Theatre review: Nothing is the End of the World (Except for the End of the World)

American Playwright Bekah Brunstetter's new sci-fi comedy Nothing is the End of the World (Except for the End of the World) was originally written for a performing arts high school, and features in its lineup all the archetypes of a US teen movie: There's the popular but highly-strung class princess, Jessica (Skye Lourie,) her sexually confused jock boyfriend Kit (Christopher Webster,) the angry rock chick Emma (Amanda Hootman,) Esther, whose parents are religious fundamentalists obsessed with the End of Days (Sheena May,) flamboyant drama geek Danny (Robin Crouch) and outcast Lucy (Natalie Kent.) But in their midst is dropped an even bigger pair of outsiders: Godfrey (Dan Crow) and Olive (Lisa Caruccio Came) are artificially intelligent androids built from the bodies of dead humans. Their attempts to assimilate with the human teenagers will be filmed for reality TV.

Theatre review: Everyday Maps for Everyday Use

When the Finborough played host to the Papatango playwrighting competition for the first time last year, they went for an ambitious programme of staging, alongside the winner's month-long run, week-long runs of the other three finalists. This year they've reined things in a bit, with a couple of rehearsed readings of finalists, but full productions for the top two plays, running in repertory. First, the runner-up, Tom Morton-Smith's Everyday Maps for Everyday Use.

The soundtrack as the audience enters is a selection of Bowie's more space travel-fixated songs, as the play is set in Woking, where HG Wells had the aliens first invade in The War of the Worlds, and Morton-Smith's characters' lives, ambitions and sexual inclinations are all in some way or other tied up with Mars; the play follows the various ways the six people's lives intertwine.

Theatre review: Donny's Brain

Donny (Ryan Early) is in hospital with brain damage following a car crash. Neurologist Al (Nikesh Patel) is studying him, helping him piece together the parts of his memory that he's lost, and he seems to be making some slow progress. But what would really help is if his partner Emma (Emily Joyce) and her daughter Flea (Skye Lourie) were to visit him, and he can't understand why they haven't. Actually he and Emma had a messy break-up two years ago, and Donny's memory has reset to three years ago when he still loved her - erasing in the process his memories of new wife Trish (Siobhan Hewlett.) Hampstead Theatre's Downstairs season returns with Donny's Brain, Rona Munro's bittersweet play about what might happen if someone really did get the opportunity to turn back the clock on a failed relationship. As the initially angry Emma, who hasn't seen Donny since the break-up, gets a glimpse of the man who was so much in love with her, she also starts to wonder if they could go back to how things were.