Monday
Sh!t Theatre’s Sing-a-long-a Muppet Christmas Carol should be fun at Camden People’s theatre. In his show Icons at Soho theatre, London, the cabaret star Le Gateau Chocolat explores his personal objects of worship, performing songs by Kate Bush, Whitney Houston and more. For more alternative Christmas entertainment, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern’s Charming Dick at the Cockpit should be camp fun. Also in the capital, The Flanagan Collective’s A Christmas Carol at the Arts theatre invites you to Mr Scrooge’s house for a two-course Christmas feast.
Tuesday
Marisa Carnesky aims to put the magic back into menstruation with Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman at Soho theatre. Matthew Bulgo’s Last Christmas, about growing up and facing your demons, is at the Traverse in Edinburgh, which also has Black Beauty. David Walliams’s space adventure The First Hippo on the Moon, sets out on tour from the Royal Hippodrome in Eastbourne. There are two great shows for younger members of the family: Oily Cart’s In a Pickle, inspired by The Winter’s Tale, is at Arts Depot in London, and one of my favourite shows of 2015, Theatre Rites’ Beasty Baby, is back and at Lakeside in Nottingham.
Wednesday
Baddies: The Musical and Boing! are both hit family shows at the Unicorn, London. Dreamgirls opens at the Savoy theatre. The Snow Child and Annie Get Your Gun are at the Crucible in Sheffield. Thebes Land by Franco-Uruguayan playwright Sergio Blanco considers classical and contemporary myth-making and is definitely worth your time at the Arcola in London, where you can also catch Samantha Ellis’s clever romcom How to Date a Feminist.
Thursday
Shon Dale-Jones’s The Duke, asking what we really value, is at the Pit at the Barbican. The York Theatre Royal’s John Cooper Studio is where you can find the Guild of Misrule’s version of The Great Gatsby. Alan Lane from Slung Low directs The Siege of Christmas, which is interactive fun at the Contact in Manchester. Mr Popper’s Penguins arrives at the Criterion in London; I saw it at the Lowry in January and it’s good fun.
Friday and the weekend
The RSC’s Love Labour’s Lost and Much Ado, set before and after the first world war, have settled into the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Cinderella at the London Palladium is so stuffed with stars it surely can’t be a turkey. Murray Schisgal’s 1960s comedy, Luv, is revived at the Park in north London. Mac Barnett’s book Extra Yarn is adapted for the over-threes at the Orange Tree in Richmond. You’re supposed to go wearing your favourite jumper …
