GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film

PAUL DONOVAN applauds this joyous retelling of the story of the idealistic young communist Mark Ashton and his legendary solidarity with the striking miners

GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy

GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem

PAUL DONOVAN recommends an energetic adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel, that emphasises how psychiatry is a tool in the hands of a racist agenda

MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival

PAUL DONOVAN applauds an entertaining dramatisation of the famous dispute that gives insight into the struggle, and Murdoch’s unscrupulous mendacity

GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield

PAUL FOLEY speaks to Mark Calvert, director of I, Daniel Blake before a new tour

PETER MASON relishes a quirky and highly entertaining take on Shakespeare’s tragicomedy

SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds bold choices that force the audience to re-examine a familiar comedy

SUSAN DARLINGTON is moved by fleeting glimpses into the lives of people living on a single road in a nameless Lancashire town

SUSAN DARLINGTON laments a version of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes that is unable to solve its own problems

MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class

GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a musical — and questioning — survey of Shakespeare’s attitude to women

PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying

MARY CONWAY recommends a spot of exquisitely staged, if socially unchallenging, escapism written 250 years ago

MARY CONWAY takes pride in the sheer variety of theatre, from updated revivals to new plays, on offer in London

For GORDON PARSONS, a dramatic exploration of the abuse of young men at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre trumps Beckett, a couple of Hamlets and a bracing Candide

JEAN ROBERTS appreciates the way traditional panto can be remodelled into critique of the academy schools system

SIMON PARSONS is fascinated by a play about the Iraq war where the carnage haunts those still alive

GORDON PARSONS is impressed by superb acting in a stripped down version of John Galsworthy’s epic family drama

Pantos have the power to confirm people’s prejudices or sub-consciously challenge homophobic and transphobic attitudes, suggests GEOFF BOTTOMS

In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre

PAUL DONOVAN relishes Michael Rosen’s ability to use poetry and humour to lighten the darkest of moments

SIMON PARSONS recommends a striking production that revisits recent history and offers a timely warning

GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship

SIMON PARSONS applauds an impassioned demonstration of the fundamental role of women in the history and protection of the forest ecosystem

MARY CONWAY admires a study of environmental idealism that aspires to Chekhov but is arrested in a deluge of middle-class opinion

GORDON PARSONS is riveted by a translation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into joyous comedy set in a southern black homestead

MEIC BIRTWHISTLE relishes a fine production by an amateur company of a rousing exploration of Wales' radical history

MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards