Origin of the Species

Bryony Lavery has written far more searching plays, but this is an entertaining slice of feminist revisionism

Seize the Day

Kwame Kwei-Armah’s play chews over the difficulties facing a young black man who’s out to become mayor of London in 2012

Mrs Klein

Nicholas Wright’s play is fascinated by the relationship between psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and her daughter Melitta

Pains of Youth

Pains of Youth closely examines the psychological forces driving this fatalistically resigned interwar generation

Why has Bill Bailey written a guide to the orchestra?

Bill Bailey’s Guide to the Orchestra is an attempt to harmonise genial fun with serious musicology

Pains of Youth

Katie Mitchell’s production is, among other things, a kind of psychological thriller: who will make it to adulthood?

Time and place: Paul Higgins

The actor and playwright, 45, loved going to school at a seminary with ‘action men’ priests – but then he met a girl

Life in the fast lane with Theatre Jezebel

Pick of the week: Autobahn, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tues-Sat

Shraddha

The centre of Natasha Langridge’s play belongs to a Romany variation on the Romeo and Juliet story

The Pros, the Cons and a Screw

Elgood opts for crudely drawn lags and obvious gags, laced with well-worn pop songs performed with gusto

Rust

Rust is being talked of as the flagship event of the London Puppetry Festival but I was left cold by its storyline

Pale, shaky, unfit for war — Coward’s worst review

Thanks to this critique of his abilities, the writer was spared the trenches of the First World War and sent back to the stage

Prick Up Your Ears play to close early

The show is to close after ticket sales dwindled when Matt Lucas pulled out of play following ex-partner's suicide

Amanda Lawrence gender blends

The actress’s incarnation of the Carry On star in a new play about Charles Hawtrey’s life and career is uncanny

Origin of the Species

Lavery posits a passionate feminist interpretation of evolutionary theory, but this is no crude polemic

Ambassador Theatre goes to next stage

Business built up by couple obsessed with showbiz now has five times as many seats as any other theatre operator

The 20 must-see Christmas shows

From mad-cap pantos to ballet and hip-hop dance spectacles, these are the treats you should not miss

Theatre deal is breath of life for British stage

It is hard to see Ambassador Theatre Group’s acquisition of Live Nation’s houses as anything other than good for the stage

Seize the Day

It’s a play of ideas that needs another draft to make its characters a bit less Legoland, but it’s a superior misfire