Towering four-hour performance puts Norton in theatre's top rank

YES, it's almost four hours long and features a relentless diet of sexual violence and graphic self-harm. But international maestro Ivo van Hove's adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara's controversial bestseller is a superb piece of theatre with a towering central performance from James Norton.

- Nick Curtis

A Little Life

Harold Pinter Theatre, SWIY

The strapping, handsome star of Grantchester and Happy Valley transforms himself into Jude, a New York lawyer physically and emotionally maimed by cruelty. Though loved unconditionally by his friends, Norton's Jude can't escape the self-loathing inculcated by those who preyed on him from infancy: monks, care home staff, sadistic strangers, would-be boyfriends. It's a wracking, exposing act of incarnation, to which occasional nudity adds an extra layer of vulnerability.