We can be certain that whenever there is a war, someone is turning a buck. I know it, you know it, and Bertolt Brecht certainly knew it when, in 1939 and in the shadow of war, he wrote Mother Courage and Her Children. Revived at Shakespeare’s Globe with the magnificent Michelle Terry playing the opportunistic woman who tramps the battlefields of Europe with her children, making a good profit out of war, this revival comes in a version by Anna Jordan which relocates Brecht’s original from the 17th century to the near future and a Europe riven by conflict. Originally produced at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in 2019, the text gets fresh life from director Elle White, and Brecht’s meditation on the real price paid by war profiteering should be particularly potent in a world erupting into wars.

Jack Thorne’s vampire drama Let the Right One In (Underbelly Boulevard), based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel and movie, should be a canny choice for the National Youth Theatre and its young cast. Kudos too for bringing in James Dacre, a director with real clout to stage it. The original National Theatre of Scotland premiere was a truly memorable event, so here’s hoping that Dacre and his cast can make something equally haunting of this desperate and painfully tender coming-of-age drama, which contemplates what it really means to be human.

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