Monday
The interactive Christmas family adventure The Lost Gift is at Warwick Arts Centre. The Sound of Music takes up residence at the Lowry in Salford over the festive season. Roald Dahl’s The Witches should be scary at the Curve in Leicester. Hairspray arrives at the New Alexandra theatre in Birmingham. Pins and Needles’ version of Raymond Briggs’s The Bear is at the Albany in Deptford, south-east London. James Joyce’s The Dead is read by Aidan Gillen this week and next in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker space at Shakespeare’s Globe, London.
Tuesday
Theatre Hullabaloo’s Bear and Butterfly begins at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick (it is open for business amid regional flooding, but advises that you check your travel route), where the main house is hosting Charles Way’s version of The Snow Queen. Annie, with Jodie Prenger as Miss Hannigan, settles into the New Theatre Oxford. The brilliant Oily Cart bring a show for the very young, The Land of Lights, to Arts Depot, north London. Holy Presents, opening at Camden People’s Theatre, is a puppet comedy featuring the Holy Trinity. Idle Motion are at the New Diorama in London with their intriguing Bletchley Park drama That Is all You Need to Know, which explores the damaging legacy of secrets and lies.
Wednesday
The brilliant Common Wealth are working with Manchester’s Contact Young Company on How to be Better, a show exploring the pressures of Christmas. In Cardiff, National Theatre Wales are offering an alternative Christmas entertainment in The Insatiable, Inflatable Candylion, which is part gig and part theatre and employs the talents of Gruff Rhys, Tim Price and Wils Wilson. Salisbury Playhouse’s annual musical revue begins in the Salberg Studio, and this year the theme is money in Can’t Buy Me Love.
Thursday
MR James’s ghost stories are retold at the Lighthouse in Poole in A Pleasing Terror. Family audiences would do better with Angel Exit’s Otto and Robin, a story of friendship and shyness, at the same venue.
Friday and the weekend
Chichester Youth Theatre often deliver a festive cracker, and this year it’s Bryony Lavery’s version of A Christmas Carol in the Festival theatre. At the Theatre Shop in Clevedon, Somerset, from Saturday, is the Nutshell Nutcracker, which is written by Toby Hulse and performed by two dancers and two actors, and includes a reimagined Tchaikovsky score. Also from Saturday, Pirates of the Carabina’s circus show, Flown, creates acrobatic mayhem at Brighton Dome over the festive period.
