British theatre is a bit phobic about travel: you can see plenty of plays set in leafy suburbs, grotty council estates and occasionally in muddy fields, but few that enjoy an overseas setting. And when the Brits do go abroad, they usually follow the well-trodden paths to Africa, the Middle East and north America. But the Royal Court has a different agenda: it works with playwrights abroad and brings their work to Sloane Square so there’s no need to get a visa to experience life in today’s Latvia, as shown in Aleksey Scherbak’s new play, which opened here last night.

Film-maker and playwright Mike Leigh simply doesn’t do revivals. His method of working - which involves a group of actors improvising characters and situations until a story emerges - runs contrary to any notion of returning to a play after its premiere. So it is quite astonishing to report that, for the first time, Leigh has revisited one of his own plays, Ecstasy, which he originally put on at the Hampstead Theatre in September 1979, and which is now back at the same venue.

Recently, some British playwrights have gone back to school, and found that it feels very much like a war zone. All the old tensions between teachers and pupils have escalated into open conflict: knives are drawn, punches thrown and arguments are settled by fights. Likewise, the language is disrespectful at best, and always expletive-heavy. Vivienne Franzmann’s new play, which visits London after opening in Manchester last month, frankly refers to a war zone in its title, and its action is scarcely less antagonistic.

Dave is a bomb, waiting to go off. He’s dangerous because he seems so ordinary. Late-twenties, he’s nothing much to look at. He wears a suit. Works as a civil servant in some absurdly obscure government department. No girlfriend. If truth be told, a bit of a piss-head really. But the thing that makes him dangerous is that - as the title of DC Moore’s 2010 play makes clear - he fancies himself as a truth-teller. He’s painfully honest, and, worse, he uses honesty as a weapon. So when you meet him in a pub, watch out.

At the moment, most of the energy in British new writing seems to be coming from American and Irish playwrights. This is such a regular phenomenon, one that comes around every few years, that it seems idle to speculate on the reasons for it; surely, it’s enough to welcome another new talent from Ireland? As well as being the artistic director of Tall Tales theatre company, Deirdre Kinahan is a prolific playwright. Her UK debut, Moment, opened last night at the Bush Theatre in west London, and is an engrossing study of a dysfunctional family.

In contemporary British drama, kids are usually either suffering or doomed innocents. But Winterlong's Oscar is different. He is a loner who was abandoned by his schoolgirl mum and his scary dad at the age of four years old, and tries to make his way in a chilly world armed only with his small but powerful reserves of love. The writing throbs like an infected wound, so you can see why actor Andrew Sheridan’s debut play was joint winner of the 2008 Bruntwood Prize for playwriting, receiving its premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester earlier this month, and now visiting the Soho Theatre in London.

Men. They say these strange creatures never leave the playground. Even when the years have passed, boys stubbornly remain boys, chatting rubbish, competing manfully and finally burning out. In Enda Walsh’s Penelope, which was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival last year and now visits London, four men compete for the love of one woman, and they are as likely to be found bickering over a small barbecued sausage as they are to be seen fighting to the death with knives. The only question is: can they also work together?

From being virtually ignored by theatres and playwrights, the issue of climate change now threatens to swamp the programmes of our flagship theatres. If this is a good thing, meaning that the heat has been turned up on the debate, can public interest be maintained at this rate? Is the topic at all sustainable? After Greenland opened at the National Theatre last week, now it’s the turn of Richard Bean’s new play, which had its premiere at the Royal Court last night, in a production starring the superb Juliet Stevenson. And if the National's contribution to the debate was a bit too cool, Bean's play is much hotter.

From being virtually ignored by theatres and playwrights, the issue of climate change now threatens to swamp the programmes of our flagship theatres. If this is a good thing, meaning that the heat has been turned up on the debate, can public interest be maintained at this rate? Is the topic at all sustainable? After Greenland opened at the National Theatre last week, now it’s the turn of Richard Bean’s new play, which had its premiere at the Royal Court last night, in a production starring the superb Juliet Stevenson. And if the National's contribution to the debate was a bit too cool, Bean's play is much hotter.

No prizes for guessing what the future holds for the four Irishmen ensconced in the empty swimming pool in Enda Walsh’s latest play, Penelope, which opens at Hampstead Theatre next week. For these unfortunate creatures are the last of Penelope’s suitors from Homer’s Odyssey, the pariah who invade Odysseus’s home and make merry at his expense whilst shamelessly trying to win the hand of his faithful wife – and their time is up. Odysseus is homeward bound and they must face up to what is basically going to be an unavoidable bloodbath.

British theatre prides itself on being contemporary, up to date - in a word, hot. So it’s odd that, over the past decade, there have been so few plays about climate change. While everybody, and I mean everybody, has been talking about global warming, while climate-change deniers have been branded the new fascists, and while well-publicised protesters have tried to stop electricity stations from functioning, British playwrights have - with only a couple of exceptions - blithely ignored the subject.