John Godber and Jane Thornton | Duchess Theatre | Directed by Neil Scott

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Derby Shakespeare Theatre Company’s latest production, currently playing at the Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton, is some sort of crazy reimagining of a great bard tragedy. Othello on a cruise ship, perhaps, or Macbeth on a beach. Hamlet in a local pub. An inner-city classroom King Lear. Romeo and Juliet on an all-inclusive package holiday in Benidorm.

Shakers Re-Stirred is, in fact, just about as far from Shakespeare as you could get. The play, written by John Godber and Jane Thornton and set in the 1980s, is an hilarious insight into both the working and private lives of four waitresses in a cocktail bar called, you guessed it, ‘Shakers’. In this hugely successful production, director Neil Scott breathes new life into the trendy drinking hole in which the action mainly takes place. It’s a roller-coaster ride of a play, full of the highs and lows which characterise all of our lives.

Rodney Ackland|Sutton Arts Theatre | Directed by Emily Armstrong

Sutton Arts Theatre bring the chaos and frenzied escapism of post-war Soho to life in a fine production of Rodney Ackland’s controversial play ‘Absolute Hell’, directed by Emily Armstrong. Set entirely in La Vie en Rose, a dimly lit private members drinking club, it is one of those plays in which nothing much seems to happen, but everything does. The large cast successfully create a rich tapestry of humanity in all its varied pain, glory and disorder. Spending time in the company of these lost souls offers an engaging and satisfying insight into some of the complex realities of London life in 1945. Blitz nostalgia it most certainly is not.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge|NTLive Broadcast from Wyndham’s Theatre | Directed by Vicky Jones

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one woman play, which inspired the hit BBC TV series, is a perfectly formed theatrical pearl.