So, a second Sir Thomas More has arrived on the London stage within three days. Earlier in the week it was Robert Bolt’s 20th-century version, tonight it was the turn of William Shakespeare et al, with an effort dating back to about 1592. Yet these are two men who share little more than a name. In Bolt’s play, Sir Thomas is a natural aristocrat if not an hereditary one; here he is very much a man of the people, consciously maintaining that persona, always ready with a quip and a jest, to the point of buffoonery.

That makes the job of Nigel Cooke in the title role of the RSC’s production of Thomas More a difficult one. There are scenes in the first Act in which he gets to play the statesman, as we watch the London mob – justly angered by the slights and scams of “foreigners” run rampant – being tamed by the power of their sheriff’s wise words. More reminds them of the Tudor peace they have enjoyed for a generation, then conjures up before them the city they have created by their action – a Hobbesian world in which “men like ravenous fishes would feed on one another”. He reminds them that they too might one day be forced to seek refuge in a foreign land, promises the King’s clemency, and so induces them to lay down their arms.

This is the serious More, a mere sheriff of London, but an admirable man. Then, at the end of this scene, as More is collecting up the rioters’ makeshift weapons, the Earl of Shrewsbury (Tim Treloar) arrives with two for him – the first a sword that marks his knighthood, then the mace that makes him Lord Chancellor. Elevation indeed, and we might expect to see more of the statesman emerge. Yet instead, from this point on we see little more than More the jester. Entertaining the great and good of London, which he’s now gone far beyond, he leaps around the stage like a hyperactive flea, eager to please, and happy to join in with the ragtag bunch of players that has turned up at his door, even the “boy” (Peter Bramhill), in fishnets and bustier, seriously past his prime for the role, who clowns in sexual parody.
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Classically fine acting by an evenly excellent cast; a sumptuous set and costumes; beautifully balanced staging; the flowing lines and sharp humour of Robert Bolt – the new production of A Man for All Seasons at the Theatre Royal Haymarket has everything needed for a stunning evening’s entertainment. No complaints at all, except a central one about its moral balance – the compass point is on north, but where is it really pointed?

The fault cannot be laid on today’s actors or director, but the world has changed between 1960, when Bolt wrote the play, and 2006 – perhaps it is we who are unbalanced, not the play. Then, for a man to put absolute trust in the law, as Sir Thomas More does in believing that he can save his life by refusing to speak on his reasons for quitting the King’s service and subsequently refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy, might have been sensible enough. That was before Britain started up locking people without charge or trial in Belmarsh prison, or arresting them for reading out the names of the dead in Iraq in an entirely peaceful political protest.

We still want to believe in the rule of law, but we know all too well that rulers and governments determined to find a way to bring down an individual are all too likely to do so, even in Ye Goode Olde Englande. That belief can only be stronger, when the ruler is Daniel Flynn’s powerful, mercurial, dangerously immature Henry VIII. He swings from childlike pleading, to thunderous anger, to hysterical giggles in an attempt to seduce Martin Shaw’s Sir Thomas to do his bidding in getting rid of his now inconvenient first queen. It is clear that Henry truly believes in each political and religious position, just for so long as it suits him; a tantrum-prone three-year-old is on the throne.
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Even the defenders of The Mousetrap, which has been filling a London theatre for 52 years, admit that its artistic merits, if any, have long been eclipsed by its status as an institution. It will continue, perhaps even should its audience mutate into another species, but can Agatha Christie survive as a writer who still have something to say to the modern world?

Her fiercely protective estate had put a moratorium on theatre productions of her work, in an attempt to “freshen them up”, so when And Then There Were None, in a new adaptation by Kevin Elyot, opened at the Gielgud it was not just this production, but the whole theatrical future of Christie, that was at stake.

The play is still reasonably true to the original tale of a party of ten people who are, morally if not legally, murderers, summoned to an isolated island to meet their just desserts – well except of course that the old title, Ten Little Niggers has long been sentenced to death. Rogers, the butler, keeps a lower-class stiff upper lip as he continues to minister to 10 guests invited to the house party by the mysteriously absent hosts, within minutes of learning of the death of his wife, and the stage is filled with crusty military types, proper spinster ladies and all of the other inhabitants of an ideal English village circa 1920.
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Eugenia is a frustrated woman. Even atom of her body aches to be free of her aged husband, to throw herself, with his money, into the gay life of youth that is hers by right of her birthdate. He, however, is destined to die soon, on a set date, the date that he turns four-score years of age, for that is the decree of an absolute monarch, Duke Evander of Epire. Women get only three score, and those of no further use can be bumped off even earlier, should their relatives so request.

That’s the scenario that guides A New Way to Please You, written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley in about 1618. Then, a scholarly essay in the programme indicates, there were all sorts of issues around conflict over the Common Law; indeed its original subtitle was The Old Law. Now, while that’s all history, the central clash of the play – between young and old – is still fresh, and ensures that this modern dress production seldom seems anachronistic.
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Aspiring writers are usually told “write about what you know”, and that is what first-time playwright Sam Peter Jackson has done in portraying 20-something actors coming to terms with the difficulties of their profession and personal lives. But if he is really writing about what he knows, then all of the stereotypes about self-obsession, ridiculous angst and general luvviness are also true.

These are both the strength and the weakness of his Minor Irritations, on at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington until January 8. The audience is ready to laugh at his characters, and when Jackson gives them a succession of delightful one-liners, to really laugh. But this sits rather oddly with the angst-ridden moments of quarter-life crisis that the characters are apparently suffering. Jackson has a real talent for word-play and the comic scene, but needs to lighten up and keep that mood throughout; perhaps what is needed is just a bit more growing up – something that could definitely be said of his characters.

The author plays the central figure of Minor Irritations, Ben, a “resting” actor who’s working in a call centre, auditioning for a chicken burger commercial and yet to get over his ex-boyfriend, Jay (Luke Evans), who’s living in New York and succeeding. Ben’s best friend/fag hag is Harriet (Dulcie Lewis), who cheerfully hams up her role as an air-headed part-time air hostess and Jewish princess who arrives on stage obsessing about her recent purchase of The Big Issue. She says of her interaction with the vendor “I always want to say, ‘Don’t you have Vogue or Vanity Fair?”
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