Anya Reiss’s adaptation of Ibsen’s play is almost sold out, but beg, steal or borrow one of the remaining tickets to see this thrilling modern-day reimagining of his proto-feminist classic.

Reiss’s new version, directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins, transports us from the original scenario in oppressive, small-town 19th-century Norway to the equally claustrophobic world of London’s one per cent. Nora (the magnetic Romola Garai) is the wife of a high-earning asset manager, Torvald (Tom Mothersdale), who is also a recovering cocaine addict. Patronising and work-obsessed, he is unaware she has embezzled funds from his firm to pay for his rehab treatment, placing the imminent sale of the company, and their upwardly mobile lifestyle, in jeopardy.

The original drama’s plot twists and characters are mainly intact. Nora’s desperate, penniless old friend Kristine (Thalissa Teixeira), Petter, the dying doctor and close friend who is in love with Nora (Olivier Huband), and Torvald’s blackmailing colleague Nils Krogstad (James Corrigan) are all excellent. And Reiss’s update is hugely persuasive, with its references to Instagram, conspicuous consumption and a stock market buffeted by conflict in the Middle East. The theme of addiction – whether it’s to phones or drugs – heightens the drama. Nora’s desperate use of her sexuality – she has no other currency – to manipulate her husband and the wealthy doctor is horribly discomfiting and the final scene sizzles with fury.

Lisa O’Kelly, writer

The path not taken, the “what ifs”, are at the heart of this enjoyable new novel. In the short gap between school and university, Erica arrives in 1978 Paris for her first trip abroad. Climbing the steps to Sacré-Coeur, this slightly gauche English girl chances upon Laure, a cool PhD student at the Sorbonne – and soon begins an intense, whirlwind affair. Back home, studying creative writing in Norwich, what future does Erica choose: marriage and kids, or something else? Over 400-plus pages, Hargrave, a poet and bestselling YA author, has conjured a perfect summer read. 

Jane Ferguson, Nerve co-founder

Jade Franks's amusingly titled solo show was one of the hits of last year's Edinburgh fringe, and is reportedly set to follow in the footsteps of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer and become a TV series in the near future. Based on Franks's own experiences, it tells the story of a working-class scouse lass who gets into Cambridge University, where she is confronted and confounded by arcane rituals, class prejudice and obscene privilege. After a sell-out run at London's Soho theatre in January, it now visits Bristol Old Vic for five nights (before returning to Soho theatre in June) and is well worth catching (though it’s waiting-list only for Soho tickets) – and not just so that you can say you saw it in its earliest iteration.

Fergus Morgan, writer

Straight outta Margate in Kent comes this vibrant gang of cosmic-funk cowboys fronted by Guinean singer/percussionist Falle Nioke. Their launch show at a grotty east London pub in February was one of those frantic, thrilling, hugely hyped gigs where you watched the stage from under someone else’s armpit, and their new album, Outtanational, has that same tang of excitement, calling to mind the propulsive, playful rhythms of LCD Soundsystem, William Onyeabor and Hot Chip. Dig a little deeper, though, and songs like Black James Dean and Miami explore the meaning of home, belonging and identity at a time when Nioke – a formerly nomadic musician of the west African griot tradition turned bona fide rock star – was fighting for British citizenship. A must-see at all your favourite indie festivals this summer.

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

Delivered in brilliantly snackable 15-minute episodes, About the Girls finds the broadcaster Catherine Carr travelling across the UK to speak to 150 teenage girls about the realities of their lives today. Over five episodes, she covers womanhood, life online, education, sex and friendship, all led by what the girls have to say rather than being dominated by statistics or adult commentary (there are some great reflections from experts, but they’re secondary). Carr did the same exercise with boys in 2024, following Covid-19, #MeToo and the rise of Andrew Tate, and the latest results are moving, maddening and left me wanting more – always a good sign.

This is the perfect sort of audio content: Carr has a warm and engaging style that clearly creates trust with her interviewees. She seems genuinely not to come with an agenda or pre-planned story to tell through vox pops – and consequently the girls, from places as far apart as Dartmoor and Dumfries, open up beautifully and eloquently, in a way that just wouldn’t be possible on TV and would be less engaging in print. 

Whether hearing one young woman talk, heartbreakingly, about her experiences of sexual violence, or catching a group of friends interviewed together laughing and spontaneously saying they loved each other, the series felt insightful and intimate. Yes, it left me continuing to be depressed about the state of many things (not least the pressures of digital life and the influence of porn on first sexual relationships) but there was also hope and a sense that youthful optimism is still alive and kicking.

Imogen Carter, Nerve co-founder

Boublil and Schönberg’s epic musical about a young couple brought together and torn apart by the Vietnam war is reborn in a timely production directed by Jean-Pierre van der Spuy that interrogates American identity and challenges our own attitudes to immigration.

Kim (Julianne Pundan) has just arrived at a Saigon brothel when she is brought together with Chris (Jack Kane), a disillusioned GI drawn to her pure appearance compared to the mangled wreck of the world around them. The fall of Saigon prevents Chris from taking her back to the US, and she is left behind, fighting to protect the son he’s unaware of in a regime that despises the children of GIs.

It’s compellingly told and richly produced, but far from an easy watch – with scenes including Kim and her tiny boy leaving Vietnam on a cramped, wave-tossed raft reminiscent of those that carry desperate families across the English Channel. 

The electrically charismatic Seann Miley Moore brings a blast of energy as the Engineer – the brothel owner and weaver of false dreams – whose biggest number, The American Dream, has Miley Moore swinging from a huge dollar sign above a whirl of dancers holding stars-and-stripes fans.

“I’m an American, how can I fail to do good?” laments now-married Chris, still half-hoping for a neat solution to the chaotic aftermath of war. Given world events taking place outside the theatre, it’s a line that lands even more ironically.

Laura Davis, writer

CULTURE
Bold Tendencies
(Peckham multi-storey car park, Rye Lane, London SE15, 15 May-12 September)

The 20th anniversary season of this classical music and arts festival – where the performance space is a concrete car park in south London – opens with 18-year-old pianist Ryan Wang, 2024’s BBC Young Musician of the Year, and closes with Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor performed by 80 singers of the Philharmonia Chorus, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Tess Jackson.

THEATRE
Our Public House
(Leeds Playhouse, Friday 15 May - Saturday 23 May then touring to Prescot, Coventry, Cornwall, Sheffield and London)

Written by Barney Norris and created by Dash Arts, Our Public House is a state of the nation play set in a pub, The Albion, on the brink of closure. It’s inspired by the real words of more than 600 people across the UK and, alongside the main cast, will feature a local ensemble in every location where it’s staged.

THEATRE
Arcadia
(Duke of York’s theatre, London WC2, 20 June-12 September)

“No play epitomises Tom Stoppard’s improbable ambition more than his 1993 masterpiece Arcadia,” according to the Nerve’s theatre critic Dorian Lynskey. And now the Old Vic’s Olivier-nominated recent production, directed by Carrie Cracknell, has announced a West End transfer for a limited run from June.

ART
Lucian Freud: Drawing Into Painting
(National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, closes 4 May)

A lovely, luminous dive into the role drawing played throughout the artist’s life, this exhibition features 170 of Freud’s drawings, etchings and paintings, including sketchbooks and love letters.