Skin Hunger
Restrictions in most of the UK have been eased, but Covid has changed our relationship to touch. In summer 2021, site-specific theatre experts Dante or Die explored the basic human need for intimacy in a one-to-one performance comprising monologues by Ann Akinjirin, Tim Crouch and Sonia Hughes and staged with a plastic sheet separating actor and audience. This 45-minute archive recording won’t give you a hug, like the live show did, but is a taste of the experience and something of a pandemic time capsule. Until 31 August.
Bad Roads
Playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit is one of the estimated 10 million people to have fled their homes in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. In an act of solidarity with the country at this desperate time, the Royal Court in London is presenting a reading of Vorozhbit’s powerful play Bad Roads, exploring the effects of war on relationships, which it first staged back in 2017. The reading, directed by Vicky Featherstone, will be streamed on the Guardian’s website on 1 April and available to watch for a week.
What Will George Do?
Can’t Sit Still are currently touring Oh No, George!, their rambunctious, drumming-driven adaptation of Chris Haughton’s picturebook about an irrepressible, treat-loving pooch. The company has also produced an interactive companion piece to that canine caper, allowing audiences to decide how George reacts to five different doggy dilemmas. Promising acrobatics, music, integrated sign language and animation, it’s available from 11 April.
Love
Alexander Zeldin’s engrossing account of homelessness arrived at the National Theatre for the festive period in 2016, its devised tale of families in temporary accommodation gaining extra resonance amid the cold of December and the warmth of Christmas. It is an unflinching production, performed on the Dorfman stage with the house lights up, carefully observant of loving relationships that are pushed to the limit by a broken system. Available until March 2023 from NT at Home; Zeldin’s later play Faith, Hope and Charity will be available from 12 April.
Reel Life
The punning title refers to fishing, rather than film-making, but Alys Metcalf’s riverbank drama may also leave you reeling with its exploration of loneliness and loss. Filmed on location in its setting of Wiltshire, this Folio, ETT and Pound Arts production directed by Adam Lenson is on a “digital tour”, with streams hosted by regional venues including the Shaftesbury theatre in Dawlish (on 9 April) and the Princess theatre, Burnham-on-Sea (on 27 April).
Much Ado About Nothing
Roy Alexander Weise’s futuristic RSC production, with stunning costume designs by Melissa Simon-Hartman and original score by Mobo nominee Femi Temowo, will be broadcast on BBC Four on 3 April as part of a new Sunday night performance strand. Much Ado is then available for 12 months on BBC iPlayer; other Sunday night performances include Prisoner C33, a new one-man play about Oscar Wilde starring Toby Stephens; Tim Price’s comedy Isla; and Birmingham Rep’s The Play What I Wrote, starring Tom Hiddleston in a guest role.
Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner
The Royal Court has imaginatively staged the delights and dangers of online life in plays such as Teh Internet Is Serious Business and Midnight Movie. After two triumphant runs at the Court, Jasmine Lee-Jones’ own blistering exploration of the digital domain – a debut play that won her several awards – is available to stream until 17 April. A chance to encounter not just a rising playwright but multiple talents including director Milli Bhatia and lighting designers Jessica Hung Han Yun and Amy Mae.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
As the great detective himself observed: “There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.” Sherlock Holmes’s trek across Dartmoor to solve a family curse and find a devil dog became one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s best loved whodunnits, and this production by Original Theatre Company and Bolton Octagon cranks up the comedy. Available from 14 April to 31 July.
Tom Fool
German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz’s needling domestic dramas include The Nest (1975), staged a few years ago at the Young Vic. Tom Fool, written in 1978, similarly features a family constantly fretting about finances. Translated by Estella Schmid and Anthony Vivis, it is directed by Diyan Zora at the Orange Tree, Richmond, and captures “jolts of everyday life” and the ways “work and worth becoming inextricably intertwined”, wrote the Guardian’s Kate Wyver. It is livestreamed on 7 April.
Keli
Since its launch a year ago, Sound Stage has presented audio dramas by writers including Mark Ravenhill, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Roy Williams and John Byrne. Its latest, available online from 26 April, is created by Ivor Novello-winning composer Martin Green and director Wils Wilson and is set within the world of brass bands. Edinburgh’s Lyceum also offers a live onstage preview on 3 April complete with 25 musicians.
