Theatre review: The Brink

I don't know if young playwrights are all being specifically inspired by Florian Zeller at the moment, or whether the French writer was just the advance guard for a generation that likes to put audiences in the middle of minds in collapse, and letting them try to put the pieces back together. In Brad Birch's The Brink it's the late-twenties crisis of History teacher Nick (Ciarán Owens,) trying to be a positive adult influence on his pupils while not entirely feeling like an adult yet himself. He's been with his girlfriend Chloe (Shvorne Marks) since university, but while she's increasingly career-driven he doesn't seem to know what he wants. For several nights in a row, he's woken by the same nightmare: Going into work with the intention of resigning, he arrives to find the whole school blown up. He soon has reason to believe this isn't just in his big head, but a premonition.

Theatre review: I Didn't Always Live Here

Among its many other strengths, the Finborough Theatre is increasingly punching above its weight with its set designs, coming close to challenging the Gate for how ambitiously you can transform a seemingly restrictive space. This time, resident designer Alex Marker has managed to fit two storeys of a Glasgow tenement into a room above a pub. Written in 1974 and receiving its first revival since 1973, Stewart Conn's memory play I Didn't Always Live Here looks at two elderly women in adjoining flats, but focusing in particular on the lovable, bubbly Martha (Jenny Lee.) Housebound by her arthritis, and with only the occasional visit from a community volunteer (a beehived Alice Haig) and the local minister (Joshua Manning,) Martha spends much of her time talking to her pet budgie.