Our experts round up the best plays and musicals
CRITIC’S CHOICE Clarence Darrow Kevin Spacey’s mesmerising incarnation as the crusading American lawyer Clarence Darrow is a masterclass in how to woo an audience. The actor’s ability to connect with those watching in-theround is second to none. A conspiratorial glance, the twinkling of a narrowed eye, and we are hooked. But Spacey’s star power is continually at the service of understanding how Darrow BEST OF THEREST Oklahoma! I defy anyone to see Rachel Kavanaugh’s touring revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic and not emerge with a big smile plastered over their face. The show is filled with an infectious lust for life. Ashley Day is terrific as the super-smooth cowboy Curly, Belinda Lang is in fine fettle as clucking Aunt Eller and Gary Wilmot is a sideshow treat as the unreliable huckster Ali Hakim. DC Tours until August. Tickets and details: oklahomatour. co.uk The King’s Speech Jason Donovan is former soap royalty and perhaps knows too, by dint of being became one of the most formidable and forwardlooking legal minds of his age, saving more than 100 lives from hanging and taking on the prejudices of his era – against organised labour, African-Americans, even the theory of evolution. When Spacey says “Mercy is the highest attribute of man”, there are tears in his eyes. Dominic Cavendish Old Vic, London SE1. Tickets: 0844 871 7628, oldvictheatre.com an Australian who has forged a career in showbiz here, what it’s like to be an outsider. That makes him eminently suitable casting as Lionel Logue in this new stage version of the awardwinning film The King’s Speech. The Aussie speech therapist instrumental in curing the stammer of the man who became George VI placed himself at ease with his social superiors but was always in danger of being cast out. DC Tours until June 6. Tickets: 0121 236 4455, birminghamrep.co.uk BOOK NOW The Audience Kristin Scott Thomas plays the Queen, in a role made famous by Helen Mirren Apollo, London W1, from May 5; 0844 482 9671, nimaxtheatres.com