The Trials, Donmar Warehouse, London

★★★★

“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention” spits an incandescent teenager in this chilling dystopian drama. It’s a line that resonates in all sorts of ways with our current political moment, as we careen, rudderless, from crisis to crisis.

And this new play by Dawn King – whose 2011 debut Foxfinder offered a similarly unsettling vision of authoritarianism and nature in revolt – pursues rage, injustice, social schism and vengeance to their annihilating endpoint. It’s presented, in a taut production by Natalie Abrahami, as part of Donmar LOCAL education and community programme, and the majority of the cast are young people.

In a near-future world ravaged by climate change, King’s story sees them stand in judgement on the generation that came before them: their verdict is damning. In Georgia Lowe’s design, the theatre itself is scarred by upheaval: paint-spattered canvas is draped everywhere, and a pile of smashed-up velvet seating frames the stage, pushed aside to make way for tables and plastic chairs.

This is the makeshift deliberation chamber of a courtroom, where the fate of those accused of contributing to environmental disaster is decided by juries of children.

The middle-aged defendants – compellingly played by Nigel Lindsay, Lucy Cohu and Sharon Small – are pitilessly spotlit, delivering their mitigating statements before the youngsters and an imagined online audience. If they’re found guilty they will be sentenced to be publicly “euthanised”, a radical solution to the overpopulation problem.

Their testimonies – shamed confessions of second cars and skiing trips, pleas for clemency based on a track record of recycling, veganism or activism, rationales of helpless submission to the demands of rampant consumer capitalism and the imperative of providing for their families – are powerfully provocative. But the bulk of the action is the Twelve Angry Men-ish jury debates.

At times these have a disturbing Maoist feel, or the unfettered fury of a social media storm. Some kids, like Joe Locke’s anguished Noah, are zealots; others, like Charlie Reid’s slacker joker Tomaz, just want to get it all over with. Most, especially scrupulous spokesperson Ren (Honor Kneafsey) and intelligent, compassionate Mohammad (Francis Dourado) genuinely do their best to be fair, despite being saddled by their elders with a responsibility not their own.

All are damaged: there are accounts of homes destroyed, loved ones lost; a boy sucks wheezily on an inhaler. Twelve-year-old Zoe (Taya Tower) dreams wistfully of the snow and butterflies she’ll never see. The repetitive dialectical structure of the writing becomes a little airless, but its jaggedness and ferocity is grimly fascinating, pricking relentlessly at our conscience.

It’s a grotesquely vivid glimpse of apocalypse that gives horrifying shape to our worst nightmares.

To 27 August (donmarwarehouse.com)
Sam Marlowe

Handel’s Solomon, Royal Albert Hall, London

★★★

Whether it’s medieval churches or 17th-century warships, it’s hard to shake off the pervasive idea of the past as tastefully muted – a gentle, universal shade of taupe.

But just as we now know that those ships and churches were actually a riot of gaudily painted colours, so recent decades have restored early music from sepia pallor to something bright and richly textured, as capable of grit and vulgarity as tasteful control.

Not that you’d know it from this Prom. Solomon may be Handel in dignified English mode rather than dramatic Italian, but – with a cast that includes both a First and Second Harlot alongside its priests and wise king, and in an oratorio which introduces us to Solomon himself in a sensuous seduction scented with “fragrant spices” – this isn’t all arms-length business.

The BBC Singers’ chief conductor, Sofi Jeannin, conducted the group and period ensemble The English Concert. They gave a sensitive performance that would have been captivating in the Queen Elizabeth Hall or King’s Place (and sounded much crisper and more focused played back on BBC Sounds) but was all but swallowed up in the hall.

“Your hearts and cymbals sound to great Jehovah’s praise,” the men muttered into their imaginary Old Testament beards, launching us with decidedly downbeat energy.

And while the Queen of Sheba’s arrival in act three (her famous accompanying symphony bringing the excitement of characterful brass and woodwind with it) generated new zing, the work still felt consistently underpowered.

The 24-strong chorus, especially when split for double choruses, scarcely made a dent, and there were almost no sharp rhythmic edges or consonants to reinforce pretty noises with sonic architecture.

The soloists, however, were a class act. Countertenor Iestyn Davies revelled in the lovely lines of the title role – restraint balanced with supple beauty of tone, at its best at the top of the voice, ringing right up to the balcony.
Anna Dennis brought an adrogynous purity to both Solomon’s Queen and (spoiler alert) the honest First Harlot. She found her equal and opposite in Wallis Giunta’s wonderfully shrewish Second Harlot, transformed by a costume change into the Queen of Sheba. Meanwhile, Ashley Riches and Benjamin Hulett (A Levite; Zadok) supplied stylish support.

But it still seemed like a wasted opportunity. Between its gilded processions and bucolic fantasies of fig trees and vines, Solomon is a work bursting with character and colour.

What a shame we heard so little of it here.

BBC Proms continues to 10 September (bbc.co.uk/proms)
Alexandra Coghlan

All’s Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

★★

Nine years – not to mention one pandemic – ago, the RSC embarked upon its loftily noble project to work its way through every play in the Shakespearean canon.

The first production, Richard II, starring David Tennant, was a fearsome statement of intent and since then there have been inevitable highs and lows, as well as a creeping sensation of weary trudge as the last few plays have been ticked off. The project is completed with this bitterly unlovely romance, but it would be a stretch to say that it ends well.

Director Blanche McIntyre has had the beginnings of a bright idea in updating the setting to our contemporary world of smartphones and social media; how much more effective it would be if only she had committed to the concept wholeheartedly instead of jettisoning it after an initial flourish.

Our heroine Helena (Rosie Sheehy), first seen as a grungy, slouchy schoolgirl, is desperately besotted with the vain Bertram (Benjamin Westerby) and we can imagine her obsessively scrolling for updates on him. Helena is a singularly determined young woman – Sheehy gives her a fierce staccato delivery to underline this point – and after curing the ailing King of France (Bruce Alexander) using her late physician father’s remedies, she demands Bertram’s hand in marriage as her reward.

One could interpret this as a fascinatingly feminist stance for Shakespeare, and Helena is not coy about her sexual desires. After the marriage Bertram scarpers with his scoundrel friend Parolles (Jamie Wilkes) to fight an ill-defined war in Italy and thence the production starts to unravel.

The scenes that centre upon the war and the exposing of Parolles’s myriad lies greatly outstay their welcome and skew the balance of the play, while overemphatic work from Funlola Olufunwa as the should-be sympathetic Widow who comes to Helena’s aid alienates us further.

There is some dreadful verse-speaking across the company and too many passages where one senses that the audience is entirely bewildered.

Given that All’s Well is not a play with which spectators tend to be familiar – this was only the second time I have seen it – McIntyre should have done far more to ensure constant clarity. A symbol of the balance of the production being askew is the fact that the best performances come from those in supporting roles.

Alexander makes smartly imperious work of the king’s conviction that his health is infinitely superior to a young man’s wishes, and Simon Coates’s Lafew has fun with his sharply witty goading of Parolles.

All credit to the RSC for an epic nine-year undertaking – but it’s time to move on now.

In rep until 8 October
(01789 331111, rsc.org.uk)

Fiona Mountford