Theatre review: Welcome to Pemfort

Sarah Power's Welcome to Pemfort had kind of gone under my radar - as anything buried somewhere in the clutter of Soho Theatre's schedule is apt to do - until its cast was announced, and offered the chance to see Sean Delaney back on stage for the first time since the Oh My God They Killed Kenny incident. Whatever my motivations I'm glad to have caught it, as the strong cast is matched by an impressive play that balances light and dark to offer something genuinely thought-provoking and heartbreaking. Pemfort is a small Mediaeval castle (despite the name nobody can quite confirm if it's technically a fort) on the outskirts of a village of the same name, and for all that the locals consider a Civil War battle on its grounds to be a major historical event, the world at large doesn't agree and the site barely gets any visitors, even during the summer season.

Theatre review: Brilliant Jerks

Capping a really strong week at the theatre for me, Joseph Charlton's Brilliant Jerks at Southwark Playhouse Borough follows three people who work at very different levels for a ride-hailing app, from the founder to a long-standing driver. The hook may be a look behind the scenes of NOT UBER but Charlton's play is more concerned with a toxic tech-bro culture that affects everyone from the top down and could apply to any number of huge corporations or ambitious start-ups. Tyler (Shubham Saraf) co-founded the company with his friend when they ended up stranded in Paris after a tech conference, unable to find a cab. He looks back at how this grew into an app that expanded to hundreds of cities worldwide, in parallel with the story of his relationship with the woman he thought was the love of his life. But with the company's success, the senior developers start behaving increasingly out of control, culminating in a seedy night in a Seoul karaoke bar/brothel.

Theatre review: Labyrinth

Playwright Beth Steel seems to like titles reminiscent of kids' classics: Much as her Wonderland featured miners at the bottom of the tunnel rather than a white rabbit, her Labyrinth offers up bankers instead of David Bowie and muppets. In fact the reference that most often came to mind was Lucy Prebble's ENRON, as Labyrinth too aims to illustrate more recent financial collapse through the story of a historical one - in this case the late 1970s / early 1980s mountain of debt that crippled South America. Hampstead Theatre have brought back their recent discover Sean Delaney and put a whole show on his shoulders as John, son of a fraudster and determined to make a fortune in a more reputable way himself. He's taken on by a bank that specialises in making loans to foreign governments, and learns from Alpha male Charlie (Tom Weston-Jones) how the world is run on behind-the-scenes handshake deals.

Theatre review: Rabbit Hole

American playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole has had a bit of a stuttering journey to the London stage - a couple of years ago a big West End production was announced, only to get cancelled almost as soon as it went on sale. Now, after the venue had a hit with Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, Hampstead Theatre becomes the natural home for his family drama of grief. We open with a domestic scene as Becca (Claire Skinner) washes and folds a child's clothes as her sister Izzy (Georgina Rich) catches her up with her latest personal dramas. This surface of normality is hard-bought though, as it turns out Becca is getting the clothes ready to take to charity, her 4-year-old son having run out into traffic and died eight months earlier. She and her husband Howie (Tom Goodman-Hill) are both trying to deal with the loss in their own ways, but their different coping strategies are putting a strain on their relationship.