Theatre review: The Fear of 13

The Donald and Margot Warehouse celebrates the start of its Timothy Sheader era by hiking the price of my preferred seats by almost 150%, so I was in a slightly worse seat than usual for a mere 50% or so rise for the opening show, Lindsey Ferrentino's The Fear of 13. Though at times an onslaught of implausible events it's firmly in the "truth is stranger than fiction" camp as, with the exception of the character of Jackie who we're told is partly fictionalised to protect her identity, it's based on a documentary film covering true events: Jackie (Nana Mensah) is a graduate student interviewing inmates of a Pennsylvania high security prison on behalf of an advocacy group, and is eventually drawn to the story of quietly charming Death Row inmate Nick Yarris (Adrien Brody,) convicted in 1982 of a particularly grisly murder. Nick has become a prolific reader in prison, and has educated himself to become a compelling storyteller.

Theatre review: Ugly Lies the Bone

Lindsey Ferrentino's Ugly Lies the Bone is a play for only five actors - one of whom stays offstage almost throughout - looking at a domestic situation. There's a reason it's landed on the big Lyttelton stage at the National though, and that's because it also encompasses a much larger world, albeit a virtual one. Jess (Kate Fleetwood) has returned from her third tour in Afghanistan after getting caught in an IED explosion, with horrific burns that cover half her face and much of her body. She's in constant pain and coming back to where she grew up doesn't even have the comfort of familiarity: Her Florida town's economy was based around space shuttle launches, but with NASA ending the programme the town has dried up, jobs are scarce and it's becoming a ghost town. Her mother is now in a nursing home with dementia, and Jess refuses to visit her because she's afraid she won't recognise her.