Monday
Ruth Wilson is Hedda Gabler in Patrick Marber’s new version for the National Theatre. Simon Russell Beale is a terrific Prospero in the hi-tech Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Alan Saunders’s version of The Emperor’s New Clothes joins The Borrowers at the Sherman in Cardiff in a production by the excellent Theatr Iolo. Rising young company Barrel Organ are in residence at Camden People’s theatre tonight with Live 4, an evening of scratch and experiment. Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams star in Schiller’s Mary Stuart directed by Robert Icke at the Almeida, Islington – each night Williams and Stevenson will be deciding who plays Mary and who plays Elizabeth I on the toss of a coin.
Tuesday
Alexander Zeldin’s heartbreaking Beyond Caring explored life for those on zero hours contracts; now he looks at families squashed together in temporary accommodation in Love at the National Theatre. Humanish take to the stage at Camden People’s theatre with a very alternative Christmas show, Holy Presents. Stuart Paterson’s Hansel and Gretel is the family show at the Citizens in Glasgow. If you can nab a ticket to the Donmar Shakespeare trilogy at King’s Cross you really should. JB Priestley’s comedy thriller Benighted is at the Old Red Lion, Islington.
Wednesday
What kind of a fashion factory owner would you be? Find out in the interactive World Factory at Home in Manchester. Matthew Lewis Miller questions others’ expectations of us in his solo show Sticking at the essential ARC in Stockton. New International Encounter tackle Beauty and the Beast at Cambridge Junction. Jack and the Beanstalk meets Kipling’s Ballad of East and West in Bollywood Jack at Tara theatre, Earslfield, south London. Eastern Angles have built a following for their larky Christmas shows, and Stoat Hall starts at the Sir John Mills in Ipswich today. Rent is revived at the St James theatre, London.
Thursday
The Situation Room, a night of performance and debate at Somerset House organised by Fuel, responds to a year of seismic change. Nic Green hosts, and there will be interventions from Jess Thom and others as well as conversations with academics. Greg Banks writes and directs Robin Hood, the Christmas show at the Egg in Bath. Playing next door at the Ustinov is the 1950s backstage drama about racism, Trouble in Mind. There are two shows starting at Live in Newcastle: Open Clasp’s very moving portrait of women in prison, Key Change, and Nina Berry’s The Terminal Velocity of Snowflakes, a play about fate and friendship. Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun is revived at the Sheffield Crucible, which always does a great Christmas musical. The excellent Fine Chisel are at the Bike Shed in Exeter with Beneath the Blizzard, a tale of outcasts living in cellars under the city.
Friday and the weekend
Forest Fringe’s London residency begins at Somerset House and includes new work by Deborah Pearson, Ira Brand, Andy Field, Simone Kenyon, Neil Callaghan, Augusto Corrieri as well as talks and discussions. There’s a free magic show at the British Library to coincide with the foyer exhibition on Victorian entertainments, There Will be Fun. There’s more Victorian entertainment in The Star by Michael Wynne at the Playhouse in Liverpool, an alternative Christmas entertainment celebrating the theatre’s rich history as a music hall. Josie Rourke directs Gemma Arterton in Shaw’s Saint Joan at the Donmar Warehouse. Tim Key, Paul Ritter and Rufus Sewell begin previews in Art at London’s Old Vic. On Saturday it’s the final bow for Luke Wright’s What I Learned From Johnny Bevan at Harrogate Studio theatre.
