Theatre review: The Nest

Unusually, all the Young Vic auditoria are in use at the moment, with the mid-sized Maria getting a couple of big-name creatives - Ian Rickson directs an adaptation by Conor McPherson, The Nest. The original is a 1970s environmental fable by Franz Xaver Kroetz, about a couple's attempts to make a home for their new son, regardless of the consequences. Martha (Caoilfhionn Dunne) is heavily pregnant and pretty sure her old job won't still be there for her after she gives birth. So her lorry driver husband Kurt (Laurence Kinlan) is taking as much overtime as he can manage, including a cash-in-hand job to dispose of what he's told is spoiled wine, which he doesn't see fit to question. The consequences end up coming back sooner and in a much more direct way than expected, and the couple are left trying to figure out if their family can survive the damage.

Theatre review: Wild

Mike Bartlett’s latest play doesn't mention Edward Snowden, but it makes no attempt to disguise its inspiration: Wild opens with American IT expert Andrew Wild (Jack Farthing) hiding in a Moscow hotel room, a couple of days after leaking a huge amount of data online, revealing the true extent to which the US Government spies on its own citizens and those of its allies. Miriam Buether's proscenium arch set is a pretty narrow letterbox - not always great for sightlines from the back, it has to be said - through which we see all that Andrew's world has currently shrunk down to. He's made a lot of powerful enemies overnight and has had to sequester himself without a phone or laptop to stop them tracking him down. Hopefully on his side is an organisation that's unnamed, but which can again be easily identified - it's reminiscent of WikiLeaks - and which has put him up in this safe room.

Theatre review: Our Country's Good

Whenever I review a Shakespeare play, I make a note in the subject line of the company or venue, as there's so many productions of his plays I think it's best to be clear which one I'm talking about. I almost feel like I should do the same for Our Country's Good, because despite only first seeing it in 2012, this is now my third production. Timberlake Wertenbaker's play is an undisputed modern classic (though not one of the 101 best play ever according to Michael Billington but it's fine - he asked an imaginary woman what she thought and she agreed with him.) Based on true events, it follows one of the first shipments of convicts to be transported to Australia in 1788, to the area that would become Sydney. For the duration of their sentences they will remain prisoners, watched over by the army, but when their time is done they'll be sent out to colonise the new land.

Theatre review: Fathers and Sons

Concluding the Spring season at the Donmar Warehouse is a revival of Fathers and Sons, Brian Friel's adaptation of the Turgenev novel. Two outspoken St Petersburg students spend their summer returning to the rural homes they grew up in: First the recently-graduated Arkady (Joshua James) goes to his father's country estate, bringing with him his flatmate Bazarov (Seth Numrich.) Things aren't quite as Arkady remembered them - his father Nikolai (Anthony Calf) has a new baby with one of the servants, Fenichka (Caoilfhionn Dunne,) and on confirming that his son's happy for him prepares to marry her. Meanwhile Nikolai's lack of flair for managing his farm has led him to ask for advice from a neighbour, the wealthy widow Anna (Elaine Cassidy.) She and her sister Katya (Phoebe Sparrow) will catch the eye of the two young men, with very different results.

Theatre review: The Night Alive

Rounding off the latest invasion of Irish plays in London is Conor McPherson's newest work. The Night Alive follows the hit revival of his best-known play The Weir at the Donmar Warehouse, in a production directed by McPherson himself. Part character study, part grubby thriller, The Night Alive takes place in the back room of a house in Dublin, roughly kitted out into a filthy bedsit. He was once the owner of a reasonably successful company but it went down with the rest of the Irish economy, and now Tommy (Ciarán Hinds) scrapes a living as an odd-job man and dodgy wheeler-dealer. Estranged from his wife and children, Tommy lives in this flat in his uncle Maurice's (Jim Norton) house. His friend Doc (Michael McElhatton,) slow-witted but prone to the occasional profundity, sometimes works for him for peanuts, and frequently crashes at the flat when he has nowhere else to stay.