MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Fangs for nothing
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by characters so un-nuanced as to be unreal, a stereotypical plot and a conceptual vampire
UN-NUANCED: Sophie Melville, Leander Deeny, Laura Whitmore in Apex Predator
[Ellie Kurttz] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Apex Predator
Hampstead Theatre, London
★★
FOR more than 60 years, Hampstead Theatre has enjoyed a pivotal role. Bravely pioneering in spirit, it has periodically brought us world-class drama, thrilling new playwrights, great actors and eager audiences, while still retaining an atmosphere of local togetherness.
Lately, however, there have been some ups and downs. And, sadly, Apex Predator is a down.
Playwright John Donnelly has acclaimed stage and screen work to his name, and has no doubt been regarded as a catch by the Hampstead Theatre planning team. He has a purposeful agenda to this play and it premieres at Hampstead with all guns blazing. But the story is half-baked, as if jotted in bullet points on the back of a cigarette packet.
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