“A Royal Affair” is not as racy as it sounds. This highly polished costume drama is exceptionally well-made and a model of intelligent restraint, but it also is unapologetically earnest and a bit on the bloodless side.

For most of its length, “Playing for Keeps” inhabits an idyllic world where the weather is sunny, the cars are red Ferraris, and the soccer moms are Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

‘Miracle on 34th Street” at Tacoma Little Theatre is a feel-good holiday show that asks audiences to suspend critical judgment along with disbelief. It is a touching reaffirmation of faith (which is defined as “believing when common sense tells you not to”) and a still-relevant send-up of the commercialization of Christmas – much more relevant today, in fact, than when the story is set, a time when rampant commercialism was just beginning to creep into the holiday.

You don't have to be a jazz aficionado to recognize "Take Five," the smoky instrumental by the Dave Brubeck Quartet that instantly evokes swinging bachelor pads, hi-fi systems and cool nightclubs of the 1950s and '60s.