Monday
Did you love The Father, currently playing at the Tricycle? Then get down to the Ustinov studio in Bath for The Mother, also written by Florian Zeller and translated by Christopher Hampton. Blythe Duff and Cliff Burnett star in Into That Darkness at the Citizens in Glasgow, based on Gitta Sereny’s interviews with former SS officer Franz Stangl, who sent a million people to their deaths in Nazi Germany. The terrific and playful Henry the Fifth, inspired by Shakespeare, is back at the Unicorn in London, a treat for young and old. For one night only, catch the wonderful and heartbreaking Every Brilliant Thing at the North Wall in Oxford tonight before it heads to Brighton, Folkstone and Havant later in the week. Freeze! at the Brighton Festival has a man called Nick Steur balancing rocks on top of each other – believe me, it’s utterly compelling. Polarbear’s Back Down is at the Roundhouse in London as part of The Last Word festival.
Tuesday
The Siege, inspired by the story of the Palestinian fighters who took refuge in the Church of the Holy Nativity, and performed by Freedom Theatre, the ensemble based in the Jenin Refugee camp, is at Battersea Arts Centre from tonight. Cora Bissett and Yusra Warsama’s Rites, exploring FGM and based on interviews with women and girls affected, is at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol as part of Mayfest. Joseph Wilde’s gothic, shivery vampire tale, Cuddles, stops off at the Royal Exchange in Manchester from tonight. The Royal Court’s touring production of Nick Payne’s dazzling Constellations, about the infinite possibilities of one relationship, is at the Liverpool Playhouse. Head to the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock for Yer Granny, Douglas Maxwell’s new version of La Nona, about a 100-year-old granny with a voracious appetite. Two shows worth your time at the Brighton Festival tonight are Claire Cunningham’s Hieronymus Bosch-inspired Give Me a Reason to Live, and the UK premiere of Raphaëlle Boitel’s The Forgotten, in which circus meets illusion. The Gallipoli campaign is considered in Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year, which starts at the Finborough tonight. Simon Godwin’s revival of The Beaux’ Stratagem begins at the National Theatre in London. This week’s double bill at The Yard features Daniel Bye’s Going Viral, which looks at how, among other things, disease, ideas and panic spread in society.
Wednesday
Tim Crouch and Andy Smith’s low-key, thoughtful and moving piece What Happens to the Hope at the End of the Evening is part of Mayfest in Bristol, where other goodies this week include Wrecking Ball, the work in progress from Action Hero, Chris Thorpe’s Confirmation, Christopher Brett Bailey’s This Is How We Die, and Dead Centre’s Lippy.
Thursday
The wonderfully playful and anarchic Don Quijote chops up the Cervantes classic at the Sheffield Crucible Studio tonight and tomorrow. Yukio Ninagawa’s Hamlet, performed in Japanese with English surtitles, is at the Barbican from tonight.
Friday and the weekend
Tonight Periplum close the Norfolk and Norwich festival’s outdoor programme with the book-burning 451, based on Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel. Also on Friday, Wendy Houstoun’s Pact with Pointlessness is at the Unity in Liverpool. On Saturday night I’ll be on the panel for A Nation’s Theatre, a debate about nationhood, devolution and the arts at Home, part of the house-warming weekend for Manchester’s new arts centre, the biggest outside London, where you can also see Ödön von Horváth’s Kasimir and Karoline reimagined as The Funfair by Simon Stephens. The summer season at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick begins on Saturday with a revival of Tennessee Williams’ steamy gothic shocker, Suddenly Last Summer. In Hull on Saturday? Check out the Assemble Fest on Newland Avenue. Figs in Wigs’ Show Off is a pleasure, and it’s one of the shows at the Watch Out festival at the Junction in Cambridge all day on Saturday.
