Lyn's Picks: 8 Feb

Love Down the Line (Online, 14 Feb)

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, the latest offering from New Perspectives and Stute Theatre should be just the ticket for those bereft of love in this difficult times. Taking the form of five-minute dramas that are performed live to you down the phone, they offer the potential of intimate connection during lockdown isolation. New Perspectives has been busy during lockdown, embracing digital work including the Zoom show, The Boss of It All (currently available on the Soho Theatre website), as well as pioneering older forms of communication and exploring their theatrical possibilities. Love Down the Line follows on from the company’s delightful postcard drama, Love From Cleethorpes, that reached 2,000 letterboxes in 26 countries.

Romeo and Juliet (Online, 13-27 Feb)

Dear Evan Hansen star Sam Tutty plays Romeo alongside newcomer Emily Redpath as Juliet in this new version of Shakespeare’s tear-jerker, filmed under lockdown restrictions using new technologies. Available from Valentine’s weekend, it also features veteran actor Derek Jacobi as the narrator. There is a lot of doomed love around at the moment. This week there's also a chance to catch up with Erica Whyman’s youthful, energetic and insightful 2018 production of the play, which features an eye-catching Mercutio from the wonderful Charlotte Josephine. And from 4th April, you can watch The National Theatre’s version of Romeo & Juliet directed by Simon Godwin, and starring Jessie Buckley and Josh O’Connor.

Roman Tragedies (Online, 14 Feb)

Here’s another one from International Theatre Amsterdam and it’s an absolute killer. Ivo van Hove’s six-hour marathon passes in a twinkling as it compresses Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra into what seems like an utterly contemporary meditation on political ambitions and manipulations and their effects on private lives. Unfolding like a soap opera on the grandest of scales, it turns the audience into a part of the performance in ingenious fashion as the dramas unfold through a mixture of close-ups, press conferences and the effects of public politics on private passions and vice versa. It’s steel cold brilliance, and it takes place from 3pm to 9pm next Sunday.

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

Cover image from Roman Tragedies by Jan Versweyveld.