CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
Hand to God
Vaudeville Theatre,London W2
3/5
Robert Askins’s Tony award-winning play is set in small-town Texas, where recently-widowed Margery has been asked by the local pastor to run the church’s puppet club.
There are only three people in it — her son Jason and teenagers Jessica and Timothy and, when Jason realises that his puppet Tyrone is beginning to take him over, he rips him in two.
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship



