The Independent Recommends: Theatre

YOU CAN see why Conor Lovett has been compared to the likes of Eddie Izzard and Ardal O'Hanlon, as well as great Samuel Beckett (below) interpreters such as Patrick McGee and Barry McGovern. Lovett delivers extracts from the 1951 novel Molloy with a beautiful haziness which perfectly accommodates the absurd one-liners, the coarse gallows humour and speculative riddling of this lost soul, hobbling his way to his old ma, "whose charity kept me dying".

Riverside Studios, London W6 (0171-420 0000) 7.45pm

Method and Madness's version of James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia attempts to cram in as many of the savage plot-twists surrounding the obsessive central murder investigation as possible. But director Mike Alfreds still cranks up the tension with a dynamic visual approach which relishes Ellroy's dystopian vision of Forties LA.

Poole Arts Centre, Dorset (01202 685 222) 7.45pm