Theatre review: Pigeons

Carrie Cracknell directs the next play in the Royal Court's Weekly Rep season, Suhayla El-Bushra's disturbing, often comic Pigeons, a pretty brutal look at the fragility of relationships in a multicultural society. Played out in more or less reverse order and divided into "Shit That Went Wrong," "Shit That Went Right" and "Shit That Went Wrong (Again)" (the chapter titles spray-painted onto Chloe Lamford's now-familiar packing crate set,) it follows two teenage friends, Ashley (Ryan Sampson) and Amir (Nav Sidhu.) Ashley is the child of a pretty nasty divorce that's seen him and his sister in the custody of different parents, and his friendship with Amir, that dates back to primary school, has provided him with a second family. He often stays over, playing chess with Amir's father Hassan (Paul Bhattacharjee,) flirting with his sister Ameena (Farzana Dua Elahe) and eating his mum's samosas.

Theatre review: Much Ado About Nothing (RSC / Courtyard & Noël Coward Theatre)

An Indian regiment returns home after a successful UN peacekeeping mission, in Iqbal Khan's present-day Delhi-set take on Much Ado About Nothing, which takes up home at the RSC's temporary Courtyard Theatre prior to its conversion back to The Other Place. The regiment rests at the wealthy Leonato's (Madhav Sharma) villa. When soldier Claudio (Sagar Arya) falls for Leonato's daughter Hero (Amara Karan,) his Raja Don Pedro (Shiv Grewal) decides to play matchmaker. But Don Pedro's villainous half-brother Don John (Gary Pillai) has plans to break up the young couple for his own amusement. Meanwhile Hero's cousin Beatrice is less than thrilled to see her ex, Benedick, among the party. Despite their protestations that they hate each other, Don Pedro is determined to trick them into falling back in love.

Theatre review: The Physicists

Three shows in and it's harder than ever to see what identity Josie Rourke is trying to give the Donmar Warehouse under her Artistic Directorship: She takes the director's reins again for Jack Thorne's new translation of The Physicists, Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1962 satire of Cold War fears. In the old wing of an insane asylum, only three patients remain. Two think they're famous physicists, Albert Einstein (Paul Bhattacharjee) and Sir Isaac Newton (Justin Salinger.) The third, Möbius (John Heffernan) is a physicist, who believes King Solomon appears to him daily to impart wisdom. As the play opens, Einstein and Newton have each murdered one of the nurses; and Möbius' relationship with his own nurse (Miranda Raison) seems to be following an uncomfortably similar pattern. I've seen people name-check Doctor Strangelove with regard to the play, and there's certainly a sense of the gently, but threateningly surreal to the affair.