Hampstead Theatre

The Lost Boys meet Motherland in playwright John Donnelly’s giddily original stage return. It is a drama about postpartum depression and also vampirism that stars Sophie Melville as a stressed mum who turns to forces beyond mortal comprehension to sort out her mess of a life. Running at a fleet one hour 40 minutes - which includes an interval! - Blanche McIntye’s production is a punchy affair that cheerily rips off a load of atmospheric stuff from classic horror movies (and there’s a clear homage to the bridge jumping scene from Joel Schumacher’s aforementioned The Lost Boys). What it is mostly about, however, is motherhood. Mia (Melville) and Joe (Bryan Dick) have a primary school-aged son named Alfie who is probably neurodivergent or possibly just unusually sinister: he draws incredibly violent pictures, likes to wear a creepy mask, believs he has psychic powers, and has a habit of pointing at people in a truly terrifying manner. Moreover, Mia has just had a second child, Isla. Mia is struggling to run the home, to feed Isla, to deal with the thumping dance music emanating from the upstairs neighbours’ flat at all hours. Her affable partner Joe keeps them going financially but his weird hours and opaque police job don’t help Mia’s sense of stress, and when he is around he can’t help but put his foot in it by making his offers of help sound overly self-regarding. Then she encounters Alfie’s new teacher Ana (Laura Whitmore, yes, the one from Love Island). She’s young...

Estranged sisters Vera and Bea attempt to reconnect in Chloë Lawrence-Taylor’s drama. But can they overcome years of mistrust and Bea’s out of control hoarding? Lucy Morrison directs. 

After spending his middle years as the most in demand comedy playwright in the country, Richard Bean seems happy spending his pensionable days as the virtual in house writer at Hampstead Theatre. Unlike his recent hits To Have and To Hold and Reykjavik, House of Games is not a new play. But where better for the first revival of this somewhat divisive 2010 Almeida adaptation of David Mamet’s slick 1987 noir? The drama follows Dr Margaret Ford, a celebrated psychoanalyst who falls in with a glamorous conman as she attempts to write a research her new book. Lisa Dillon, Richard Harrington and Oscar Lloyd will star.