Monday
The Manipulate festival is in full swing at the Traverse in Edinburgh this week with lots of eye-catching visual theatre from homegrown and international companies. It’s your final chance for Brian Friel’s mighty Faith Healer at the Lyceum in Edinburgh, and for Will Eno’s wonderfully unsettling Title and Deed at the Print Room at the Coronet.
Tuesday
Sally Cookson directs musical storytellers supreme The Devil’s Violin at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, where you can still catch the eye-popping Fleabag until Saturday, too. Two hits return to BAC: Ridiculusmus’s startling, psychosis-inspired The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland, and Paper Odyssey’s illustrated-storytelling show Odyssey.
Wednesday
Remember The Bloody Ballad? If you loved that, and plenty did, then Gagglebabble are back with The Forsythe Sisters, a ghostly musical tale of visitations and transgressions which takes place in Cardiff’s Norwegian Church. Also in Wales, Grav at the Torch in Milford Haven celebrates the life of rugby legend Ray Gravell. In Sheffield at the Crucible Studio, Richard Wilson directs a 20th-anniversary revival of Sarah Kane’s Blasted as part of a season celebrating the playwright’s work. British troops returning from Afghanistan is the context for the talented Hal Chambers’ revival of Much Ado at St James Church in Reading. DV8’s visually stunning John stops off at Warwick Arts Centre from tonight until Friday. Zinnie Harris’s How to Hold Your Breath, directed by Vicky Featherstone, starring Maxine Peake and exploring recent European history, previews at the Royal Court. At the revitalised Orange Tree, David Mercatali directs Alice Birch’s Little Light, about clinging on for dear life and letting go. Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author arrives at the Barbican in Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota’s acclaimed, dream-like revival for Theatre de la Ville. The Vault festival continues with Filter’s Macbeth, as well as Vinay Patel’s story about being British of Asian descent, True Brits.
Thursday
Rona Munro’s latest, Scuttlers, at the Royal Exchange looks at Manchester street gangs in the 19th century and the present day. Caroline Quentin stars in April de Angelis’ take on The Life and Times of Fanny Hill at Bristol Old Vic. The latest from Timberlake Wertenbaker, Jefferson’s Garden, a tale of revolution, idealism and pragmatism, starts at Watford Palace. Terry Hands directs Hamlet at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold. Gods and Monsters, inspired by the life of the openly gay 1930s Frankenstein director, James Whale, begins at Southwark Playhouse.
Friday and the weekend
If you loved Two Destination Language’s Near Gone at Edinburgh this year, you can get a first glimpse of the company’s latest, Manpower, a celebration of everyday maleness, at the Weston Studio in Bath. Amy Sharrock’s lovely Museum of Water (exactly what it says) takes up residence at the Storey Institute in Lancaster. Leanne Best and Con O’Neill star in the 35th-anniversary revival of Willy Russell’s Educating Rita at the Liverpool Playhouse. At Birmingham Rep, Maureen Lipman and James Dreyfus star in Lindsay Posner’s production of Harvey, about a man who is friends with a 6ft-tall invisible rabbit. David Hare’s The Absence of War, about an opposition Labour leader looking to get into No 10, is revived by Headlong at Sheffield Crucible.
