London is being treated to a glorious midsummer of haunting – exquisitely performed – one-person shows.
At the Royal Court, Anna Deavere Smith is in the final week of sharing Notes from the Field, a verbatim collection of voices that form a jangling chorus of disquiet about America’s treatment of its black underclass. At the Bridge (again time’s almost up), another American tour de force: Laura Linney relays a mother-daughter relationship with such soulfulness in My Name is Lucy Barton that what’s fictional acquires the hue of a shared family secret. Now at the Old Vic, as a pop-up extra to the theatre’s bicentennial celebrations, Andrew Scott is treading the boards in a monologue he first performed...