Seven days on stage (June 16 - June 22 2007)

The week's most eagerly awaited show was Matthew Warchus's £12.5m Lord of the Rings musical, presented on a 40-tonne revolving stage at Drury Lane's Theatre Royal in London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

"I entered Drury Lane as innocent as any hairy-toed hobbit," wrote Michael Billington in his review. He was impressed by the production's scale but concluded that it "is not a show for connoisseurs of acting". Photograph: Tristram Kenton

At the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio, another magical tale was unfolding. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical Into the Woods incorporates elements of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Michael Billington gave Into the Woods a three-star review, admiring its "spry ingenuity" but finding it lacking in "spontaneous joy". Photograph: Tristram Kenton

On the National's Cottesloe stage, The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder offered an account of polygamy in suburbia. Written by Matt Charman, the play stars Larry Lamb as the hero with a brood of kids and brides. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

For Michael Billington, Charman's play "founders on one central question: would any group of intelligent, independent women subscribe to a convenient male fantasy?" Photograph: Tristram Kenton

The Royal Court's new play, The Pain and the Itch, also examined domestic tensions. Matthew Macfadyen stars as an American househusband in the satire. "I haven't done an accent since drama school, and it is very difficult," he told the Guardian. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

At the Arcola in London, Rebecca Calder starred as radical journalist and feminist Evelyn Crawley in Pera Palas. Lyn Gardner awarded three stars to the play by American-Turkish writer Sinan H Unel, but she was irritated by its "emotional navel-gazing". Photograph: PR

Judith Mackrell enjoyed a night at Sadler's Wells in London, where Cloud Gate Dance Theatre performed a show inspired by the ancient Chinese art of wild calligraphy. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Judith Mackrell thought the Taiwanese company's production, Wild Cursive, might be choreographer Lin Hwai-min's best work to date. Photograph: Tristram Kenton