Monday
Philip Ridley’s latest, Radiant Vermin, is at Soho theatre this week. Zoë Wanamaker is terrific in Stevie, about the poet Stevie Smith, at Hampstead.
Tuesday
The Sprint festival continues at Camden People’s theatre. Look out for 2Magpies’ The Litvinenko Project, in which they attempt to piece together the day on which Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned, and later in the week, new work by Rachel Mars and Jamal Harewood’s devastating The Privileged. At Theatre 503, other people’s lives are just a click away in Wink, the debut of Phoebe Eclair-Powell. In Belfast, Lost Martini claims to be the city’s first piece of immersive theatre; it’s played out in a secret jazz cafe. Talawa’s highly acclaimed all-black version of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is at Watford Palace for the rest of the week.
Wednesday
Verity Standen is at the Point in Eastleigh with the extraordinary immersive choral sound bath, Hug. The late Michael Hastings’s The Cutting of the Cloth, set in a Savile Row tailors in 1953, gets its world premiere at Southwark Playhouse from tonight. Mustapha Matura’s Play Mas, set in Port of Spain in the 1950s, is revived by Paulette Randall at the newly invigorated Orange Tree. Near Gone continues its tour and stops off at Eden Court in Inverness tonight, where I hope there’s a good florist for all the carnations used on stage.
Thursday
The latest from April de Angelis, After Electra, considers the choices made by one mother, and it’s at the Drum in Plymouth. The sleeper Edinburgh hit How to Disappear Completely, about death and stage lighting, is at the Old Market Brighton tonight and the Lowry in Salford tomorrow as part of the Sick festival. The festival also includes Yael Farber’s powerful Nirbhaya, which draws on the testimonies of those affected by rape and domestic abuse and is at Contact in Manchester on Saturday and Sunday. Post-Soviet life is examined with a merciless eye by Pavel Pryazhko in The Harvest, directed by Michael Boyd at the Ustinov in Bath. The praised revival of Laura Wade’s Posh, about the members of an elite Oxford dining club, moves to Salisbury Playhouse. Jamie Wood’s much-praised comedy Beating McEnroe is at the Traverse in Edinburgh from tonight. Tooting Arts Club’s terrific revival of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd starts a run in a pop-up at Harrington’s pie and mash shop on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.
Friday and the weekend
In the Dorfman, Sam Holcroft’s Rules for Living is a dark comedy about a family Christmas that goes wrong when everyone sticks to their own rules. Polly Teale and the wonderful Shared Experience re-imagine Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and use it to challenge myths about femininity. Mermaid sets out on a nationwide tour from Nottingham Playhouse. All or Nothing’s aerial dance show, Three’s a Crowd, is at Cumbernauld theatre on Friday night. The terrific Fat Man, a story of grief and donuts, stops off at the Hub in Leeds on Sunday evening.
