Theatre

Imagine a white, middle class family eating Christmas dinner, their conversation spiked with snide remarks about Debbie's unplanned pregnancy, Dad's deafness, Mum's tiredness, Granny's selfishness and Granddad's senility and likely impotence. Anger, stress and neuroses bubble close to the surface, but are kept at bay by a baseline of civility and social convention.

Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti looks at the prejudices faced by Ira Aldridge (1807-1867), the pioneering African-American actor in 19th century England. It marks a strong debut for Indhu Rubasingham as the Tricycle's new artistic director.

Formally innovative as ever, in her new play at London's Royal Court theatre, Caryl Churchill continues to push the boundaries. Love and Information parades 100 different characters across 58 thematically linked scenes through their focus on information, identity, memory and love.

Frequently described as "the female Hamlet", the eponymous role of Hedda Gabler has attracted a formidable range of leading actresses since its first performance in 1891, including Maggie Smith, Peggy Ashcroft, Fiona Shaw and now Sheridan Smith. The play itself is one of Henrik Ibsen's finest works - one that is well worth seeing during its current run at the Old Vic theatre in London.

The play Kemble's Riot takes the audience back to the Old Price Riots of 1809 when, for 66 days, performances at Covent Garden were disrupted by audiences protesting at an increase in ticket prices. We became that audience: stamping our feet, shouting and chanting "Old prices!" as we re-enacted phases in a struggle that forced actor-manager Kemble to apologise and reduce prices.

Now the Old Vic has revived Frayn's 2003 play Democracy. It's a political thriller - with the emphasis definitely on politics. The production tackles the true story of the relationship between 1970s West German chancellor Willy Brandt and Gunter Guillaume, a Stasi spy who infiltrated his inner circle and inadvertently caused Brandt's downfall. It can be a bit heavy going at times, but it's worth it. This is a gripping espionage thriller that also serves as a timely meditation on modern politics.

Laura Wade's play Posh started life at the Royal Court Theatre in the months before the last general election. Looking back it can be seen as a warning.

This play, updated for its latest run, has lost none of its edge. It is still a poignant and humorous examination of the elite currently ruling Britain.

As I took my seat at the Young Vic, the narrow stage was crowded and noisy showing a 1930s Chinese street with cigarette sellers, beggars, cooked food, shoppers, bullying soldiers and a querulous fine lady carried in a sedan chair. The audience added to the vibrant noise. In 80 minutes this adaptation of Jung Chang's biography of her grandmother, her mother and her own childhood winds through China's turbulent 20th century, ending with her escape and the destruction of all that her parents tried to achieve.

Why is one of the greatest plays of the 20th century more or less unknown? Why hasn't it been filmed? Why isn't it taught in schools? The answer, quite simply, is racism.

Moon on a Rainbow Shawl was part of the new wave of drama in the 1950s, plays which depicted the society of the time and included working class characters. It had beaten almost 2,000 other plays to win a drama competition in 1957. But it was set not in England but in Trinidad. Its characters are a group of poor Trinidadians, living crammed into a small yard around a water tap and speaking Caribbean English.

Written shortly before his murder by fascists during the Spanish Civil War, The House of Bernarda Alba is the last and most powerful of Lorca's plays. In a new production for the Almeida Theatre, this story of repression and resistance has been transposed to rural Iran. Unfortunately, I couldn't help feeling that much of the original play's complexity has been lost in this adaptation. The translation is more or less line by line. As a result, the dialogue often has a painfully stilted feel to it. This undermines Lorca's poetry and his politics.