Hot on the stage

No Shakespeare play throws down a riskier challenge than Macbeth. Some 20 years ago Peter O'Toole had a famous shot at the part and killed the role stone dead in pools of imitation blood. The audience laughed a lot. But apart from Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in a terrific Trevor Nunn production, good Macbeths are rare.

Now film-star tough-boy Sean Bean takes on the role, with Samantha Bond as his goading wife in Edward Hall's production. Bean has scant Shakespearian experience, but he looks the part, so perhaps his film fans will bring him an audience.

What the night is for

The latest American film star to hit the London stage is Gillian Anderson, best known for her portrayal of Agent Scully in The X-Files, but seriously to be admired for her tour de force in the film of Edith Wharton's The House Of Mirth.

She stars in a new play by American writer Michael Weller where Anderson plays a married woman who meets up with her longlost lover who comes to her hotel room - for dinner and more. John Caird directs. Previews from Thur 7 Nov, Comedy Theatre, Panton Street, SW1 (020-7369 1731).

Peepshow

The Frantic Assembly troupe describe their latest work as 'a truly 21st-century musical with an ultra contemporary feel', and more for MTV viewers than for Andrew Lloyd Webber fans. The piece is set in four bedrooms and is designed to turn the audience into voyeurs, with a peep-show perspective (such as the view of Kate Alderton, left) on what's going on or coming off. The band Lamb supplies the music.