Midnight Your Time, Donmar Warehouse online review – intimate and quietly moving

★★★★ MIDNIGHT YOUR TIME, DONMAR WAREHOUSE Intimate and quietly moving

Revival of 2011 HighTide hit reconceived for streaming stars Diana Quick

During lockdown, some of the best online theatre has been shows that are specially created for this digital format. Much better than dull records of dramas that might have worked well on stage, but now seem sadly moribund and exceedingly slow on the laptop screen.

Shoe Lady, Royal Court review - Katherine Parkinson is a footsore Beckettian

★★★ SHOE LADY, ROYAL COURT Slender new monologue about struggling middle-class womanhood

Slender new monologue about struggling middle-class womanhood

On my way to see this show, I see an urban fox. Before I can take a photo, it scrambles away. And I'm sure that, as it goes, it winks at me. This weird moment is a great prologue to EV Crowe's new play, virtually a monologue starring Katherine Parkinson, which is weird, and then some. And then some more. Although it is very short, at just over an hour long, it is a powerful account of female middle-class anxieties in Britain today.

First Person: Hassan Abdulrazzak on the real-life drama behind American deportation to the UK

FIRST PERSON Hassan Abdulrazzak on the real-life drama behind American deportation to the UK

A provocative fact-based play locates truth in transcripts

You are at a party having a good time when someone gives you a glass of champagne. You take one and then another and soon the party is over. You get in the car to go home and are driving along when you see a police car in the rearview mirror: how annoying! Now you are regretting that indulgent second glass but what’s done is done. The cop gives you a breathalyzer test and you are exactly at the legal limit. The cop says you have to be below that limit, and you are arrested, charged, imprisoned and deported.

Far Away, Donmar Warehouse review - one for the devotees

★★★ FAR AWAY, DONMAR WAREHOUSE Revival of Caryl Churchill's brief dystopic classic is vivid but unexceptional

Revival of Caryl Churchill's brief dystopic classic is vivid but unexceptional

Caryl Churchill, Britain's best living playwright, is enjoying a spate of high-profile revivals of her classic work. Last year, the National Theatre staged her Top Girls, and an upcoming production of A Number is coming soon to the Bridge Theatre.

Brighton Festival 2020 launches with Guest Director Lemn Sissay

BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2020 Launches with Guest Director Lemn Sissay

The Sussex extravaganza announces its 2020 theme and line-up of events

This morning the largest annual, curated multi-arts festival in England launched and announced its programme of events. With Guest Director, British and Ethiopian poet-playwright-broadcaster Lemn Sissay, MBE, at the helm, Brighton Festival 2020 is themed as Imagine Nation and runs May 2-24. For the seventh year running, theartsdesk will be a major media partner, showcasing preview interviews and reviewing the best of the festival.

Scenes with Girls, Royal Court review - feminist separatism 2.0

★★★★ SCENES WITH GIRLS, ROYAL COURT New play about female friendship is refreshingly original and dazzlingly exciting

New play about female friendship is refreshingly original and dazzlingly exciting

Last night, I discovered the gasp index. Or maybe just re-discovered. The what? The gasp index. It's when you see a show that keeps making you exhale, sometimes audibly, sometimes quietly. Tonight I gasped about five times, then I stopped counting – I was hooked. I was obviously in the right place: the Royal Court has the reputation of being a powerhouse (to use a marketing term) of new writing.

Snowflake, Kiln Theatre review - strong but clumsy generational war

★★★ SNOWFLAKE, KILN THEATRE Mike Bartlett's Christmas cracker goes with a bang - eventually

Mike Bartlett's Christmas cracker goes with a bang - eventually

The prolific Mike Bartlett – from whose pen have leapt television series such as Doctor Foster and Press, as well as stage hits such as King Charles III – has two things to celebrate tonight. On ITV his new three-part psychological drama, Sticks and Stones, begins, and this is also the opening night of his new play at the Kiln.

A Kind of People, Royal Court review - multiculturalism falls apart

Family tragedy is emotionally powerful but incomplete and unsatisfying

The trouble with prejudice is that you can't control how other people see you. At the start of her career, playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's work was set in her own Sikh community. But, like other playwrights from similar backgrounds, she has tended to be pigeonholed in the category of "Asian playwright", and expected to write about clichéd subjects such as arranged marriage or religion.