There’s no denying that this one-woman show, starring Tricia Kelly, is mightily ambitious. Written by East German playwright Manfred Karge and rarely revived, Man to Man depicts a German widow – Ella Gericke – who decides to impersonate her dead husband, Max, and take over his life. The play opens with Hitler’s army advancing, spans 50 years, covers dozens of characters and includes a number of surreal dance, dream and fantasy sequences. Demanding indeed – but a bit of a mess.

When science and the arts combine they form a new genre, which has the unlovely name of “artsci”. But although there have now been several plays about climate change in recent years, can an innovative partnership between a playwright, a scientist and a director throw any more light on a subject — global warming — that is vital, yet seems to leave most people cold. More tellingly, can theatre tell us anything about it that we don’t already know?

A significant milestone was passed this week: Tuesday 4 November was Equal Pay Day. From that day until the end of the year, the average woman in this country effectively works for free compared to her male counterpart, such is the disparity in wages. And in case you were wondering, it’s getting worse, not better. The moment arrived three days earlier this year than last.

It is no exaggeration to say that Lloyd Newson has created a new theatrical language. Verbatim drama and intricate choreography would seem, on paper, to be fatally competing elements, yet Newson’s hypnotic fusion charges both word and movement with fresh meaning. Critically, the dance element of this typically confrontational new work from his company DV8, covering such harrowing topics as domestic violence, rape, incest, addiction and criminality, prevents it from slipping into hackneyed territory.

No one is more prescriptive than Tennessee Williams when it comes to stage and set directions. As he got older and wiser he made allowances for directors and actors to have their say. “The making of a play is, finally, a collaborative venture,” he concluded. What he would make of the Royal Exchange’s self-styled “bold adaptation” of his favourite play, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, is debatable.

There have been some strong two-handers of late, which perhaps explains why the London premiere of Robert Holman’s 2008 play Jonah and Otto seems sub par. Originally written for the actor Andrew Sheridan, this is a Beckettian take on loneliness, God, love and masculinity. In the hands of director Tim Stark and actors Peter Egan and Alex Waldmann, it feels like a teasing introduction to theology-lite which never hits home with any lingering power.

Rediscovered work offers aficionados a tantalising piece of the puzzle. Terence Rattigan’s callow debut, reborn after 80 years in obscurity, bears the hallmarks of his later plays, notably closeted ardour and the torment of unequal passion, but is more study than finished painting: ideas sketched, colour yet to be filled in.

Ireland has had not just an economic meltdown in the past few years, but also a social one. The country that thought it had seen the back of emigration going back several generations has had to deal with its young people once again leaving in droves – albeit this time to staff schools, hospitals and television programmes with teachers, doctors and presenters, rather than men and women to build roads or clean floors, as so many of my parents' generation did.

So TFL have banned the Globe’s posters for ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore for being too racy. What a gift. They couldn’t have given the production a better advertising boost if they’d covered every single one of their thousands of billboards with the barely-naked bodies of the show’s two attractive young leads. John Ford – still shocking audiences and sticking two bloody fingers up at the censors 400 years later. Well played.

The bittersweet career of The Kinks is portrayed to surprisingly potent effect in this fast, funny and sometimes poignant musical, now transferring to the West End from the Hampstead Theatre. No mere "jukebox musical" – though it's crammed with songs – it finds space for some kitchen-sink drama, a bit of psychotherapy and a few smart insights into the Sixties pop business.