The James Plays (The Lowry, Salford Quays)

Who needs William Shakespeare or George R R Martin when we've got Rona Munro? By focusing on the lives of three lesser-known Scottish kings, Munro has tapped into the current zeitgeist for sword and sorcery, blood and guts, and heart-in-mouth political skulduggery made popular by Game of Thrones.

It's easy to compare The James Plays with Martin's world-conquering book and TV series (something the publicity does with glee), but the fact is, the stories told in these plays are scarier and more thrilling because it's all true. It actually happened. And like so many periods in British history, it's much more interesting than fiction.

Munro has chosen not to write biographies of these three men, but rather zoom in on a particular aspect or period in their life stories, and dramatise and expand upon it to astounding effect. The first play, James I: The Key Will Keep the Lock, is probably the most satisfying of the trilogy, telling the story of how James I went from being a boy prisoner of the English King Henry V, to crowned King of Scots. James learnt a lot from his upbringing in the English court, and wished to use this knowledge and education to reform Scotland. His ideas for reformed governance and taxation were modeled on what he'd seen working in England, but it took some convincing of the Scottish clansmen and lairds to adopt these new systems. Dictating that collected rents and taxes should pass to the royal household rather than the landowners was a highly controversial move, and made James few friends. His attempts to broker peace between the warring landowners was doomed from the start, but at least this idealist king tried, purely through a devotion to his homeland.

Wicked (The Lowry, Salford Quays)

One of the cleverest aspects of Wicked is Gregory Maguire's story. Audiences are so familiar with L Frank Baum's source material - or rather, the 1939 film adaptation of it - that much character introduction can be dispensed of because the audience already knows who almost everybody is (or is going to be).

And that's where the beauty of the narrative shines brightest - Wicked starts out as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, then the narrative overlaps with that of the film, and by the end it's running concurrently with it. The ease with which the story on the stage enhances and expands the audience's established knowledge is masterful, and it's a delight to join up the dots. It's the joy of being able to pause the film and say: "Meanwhile, over there..."

The Car Man (The Lowry, Salford Quays)

Whether you're a man or a woman, straight or gay, you cannot fail to be moved in some way by the sexual charge of The Car Man. Matthew Bourne's take on Georges Bizet's classic 1875 opera Carmen has S-E-X running through it like a stick of rock, setting out its stall right from the off with a rousing, and arousing, Act 1 Prelude.

The women sport plunging necklines and floating skirts, while the men are dressed in oily jeans and vests, their steel-capped boots in no way hindering their balletic, yet intensely masculine, movement. The entire production is charged with sexual tension and erotic charm - the setting is transferred from 19th century France to Dino's diner and mechanics' yard in 1960s Mid West America, and while Bizet's story remains intact, the new location adds a flourish of West Side Story mixed with Giant and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Blood Brothers (The Lowry, Salford Quays)

Archive: This review was first published on September 12, 2013 by the Daily Post

Anybody who grew up with a working class background, living in terraced housing and having adventures in the alleyways of a council estate will love where Blood Brothers comes from.

This heartwarming (and when I say warming, sometimes you'll feel roasted) musical about the tale of two brothers parted at birth stars Maureen Nolan as Liverpudlian single mum Mrs Johnstone, who finds herself pregnant with twins at a time when she really cannot afford them (she has seven other kids).

She enters into an inadvisable pact with her well-to-do employer Mrs Lyons, who cannot have children of her own, and gives one twin away while keeping the other.