Eugene O’Hare’s debut play, The Weatherman is not for the fainthearted. It’s a disturbing mix of brutality and indifference that casts a harsh floodlight on the sordid underbelly of British society. Its depiction of a hidden world we all know exists, sex trafficking of children in London, leaves us with a burgeoning message – it is our own flabby morality that allows all manner of evil to proliferate in this huge melting pot of a …

Rose Lewenstein’s Cougar is an engaging philosophical play about the ennui of human existence and the repetitive exercise of joyless living. It reveals itself through the actions of its two characters, Leila (Charlotte Randle) an investment strategist with a huckster’s sales pitch – that of reducing global carbon emissions while maximising corporate profits – and John (Mike Noble), recently fired from his job as a hotel worker, who accompanies Leila on a world-wind tour of …

‘The marriage bed’s a trough of shit fit for pigs to lie in it,’ says Quevedo (Christopher Logan), a poet in 17th Century Spain and brutal cynic of all things associated with the human condition: love, passion, hunger and the quest for domination and power. He’s speaking as a subject of the Spanish Court, which is already in decline but hanging onto its past victories as a conquering nation. And how best for a marauding …