Monday
Want to see something a bit wild, genuinely exciting and completely distinctive? Then check out Alistair McDowall’s scary and scarily good Pomona at the Orange Tree. Don’t delay: it’s your last chance for The Cherry Orchard at the Young Vic; well worth queuing for returns. Mary Norton’s classic tale of little people, The Borrowers, is at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme, where they always put on a great seasonal show.
Tuesday
Christmas is a rare revival of a Simon Stephens play set in an East End pub. It’s at the White Bear in Kennington. Silent Planet, a poetic fable about the power of words, starts at the Finborough. Jamie Lloyd revives Sondheim’s killer musical Assassins at the Menier. Fancy some immersive theatre by the river Thames? If you go into the Bargehouse in SE1 you can catch six Grimm Tales, in versions by Philip Pullman. Still time for Verity Standen’s a cappella musical journey, Mmm Hmm, at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol until Saturday. This week is also your last chance for the astonishing Grounded, about a woman flying remote-controlled drones over the Middle East; it’s at Banbury tonight, then Colchester and Oxford. Info here. You have the rest of the week to catch Action Hero’s sly tribute to teen movies and underdogs, Hoke’s Bluff, which stays at Shoreditch Town Hall until Saturday.
Wednesday
Selina Thompson’s much-admired Chewing the Fat considers weighty issues at CPT in Camden tonight and tomorrow – I’m very much looking forward to seeing it. Barney Norris’s quietly enticing Visitors, about a family falling apart, settles in until 10 January at the Bush. Jack Thorne’s Hope, a play about squeezed local government, is directed by John Tiffany at the Royal Court from tonight. Also previewing from tonight in the Lyttelton: Tena Štivičić’s 3 Winters, about a Zagreb family surviving from 1945 to 2011, directed by Howard Davies. Check out the Sacred Programme at Chelsea theatre, which tonight includes Mamoru Iriguchi’s 4D Cinema and later in the week offers the world premiere of Stacy Makishi’s Vesper Time, an evening of secular prayer. Ella Hickson reimagines Arthurian legend in Merlin at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton. Let’s hope it’s spellbinding.
Thursday
Long-time survivors The People Show premiere show number 127: Hands Off. Featuring three generations of People Show artists, this piece about gaming is at Toynbee Studios until Saturday. Imitating the Dog finish their tour of an ingenious staging of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms at the Old Market in Brighton.
Friday and the weekend
On Friday Anything Goes starts previewing at the Crucible in Sheffield with Daniel Evans directing. The omens are good. On Saturday night, Phil Porter’s The Christmas Truce about the Christmas Eve football match in no man’s land in 1914 starts at the RST in Stratford upon Avon. From Sunday, Aurin Squire’s Obama-ology at the Finborough (on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesday matinees) looks at the black minority of East Cleveland through the eyes of a black college-graduate campaigning for Obama in 2008.
• This column was amended on 25 November 2014. An earlier version of Thursday’s item said that The People Show is at Toynbee Hall, rather than Toynbee Studios.
