AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮ 1/2 Tony Kushner's iHo Hampstead Theatre | London directed by Michael Boyd Tony Kushner's first play at the Hampstead Theatre since Slavs! is a cacophony of ideas with several dramatic high points, but the action is spread too thinly over three and a half hours with two intervals. This was too much for several people sitting near me who made it through the first two parts but did not return to their seats after the second interval. They missed out because the ending bring

✮✮✮ Mike Bartlett's Wild Hampstead Theatre | London directed by James Macdonald Andrew, the central character in Mike Bartlett’s new play, may as well have just been called Edward Snowden. He is a whistle-blower from the United States who leaked information about government surveillance and has found himself a fugitive, trapped in Russia, with nowhere to turn. Even the actor playing Andrew, Jack Farthing, looks remarkably like Snowden. Over the course of the play, he is visit

✮✮1/2 Rebecca Gilman's Luna Gale Hampstead Theatre | London directed by Michael Attenborough Rebecca Gilman’s Luna Gale may be set in present day Iowa, but the questions it raises – and their rankling replies – are of interest to any country with a bureaucratic responsibility for its children. The risk in accepting this culpability is the knowledge that with one false move, one slip of a vulnerable child through the net, the entire system falls apart, taking both public trust

✮✮✮✮ Theresa Rebeck's Seminar Hampstead Theatre | London directed by Terry Johnson Shortly before last week's announcement of 2014's Nobel literature prize winner, Swedish Academy member Horace Engdahl lamented to journalists how the "professionalisation" of creative writing is wrecking Western literature. Fierce debate raged as a result, unsurprisingly, especially in Europe and America where taught writing courses are such a huge industry these days. This brouhaha couldn

✮✮✮✮ Simon Gray's In the Vale of Health: Japes | Michael | Japes Too | Missing Dates Hampstead Theatre | London directed by Tamara Harvey In the wake of the late great Simon Gray, the Hampstead Theatre here pays tribute to the characters who constantly niggled away at his thoughts, right into his seventies. And where better to stage one revival and three unseen plays, all set in Hampstead, consecutively one after another. Two orphaned brothers: Michael the healthy elder and J

✮✮✮✮ 1/2 David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People Hampstead Theatre | London directed by Jonathan Kent Following a rapturous run on Broadway, picking up multiple awards including Best Actress for Frances McDormand and a Best Play nomination at the Tonys, Good People has its UK première at the Hampstead Theatre. It's a safe bet: during the 2012-13 season it was the most produced play in America. Jonathan Kent directs a strong cast led by Imelda Staunton, here on outstanding form. St