The Doctor is an acclaimed drama from the pen of writer-director Robert Icke. We’re in a hospital run by a famous medic, Dr Ruth, whom the Cockney characters call ‘Dr Roof’. Two major problems beset Dr Roof who has to raise funds for a new private wing while grappling with her partner’s early-onset dementia. A Catholic priest barges in and demands to visit a dying patient. Dr Roof refuses. Then she punches him in the face to prove who’s boss. Her ill-advised left hook plunges the hospital into crisis, and the senior staff gather in the boardroom to sort out the mess created by Dr Roof’s violent temper. All the doctors wear white coats, like pantomime boffins, which seems an unlikely costume nowadays. And it’s hard to tell if this is a real or a fictional clinic. It doesn’t look like a TV hospital because the medics aren’t attractive enough, and it doesn’t look like a genuine hospital because the medics aren’t fat enough.

There’s another impediment to the play’s intelligibility: most of the characters have an alter ego. Dr Brian, for example, is a black female who identifies as a white male. Dr Roger suffers from the same delusion. A woman called Sami, once a man, dresses and talks like a teenage girl. An Asian MP played by Preeya Kalidas poses as an Anglo-Saxon female called Jemima. And an actor with a Jewish name, Daniel Rabin, plays a character called Dr Murphy who may be Irish and a woman. Or a giraffe perhaps. This show isn’t afraid of springing surprises. Incidentally, the priest thumped by Dr Roof asserts that he’s black although a white actor takes the role. And when we move to Dr Roof’s home we meet her lover, Charlie, who appears to be an Afro-Caribbean lesbian (although she may turn out to be a non-binary Egyptian scaffolder called Dennis).

Eventually it becomes clear that this pick-and-mix of ethnicities and genders is a joke aimed at identity politics. But the joke doesn’t stretch to the plot which revolves around conspiracies based on racial and sexual alliances. The characters constantly declare their gender, their ethnic background and their religion as they bicker and screech in the boardroom. And they divide up into factions determined by skin colour or faith. No one cares about medical ability. What a hellish place to work. Every figure on stage is an angry quarrelsome bigot. Juliet Stevenson brings some traces of warmth and softness to Dr Roof but none of the other players can match her.

In Act Two, the story shifts to a current affairs programme, Take the Debate, in which Dr Roof faces a panel of experts who plainly despise her. It’s unclear why she agreed to be grilled in public by these nasty bullies, and the scene merely regurgitates the chippy, malevolent dialogue of Act One.

Things cool off in the final half-hour as Dr Roof has a chat about euthanasia with the black priest whom she assaulted in scene one. (The black priest, by the way, is still white.) But the issue of euthanasia has no connection with the plot about the religious rights of dying patients. What a mirthless, artless farrago of jabber this is. How did it happen? Don’t blame Icke, the scribbler. He’s an innocent victim. The fault lies with the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam which awarded him the title ‘Ibsen Artist in Residence’. No writer could survive such a burden and the poor chap simply collapsed under the weight of expectation.

A brand new theatre has opened in a university building near Regent’s Park. The first show, Dmitry, is based on a drama left unfinished by Friedrich Schiller at his death in 1805. Peter Oswald has turned it into a swaggering Shakespearean history play. We’re in Russia in the early 17th century where the reign of Boris Godunov is threatened by Dmitry who claims to be the son of Ivan the Terrible and therefore the rightful heir. But is he an imposter? His mother, the former tsarina, affirms that Dmitry is her long-lost child but she may be fibbing to save her skin.

This is a grand, dense, exhilarating show. Weighty themes. Plenty of battles and violence. A plot crowded with stunts and reversals of fortune. Perhaps, in the second half, the rhythmic parade of dramatic surprises becomes a little predictable. And the venue feels very strange because the panelled walls and squashy blue seats remind you that you’re in a lecture hall rather than the heart of Russia. This is a reasonable debut if not a great one. The venue is a long way from theatreland, so play-goers must break new ground to find it. To put it on the map, the owners should produce a show led by a household name. Stars are expensive but they’re not a luxury. They’re an essential purchase.