Monday
There’s lots of good stuff at the Brighton festival today, including the ongoing Paines Plough Roundabout season, which includes Duncan Macmillan’s wonderful Lungs and the Without Walls commissions, bringing high quality outdoor work to Saltdean Oval from noon. There’s plenty to check out too at the Brighton fringe, in venues all over the city. In London, Michael Frayn’s latest, Matchbox Theatre, opens at Hampstead theatre.
Tuesday
The Full Monty really is good old-fashioned fun, and it’s back at the Lyceum in Sheffield. Jonathan Miller’s King Lear hits the Lowry in Salford. The Flying Solo festival kicks off at Contact in Manchester with Louise Orwin, the Vacuum Cleaner and Christopher Brett Bailey among those involved. Interactive theatre-makers Coney’s Early Days of a Better Nation allows you to build the future: it’s at the Point in Eastleigh tonight and tomorrow, before moving on to the Unity in Liverpool as part of U Decide, a five-day political theatre season that also features Paines Plough’s truly brilliant Every Brilliant Thing, and Chris Thorpe’s Confirmation. Sleepwalk Collective and Omar El-Khairy are this week’s pairing at the Yard in Hackney, London. Always worth a punt.
Wednesday
Anonymous P considers you and your data and how technology tells on us. It’s at the Arches in Glasgow, where this week you can also see new work from Nic Green and Andy Field as part of the Behaviour festival of live performance. Also in Glasgow, the Tron’s Mayfesto season begins with NTS’s Rites, exploring female genital mutilation, and continues with Greyscale’s fantastic God’s are Fallen and All Safety Gone, exploring familial relationships. Little Soldier’s The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is really lovely, and it’s at Jackson’s Lane in Highgate, north London, from tonight. Also in London, Greg Wohead’s The Ted Bundy project will really get under your skin at Shoreditch Town Hall, and Chris Goode’s verbatim piece Stand, featuring everyday stories of ordinary heroism, continues at Battersea Arts Centre, where you can also see Katy Baird’s engagingly layered Work-Shy which ponders employment, money and value.
Thursday
Brecht’s Mother Courage gets a Valleys makeover with a new version from National Theatre Wales, starting at the Merthyr Tydfil Labour Club. The Flanagan Collective’s all-female Romeo and Juliet plays the candle-lit St Olave’s Church in York from tonight. New York iconoclasts Mabou Mines are at the Brighton festival with Lucia’s Chapters of Coming Forth by Day inspired by James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia. Also as part of the festival, don’t miss Touretteshero’s joyous Backstage in Biscuit Land. The reimagined Selkie myth Lorraine and Alan stops off at the Curve in Leicester tonight. Or you could stay home and watch James Graham and Josie Rouke’s The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse, being live-streamed on More4 tonight, starting at 8.25pm before the polls close. The Expert View is a two-day microfestival of discussion and performance in east London, exploring arts and mental health expertise. It’s chaired by the incomparable Bobby Baker and includes performances from Laura Jane Dean, Selina Thompson and more.
Friday and the weekend
The Norfolk and Norwich festival begins, and includes the world premiere of Wild Works’ Wolf’s Child at Felbrigg Hall in north Norfolk, and a chance this weekend to see Kim Noble’s You’re Not Alone at Norwich Arts Centre and the crowd-pleasing circus show Bromance at St George’s theatre in Great Yarmouth. The mind-boggling but compelling The Christeene Machine is at the Arches in Glasgow tonight, and tomorrow you can catch Christopher Brett Bailey’s This is How We Die there. Don’t tarry. Anna Karenina arrives at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, from Manchester. Greek tragedy relocates to Wales in Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott at the Sherman in Cardiff from tonight.
