Recommended by Alice Josephs

Structured at first as two separate monologues before two diverse personalities come together, this clever, affecting play draws us first into the current lives of Miki and Will before leading us backwards in time and, eventually, unravelling the mysteries of the past. Reflecting different backgrounds, landscapes, harsh realities and sticking points in uncertain lives, Lin rhythmically builds up a nuanced prism of a script while deftly bringing into focus the fate of a city tour guide and a stand up comedian needing to reconnect before they can make a fresh start in their lives.

A piquant chain reaction of a play with every character a strong link. A restaurant owner and his widowed Mum, a delectably sharp-tongued senior, act as the pivots around which a sisterhood forms to celebrate women’s singleness and singularity in a tyrannically couple-driven world. Divided into five scenes with vigorous characterisation and a deliciously impish humour, the reader or audience is drawn into a delightful dramatic debate about relationships with smart cookies prepared to change their fortunes at the start of the Chinese New Year - all with a side of dumplings too!

Sometime in the future nearly everyone is relegated to garbage picking and told to keep the status quo. But that’s definitely not the rock group because pollution has poisoned the Earth and the heart of the man who rules and decrees there will be no rock. A sharply written, pacey, compassionate, character-driven piece with unexpected twists and turns in its male and female roles and a happy ending anyone who’s ever played air guitar in their bedroom will appreciate.

Taking a Tennessee Williams’ quote as its title, this backstage drama charts the return to the theatre of a veteran actress in what would eventually be a twilight career triumph. Delicately structured between monologue and ensemble playing, it takes us into the inner life of a fragile star and the making of an American classic. McCasland encapsulates the uncertainties, tension and dynamics of the rehearsal process where both actress and playwright eventually merge with their own creation.

History, we used to be told, is written by the victors. But some of those victors have lived long enough to enter the age of mobiles, the internet and rolling news. In this succinct revision of the Greek myth Apollo for the #Metoo era, a political golden boy unravels during the course of his made-for-TV speech and mobile phone-led news updates. Joshua Young captures with arrow-sharp accuracy the brazen tone of a caught-out but lawyered up legislator in a piece which would be equally effective on stage or screen.

A pair of sisterly ghosts hitch a lift on a car bumper to their hometown - more than half a century after their untimely deaths. A whirling banshee of a short, propelled by the energy of adventurous spirits where a town, the past and the present day are introduced and two feisty haints ‘live’ to fight another day.

In life as in horse racing there are runners and riders, winners and losers. Over several scenes, set during the opening hours of a state-run betting shop, four punters, all with their own hopes, fears and pipe dreams, place their bets, banter and bicker with the cashier and amongst themselves. Against a background of factory layoffs, their stories, blue and white collar, and desperation emerge, while occasional wins outweighed by losses become a cracked mirror of the town’s economy. Oddball characters gain our affections in spite of themselves in this poignant, subtly structured, ebbing and flowing ensemble piece.

A slick and funny three-hander when an ambitious couple set out to rig the system in favour of their second grader daughter. With three pithily defined personalities holding their own, what makes this short a stand out is the unseen fourth person in the mix of this parent-teacher meeting. The little girl herself caught up in the shenanigans emerges, through the assessment of her teacher, as a little heroine who we would love to know more about - a beacon of sanity in a crazed competitive world.

Sickles skilfully presents a tale of Soviet art through the arrest and trial of a celebrated dissident novelist’s mistress. Deftly combining several time lines through integrated flashback and an array of compelling characters, the playwright weaves a complex, nuanced story. The influence of a Nobel Prize-winning novel as a testament to the love of a woman and a country on the lives of a mother and daughter encompasses art, human relationships, politics and money with clarity and craft. An epic play in a tribute to an epic book.

The voice of an American Catholic woman ambushed by an unexpected genealogical revelation comes over with enormous clarity in this piece. All the better for a straightforward structure, reflecting the teller’s personality, the audience accompanies Theresa on a voyage of affecting, understated self discovery as she finds herself representative of people she had previously thought of as ‘other’. Most of all, it draws the audience into her journey, how as a woman with grown up children, she finds her remembrance of times past changed for ever and bookended by a hitherto hidden part of her family history.