Britain is rightly proud of its record on multiculturalism, but whenever cross-cultural couples are shown on film, television or the stage they are always represented as a problem. Not just as a normal way of life, but as something that is going wrong. I suppose that this is a valuable corrective to patting ourselves on the back about how tolerant a society we are, but do such correctives make a good play?

It's been raining in Regent's Park. On a balmy summer evening during a prolonged dry spell – perfect for outdoor theatrics – it seems ironic to tempt fate by creating artificial downpours and thunderstorms.

"I am dead," declares Okot before recounting the horrors he survived to reach Calais. Each time, he says, "I died." How many times can you die before you are truly dead?

Aidan Turner may not reveal those famously bronzed pecs that have made TV's Poldark box office catnip in his West End debut. But what Michael Grandage's funny and fiery revival of The Lieutenant of Inishmore reveals in spades is the irresistible charisma and stage savvy of an actor fully at home in what can only be called Martin McDonagh-land.

History repeats itself. This much we know. In the 1980s, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, the big new thing was “event theatre”, huge shows that amazed audiences because of their epic qualities and marathon slog. A good example is David Edgar’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, an eight-and-a-half hour adaptation of the Dickens novel.

Shall we dodge? (One, two, three) No, the brilliance of Bartlett Sher’s Tony-winning Lincoln Center revival – first on Broadway in 2015, now gracing the West End, with its original leads – is that it faces the problematic elements of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1951 musical head on.

Gender-bending, confused identities, and hedonistic anarchy go together as naturally in summer Shakespeare as strawberries and cucumbers in Pimms, and in Tatty Hennessy’s exuberant alfresco version of As You Like It, touring to squares across the capital, the mix proves an appropriately heady combination.

“A sad tale’s best for winter,” Leontes’ young son Mamillius tells us. By that logic the current summer heatwave should be bringing us a Winter’s Tale overflowing with joy – the songs of Bohemia drowning out the shouted accusations and desperate howls of Sicilia. But that’s not what director Blanche McIntyre has in mind.

The Faction’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a production in which women are more likely to kick ass than sleep with one – a muscular, mischievous take on the Bard’s most light-hearted play about forbidden love. As might be expected, this boldly dynamic theatre company takes all that is most sinister and subversive about the work, and spins a stereotype-smashing evening of pagan delights.

We are now pretty familiar with the idea that human reproduction (making babies) has been turned into big business, and there have already been several good recent plays about desperate couples and surrogacy – Vivienne Franzmann’s Bodies and Satinder Chohan’s Made in India – so is there any more to be said about giving nature a helping hand? This Hampstead Theatre certainly thinks so.