Defying and literally crashing through the fourth wall, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, currently at the Cambridge Arts Theatre, is uproariously funny and will rock your Shakespearean world. With the promise of ‘meta-fiction’, celebrity guests and pixiness, you will not be disappointed, apart from the absence of said celebrities.

Confronting action, bold design and a defiant aggressiveness. An English Touring Theatre, Theatr Clwyd and Nuffield Southampton Theatres co-production supported by The Royal Theatrical Support Trust, A Streetcar Named Desire is given a modern revival, but I wonder whether its initial upbeat tone invites the appropriate spectatorship.

American naturalism seeped in drama and suspense, Strangers on a Train comes to the Cambridge Arts Theatre but is slow leaving the platform. Revealing the train and our two protagonists, the beginning sets up the story aptly but from then on we trudge through character guilt, remorse and challenge for no resolve.

Addiction, the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity. Emma was having the time of her life. Now she’s in rehab. Clinical isolation fronted with an existential crisis, People, Places and Things sits you down in therapy and asks ‘How do you think this story ends?’.

Courtesy of Cambridge Arts Theatre.

We have all experienced at least one disastrous Christmas, where the turkey is inedible or the cranberry sauce is missing, but Sam Holcroft’s version of a family Christmas is altogether torn apart. Awaiting the return of male patriarch Francis, Edith cleans her way through despair, whilst her two sons Adam and Matthew set the table for the expectation of a perfect family lunch. However, war breaks out over the dining table, and an indulgent farce is embarked upon.