The Vortex, Chichester Festival Theatre review - naturalism clogs up Coward's pipes

★★ THE VORTEX, CHICHESTER Coward's drama about damaged mother & son needs Dyno-rodding

Noel Coward's play about damaged mother and son needs Dyno-rodding

Sometimes I go outside and look at our kitchen drain. Where there should be a vortex there’s a largely static pool. Tree roots have recently grown through the old pipes, their clumps colonised with fat, dog hair and coleslaw bits, and though a bit of handpumping will shift some of the stale water for a while, it really needs systemic attention from Dyno-rod. A good Dyno-rodding is what Chichester’s new production of Noel Coward’s The Vortex needs too.

Album: 100 gecs - 10,000 gecs

★★★★ 100 GECS - 10,000 GECS Bonkers eclecto-core smash-pop from playfully noisy US duo

Bonkers eclecto-core smash-pop from playfully noisy US duo

If popular music is dead and done and there’s nowhere left to go, rising duo 100 gecs, from St Louis, Missouri, are here to prove there’s still deranged fun to be had cannibalising the corpse. The second album from the pair, both in their late twenties and with a background in electronic production, is a post-modern assault, garish and unapologetic, part satire (possibly), part avant-punk noisiness, and part wilfully infantile and ridiculous.

Joyland review - a tender tragedy

★★★★ JOYLAND Warmth and wit amidst forbidden lives in patriarchal Pakistan

Warmth and wit amidst forbidden lives in patriarchal Pakistan

Partially banned in Pakistan, Saim Sadiq’s debut uses a young man’s affair with a trans woman to reveal the sadness and brutality of the nation’s patriarchal norms. It’s also a deeply sympathetic character study written from under the country’s skin, which Sadiq calls “a heartbroken love letter to my homeland”.

Linck & Mülhahn, Hampstead Theatre review - problems as well as pleasures

Ruby Thomas's new play about a gender-pioneering couple is provocative and engaging

With the total loss of its Arts Council funding, Hampstead Theatre’s future as a specialist new writing venue is in doubt. But before anything drastically changes, the playwrights and plays developed by Roxanna Silbert, who was edged out as artistic director in December last year, are still coming through.

Sound of the Underground, Royal Court review - loud and triumphantly proud

★★★★ SOUND OF THE UNDERGROUND, ROYAL COURT Loud and triumphantly proud

New play about the queer club scene is a fabulous extravaganza

Ever been to a queer club? You know, drag cabaret night at Madame Jojo’s, or the Black Cap or Her Upstairs. No? Well, not to worry – the Royal Court’s latest provides a fabulously extravagant simulation of the experience with its staging of Sound of the Underground, a play written by Travis Alabanza – whose classic Burgerz is coming to the Purcell Room in March – and directed by his co-creator Debbie Hannan.

As You Like It, @sohoplace review - music-filled, warm-hearted celebration

★★★★ AS YOU LIKE IT, @SOHOPLACE A music-filled, warm-hearted celebration

The first home-grown offering at this impressive new space is a playful paean to theatre

The scene is set onstage in the first minutes. And it remains a stage throughout this harmonious production. The action takes place in a severe court and a more liberal forest, but really the setting is always a place of imagination, a theatre. Jaques' most anthologised speech, "All the world's a stage ... " is its keynote: all the actors are players, in both senses of the word.

Album: Christeene - Midnite Fukk Train

★★★ CHRISTEENE - MIDNITE FUKK TRAIN Boundary-smashing in-yer-face performer's third

Boundary-smashing in-yer-face performer's third album hits musical paydirt

Christeene is not so much a musical entity, as a performative assault, an artist who pushes drag somewhere visceral, caustic, wilfully edgy and defiantly unpolished. The creation of New York-based, Louisiana-raised Paul Soileau, her videos and shows have thus far probably been more important than her albums, but her third raises the bar.

Something in the Air, Jermyn Street Theatre review - evocative London mood music

Peter Gill's new memory play is a wistful recreation of gay loves lost and found

As its title suggests, Peter Gill’s Something in the Air is an elusive piece – it’s about catching at instinct, responding to intuition, bringing together overlapping hints of present and past lives. From these different stories, spun out of lived experience and imagination equally, the octogenarian playwright leaves the audience to craft a whole.

The Doctor, Duke of York's Theatre review - Juliet Stevenson will see you now

★★★★ THE DOCTOR, DUKE OF YORK'S THEATRE Juliet Stevenson will see you now

Robert Icke's whip-smart adaptation puts identity politics on the dissection table

Robert Icke is an expert in corporate tragedy. I don’t mean that in a bad way - just that he has a penchant for taking classics (Hamlet, The Oresteia, Mary Stuart) and transporting them, with the help of designer Hildegard Bechtler, to the frosted-glass doors and pale wood of the boardroom.

Bright Half Life, Kings Head Theatre review - ups and downs of a tender lesbian love affair

★★★ BRIGHT HALF LIFE, KING'S HEAD THEATRE Ups and downs of a tender lesbian love affair

Tanya Barfield reconstructs a simple plot as an absorbing puzzle

A tender love story has arrived at the Kings Head theatre from the US, where its author, Tanya Barfield, is an award-winning playwright for both television and theatre. The plot is simple: two women — one white, one Black — meet in an office where one is a supervisor, the other a science teacher turned temp, and their lives become entwined over the next 25 years.