Lyn's Picks: 1 Mar

The Great Gatsby (Online until 31 Mar)
No, not the long-running immersive party style show which has been such a London success (and which is likely to be resurrected as lockdown lifts) but rather a two-woman retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s remarkable novel created by the Wardrobe Ensemble, who gave us hit fringe shows 1972:The Future of Sex and Education, Education, Education, and the Wardrobe Theatre, a fringe theatre in the heart of Bristol. The show was originally planned to be performed live but because of restrictions is now available online. It joins a growing list of staged versions of the story of Jay Gatsby, the self-invented millionaire, including Elevator Repair Service’s legendary Gatz.

Love in Lockdown (Online until 31 May)
Our current pandemic meets 14th century plague in this promising sounding play written by Clare Norburn, the director of the medieval music group, The Telling, who will be providing the music. It tells the story of 21st century musician Emilia (Rachael Stirling) and playwright Giovanni (Alec Newman), both obsessed by Boccaccio’s The Decameron — stories told in quarantine during the Black Death — whose growing professional and personal relationship is played out on Zoom during lockdown. Released for free on YouTube over nine episodes from Thursday March 4, the show is directed by Nicolas Renton, who has worked on major TV dramas including A Room With a View and Silent Witness.

Emilia (Online until 31 Mar)
“Search for this and you won’t find it,” is one of the refrains of Emilia Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s gloriously enjoyable comedy which celebrates the late Elizabethan poet Emilia Bassano and operates as a fierce lament for all the other forgotten women writers whose names have been erased from history. Not just those in the distant past. In almost every fierce moment it also reminds of all the opportunities lost, all the plays that have gone unproduced far more recently as men have dominated our stages. Here the stage is being taken back. “We are only as powerful as the stories we tell,” says Emilia, and this all-female production, directed with real grace and invention by Nicole Charles, and performed by a crack ensemble, also reminds us that who does the telling is crucial too. Good to have this production back online for the whole of March.

You can find lots of streaming theatre shows - many of them available for free - in our Streamdoor guide

Cover Image: Tamsin Hurtado Clarke & Jesse Meadows in The Great Gatsby.