Sisters Hayley and Mandy McElhinney are two of Australia's finest stage and screen performers. Having built their careers as individuals, they now join forces for their playwriting debut. The pair have written and will star in Dirty Birds at the Black Swan State Theatre Company — a strange, funny and moving portrait of two women trying to find their place in the world.

Also, the plight of asylum seekers involved in a 2010 maritime disaster that left 50 people dead has inspired This Rough Magic — a new, dreamlike play that weaves their story into Shakespeare's The Tempest. And we take a walking tour of London's famous theatre district, the West End, with theatre producer and columnist for The Stage, Richard Jordan.