David Balcombe

Dr Stockmann has discovered that the public spa – the pride and joy and economic hub of his community – is riddled with poison. He expects gratitude and praise for revealing this inconvenient truth. Instead he becomes Public Enemy, as individual greed and personal self-interest overrule any sense of community and the common good. At the Young Vic.

Peter Nichols' hugely autobiographical 1967 play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is firmly rooted in its time. But it still packs a punch and makes us question our own attitudes towards disability, even in the supposedly enlightened 21st century. At the Rose Theatre Kingston.

Confused by a failed relationship and intrigued by Japanese scientists' efforts to programme a robot to love, Molly Naylor embarks on her own attempt to define love by creating three interweaving characters and one wedding. There's music, wardrobe snobbery, a dead dog and a tour-de-force performance from Naylor herself. At the Battersea Arts Centre

Many productions come into London burdened with the success that they have achieved elsewhere, and can therefore be forgiven for being a comparative disappointment. Not so Mies Julie. This production justifies every syllable of its hype, with interest. It grips, turns, grips again and finally explodes, spitting you out onto the streets of Hammersmith as exhausted as if you had lived the performance yourself. At Riverside Studios.

There can't have been a time in the century since its first performance when The Voysey Inheritance wasn't relevant. But today, with Madof serving 150 years for fraud, and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and plain old Mr Fred Goodwin all bywords for incompetence and greed, this tale of trickery has even greater resonance. At at Bridewell Theatre.

Festopia! at Theatre503 is a festival of short plays set in the future, plays selected from a significant number submitted to Little Pieces of Gold in 2012. The first half comprises four plays of varying lengths – 10 to 15 minutes each. The second half is a substantially longer single, one act play.

This is the traditional tale of the discovery of stable boy d’Artagnan as the true heir to the throne of France and the evil machinations of Cardinal Richelieu. The Three Musketeers provide the derring-do, Justice the love interest, and Mother Superior the baking. If you’re looking for a pocket-sized traditional panto, this may just make your Christmas. At the Rosemary Branch Theatre.

Alex is a young man addicted to violence – and Beethoven. He stalks the night with his gang of equally thuggish contemporaries until, after one drug fuelled frenzy ends in murder, the authorities finally catch up with him. Incarcerated for life, Alex is given one possible way out: a treatment that will ’cure’ him, at the same time as helping reduce prison numbers and thus save on state expenditure. At the Soho Theatre.

This is a magnificent production where everyone is entirely on top of their game. The lighting, the video, the sound, the stunning score by Underworld – all are characters as much as the boxers and their entourage. You are left with the distinct belief that these were not performers, but boxers. They have not so much acted their parts as lived them. At artsdepot.

Lucy and the Hawk by Phil Ormrod is billed as a comedy about loneliness and peregrine falcons. It tells two separate and apparently unrelated stories of loneliness but, despite the undoubted skills and commitment of the two performers, it somehow never quite fulfils its promise. At Ovalhouse.