And Then There Were None (Rhyl Pavilion)

It's hard to review a whodunit - and particularly an Agatha Christie one - without writing about who did it. The beauty of the plot is in the way it is constructed so delicately by Christie, and then unravelled like a ball of wool leading to the final denouement where all is revealed and the audience gives a collective intake of breath.

So no spoilers here. But what I can tell you is that this play isn't known as one of Christie's best thrillers for nothing. It has the perfect ingredients - a cast of characters, all with their flaws and secrets, drawn by a mysterious puppeteer to a remote island cut off from the mainland to satisfy their own murderous intentions.

Blur (Venue Cymru, Llandudno)

It was a bit of a surprise earlier this year when Blur announced the release of their first new album as a foursome in 16 years. And it was even more of a surprise last month when they announced they would be playing a handful of warm-up gigs for the summer, and one of them would be in my home town of Llandudno!

I mean, that just doesn't happen... My favourite band ever, back together, releasing new material and playing live on my doorstep? It seems fantasy can become reality.

Much has been made of the fact Blur's date at Llandudno's Venue Cymru was their first gig in Wales for 18 years (since December 1997, to be precise). But that was in Cardiff; this was their first gig in North Wales ever. But, as frontman Damon Albarn told the crowd, the oversight was never intentional.

5 Soldiers: The Body is the Frontline (Home from Home, Manchester)

Note: Although this production was promoted by Home, it actually took place in the more fitting location of Rusholme Army Reserve Centre, Manchester.

The human body really is the front line in almost everything we do, whether that be warfare, weightlifting or washing up. What our mind wants to do, the body fulfils, and that is the theme for Rosie Kay's 5 Soldiers, which looks at how the human body remains essential to war, even in the 21st century when we have missiles, drones and mines to do our dirtiest work remotely.

The choreography starts off as militaristic, regimented, stiff and repetitive, but that's because activities such as drilling, marching and training are at the heart of every soldier's professional existence. Whether on a reserve army camp in the UK, or in the thick of the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq, a soldier's life is informed and shaped by everyday routine. That knowledge gives the soldier a template for his or her existence, and gives something to focus on amid the horrors all about.

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.

The Funfair (Home, Manchester)

When you think of the funfair, you think of an assault on the senses - the sights, the colours, the smells, the noise, the surreal atmosphere of fun and laughter. And although this adaptation of Ödön von Horváth's 1932 play Kasimir and Karoline certainly has all of these ingredients, at the end of the piece I wasn't quite sure what I was meant to be taking away from it.

The original is set at the Munich Oktoberfest in Depression-hit 1929, but Simon Stephens's 21st century update relocates the action to a fairground and renames the title characters Cash and Caroline. There's no denying that Mike Gunning's lighting and Ti Green's set design are sumptuously effective, managing to be original and creative despite the over-familiar tropes and iconography of the setting. The huge, red pleated curtain acts as a cyclorama against which silhouettes are cast, and this provides some memorable visual moments, such as the one-horse merry-go-round, and the highly impressive zoetrope.

{150}: Interview with Marc Rees

Marc Rees, photographed by Warren Orchard

This feature was first published on May 27th, 2015 by Arts Scene in Wales

In July 1865, a converted tea-clipper called the Mimosa sailed into harbour on the Chubut coastline of Argentina with around 150 Welsh men, women and children aboard. They'd left Liverpool docks full of hope and trepidation, wondering what their new lives as Welsh settlers in the Argentinean region of Patagonia would be like.

It was the idea of a preacher from Bala to have a "little Wales beyond Wales", which could not be corrupted or assimilated by Western English-speaking culture as had happened in North America.

And it is this historic journey, the trials and tribulations of setting up the colony, and how the descendants of those colonists live today, that has inspired Marc Rees's {150} project, a unique collaboration between the two national theatres of Wales.

Stories from a Crowded Room (Galeri, Caernarfon)

Have you ever been in a restaurant enjoying your food, perhaps a juicy steak or a spicy jambalaya, and the waitress has asked if "everything's OK with your meal"? And you've said yes, but actually meant no? Have you ever tried to avoid someone you recognise by crossing the street so that you didn't have to speak to them? Have you ever tried to connect with someone, but they just missed the point?

The intricacies of human nature are what Stories from a Crowded Room is all about. It's about love and loss, rejection and companionship, anger and solitude. What Earthfall has accomplished in this magnificently immersive dance performance is highly effective, affecting and intensely personal to those gathered to observe.