in Thatcher's Britain.

Of course, we recall his well-publicised appearance at the Cenotaph in a 'donkey jacket' (pictured right) and the disastrous 1983 General Election loss following his publication of what Gerald Kaufman labelled the longest suicide note in history (the 700-page election manifesto).

But we also remember him remaining true to his beliefs and true to his roots, which is something many of his colleagues of today would do well to copy.

His strong principles and commitment to socialist politics may have cost him his one chance to become prime minister, but he probably died with a clear conscience.

He was also a keen football fan and towards the end of his life I was pleased to see him supporting Plymouth Argyle from beneath a swathe of woollies at Nottingham Forest's City Ground.