Monday
Ben Haggarty’s The Iron Man is a fairytale for grown-ups, performed tonight only at Soho theatre as part of its monthly storytelling slot. It’s the last chance for James Graham’s dissection of parliamentary procedure, This House, at the Minerva in Chichester, before it heads to the West End. The Gaul, about a trawler that disappeared without trace, is well worth seeing at Hull Truck until Saturday.
Tuesday
Ivo van Hove directs David Bowie and Enda Walsh’s Lazarus at the King’s Cross theatre. Deborah Warner directs Glenda Jackson as King Lear at the Old Vic. The Belfast international festival moves towards its conclusion with a performance from the incomparable Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music with a focus on the first world war years. Action Hero’s Wrecking Ball, about an encounter between a celebrity and a creepy photographer, stops off at the Place in Bedford. Sh!t Theatre’s very smart and very necessary Women’s Hour is at Warwick Arts Centre. Rachel O’Riordan’s revival of Conor McPherson’s pub ghost story, The Weir, moves to the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. Tom Wells’ Broken Biscuits, about a band founded in a garden shed, moves to the Drum in Plymouth. Howard Brenton’s 1970s political drama, Magnificence, is revived at the Finborough. Flute Theatre’s version of The Tempest, for children on the autism spectrum, is at Richmond’s Orange Tree. Sophie Melville was astonishing in Iphigenia in Splott and now she plays opposite Christian Patterson in David Harrower’s Blackbird at the Other Room in Cardiff.
Wednesday
Tajinder Singh-Hayer’s North Country, a story of teenage survival, is staged in a disused Marks and Spencer in Bradford in the latest production from Freedom Studios. The latest from Christopher Brett Bailey, Kissing the Shotgun Goodnight, described as a “neo-noir fever dream” is at the Junction in Cambridge. Nigel Barrett and Louise Mari’s Margate/Dreamland reflects on imminent collapse at Shoreditch Town Hall. The Sri Lankan civil war is under the spotlight in The Island Nation at the Arcola. Simon Evans revives Fool for Love at Found111 in Soho, London. The Spill festival begins in Ipswich offering five days of live art, performance, installation and debate catering for all tastes and all ages, including work for families and kids.
Thursday
Cora Bissett directs Jumpy, April De Angelis’s comedy about getting older and losing your ideals, at the Lyceum in Edinburgh. Ian McDiarmid plays Enoch Powell in Chris Hannan’s What Shadows at Birmingham Rep, looking at the legacy of Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. Rosie Wyatt is just fab in Clara Brennan’s Spine and it’s at Sheffield Crucible Studio until Saturday. Fevered Sleep’s Men & Girls Dance, in which professional male dancers perform with eight-to-11-year-old girls, is at the Attenborough Centre in Brighton. The Duke is thoughtful and compassionate and necessary, and it’s at Sally Ann’s Salvation Army Charity Shop in Cambridge tonight and tomorrow, and at Hot Numbers Coffee on Saturday. Grown Up at Camden People’s theatre in London is a show performed by children speaking the words of adults answering questions about being a grown-up. Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Julius Caesar joins The Tempest, starring Harriet Walter, in rep at the Donmar’s temporary King’s Cross space. Third Angel are a company never afraid to grapple with big ideas and they do so in 600 People, which is at the Pyramid and Parr Hall in Warrington tonight. Luke Wright’s What I Learned from Johnny Bevan, about New Labour and its shattered dreams, is at the Nuffield in Lancaster tonight.
Friday and the weekend
Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy starts previewing at Nottingham Playhouse and it’s directed by Fiona Buffini. Also beginning tonight at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, a revival of Hugh Whitemore’s Alan Turing play Breaking the Code, a massive hit for Derek Jacobi in the 1980s. The Citizens community production, The Gorbals Vampire, plays in Glasgow’s Citizens theatre, written by Johnny McKnight and inspired by an incident in 1950s when schoolchildren set out to find and kill a man with iron teeth rumoured to have eaten two schoolboys. Friday also sees Jason Robert Brown directing his own musical, The Last Five Years, with Samantha Barks and Jonathan Bailey at the St James Theatre. All My Sons is revived by Michael Rudman at the Rose in Kingston. Conor McPherson’s new version of Franz Xaver Kroetz’s The Nest, about new parents who only want the best for their child, is at the Young Vic.
