John Gay’s 1728 satirical drama was the first ballad opera. The vernacular work not only cocked a snook at the Italian operas that were so in vogue in 18th-century London, but it also lampooned Whig politician Sir Robert Walpole and the British love for scoundrels. It was an instant, huge hit; as a witticism of the time had it, The Beggar’s Opera made Rich gay, and Gay rich.

There are few absolutes left in contemporary theatre. Fourth walls have long since crumbled underfoot; site-specific and immersive theatre experiences have further done away with divides between theatre and world, performer and audience. The one principle you can rely on is that consciousness is generally a good thing – that a play capable of putting you to sleep is bad. Oh, and that turning up to an opening night in your pyjamas is guaranteed to get you sent straight home again. Step forward maverick theatre company Duckie and their new show Lullaby, hoping to change all that.

One of the many strengths of new writing for the stage is that it’s not afraid to go into the darkest and most upsetting places of the human psyche. Whether at the Royal Court or at the Bush or Soho theatres, young playwrights have dived in to explore the grimmest reaches of our imaginations. Hundreds and Thousands, which opened last night, is Lou Ramsden’s powerful and compelling account of one family’s descent into a nightmare.

As further proof that Shakespeare plays come these days not as single spies but in battalions, the London leg of the all-male Propeller ensemble's lengthy tour has pitched up in the capital in time to deliver their Richard III within days of Kevin Spacey's debut in that very role at the Old Vic. Think of it as the battle for supremacy over the Bard's second-longest play or not, one thing seems clear: you're unlikely to find as abundantly bloody and brutal an account of this particular Shakespearean horror show for some while to come. Is director Edward Hall bidding to become the British theatre's very own Tobe Hooper? On the dazzling evidence of his Richard, that would appear to be the case.

There be dragons aplenty, angels, demons and ghastly creatures both fleshy and feathered in the Globe Theatre’s inaugural production of Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe’s take on the familiar Faust legend, bold in its religious content, was a controversial hit of its day, but the play’s almost medieval apposition of high thinking and knockabout farce by no means guarantees it success in the contemporary theatre. If Matthew Dunster and his team of actors fail with any of their audience it won’t be for want of trying. Throwing themselves at the material with characteristic Globe energy, theirs is a Faustus of pageantry and spectacle.

There’s a lovely moment in A Midsummer Night’s Dream where Peter Quince assigns roles to his company of rude mechanicals. Unsatisfied with the part of the hero, Bottom interrupts, insisting he be allowed to play not only Pyramus but heroine Thisbe too, as well of course as the murderous lion. It’s hard not to see just a little of Bottom’s eagerness in Simon Callow’s Being Shakespeare – a one-man show penned by Jonathan Bate that casts Callow as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Lear, Falstaff and Puck.

Lightning hasn't quite struck twice at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where Trevor Nunn's dazzling reclamation of early Terence Rattigan (Flare Path) has been followed by the same director's transfer from Chichester of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard's first play. How does this 1966 gloss on Hamlet by way of Beckett hold up today? Engagingly enough, not least when its two tireless leads are in full existentialist flow. But some may nonetheless feel a degree of exhaustion, however much they'll want to cheer Samuel Barnett and Jamie Parker on.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers give a new meaning to the word “practised”. Their first stage show in 1981 was called Juggling and Cheap Theatrics - a smart title that they could have kept for the show they bring to London’s West End, largely made of routines that this celebrated US comedy-juggling act have been doing for decades. It’s weird to see in YouTubes of their early performances some of the material I watched last night at the Vaudeville. Still, the fact is those old juggling routines remain mesmerising to the eye, even if their humour is as worn-through as the bum of Seasick Steve’s overalls.

The Barbican committed a grave sin last night. It forgot that people matter more than art. That their responsibility to the families of those who Jack Unterweger (the subject of John Malkovich's music drama, The Infernal Comedy) murdered trumps any interest in the dramatic potential of Unterweger's bizarre life. However constraining to the autonomy of creativity this may be, these are the rules of common decency. A portrait of Ratko Mladić that did little to show the horror of his crimes and much to convey what a loveable rogue he was would be a disgrace.

They say that moving home is always traumatic. So the Bush Theatre in west London must be feeling a wee bit fragile because it has recently upped sticks and taken up residence in the Old Shepherds Bush Library building just around the corner from its historic but rather leaky former home. Yet it’s typical of this spunky venue that it celebrates the first stages of the move with not only a trilogy of short plays, but also with an invitation to the audience to comment on its new space.