Monday
The Flare festival begins in Manchester and the lineup looks great, including Jamal Harewood’s devastating The Privileged, Sleepwalk Collective’s As the Flames Rose We Danced to the Sirens, the Sirens – which will be live-streamed on the Guardian’s website – and more cutting-edge work from around the globe. Ned Bennett, who directed Pomona, is at the helm for Tom Basden’s Dostoevsky-inspired The Crocodile, as part of the Manchester international festival. Grace Savage is a truly wonderful beatboxer and her solo show Blind, created with Paper Birds, goes into London’s Soho theatre.
Tuesday
The Desire Machine, a new piece by Arbonauts, offers a 360-degree mix of peep show and installation in the Brunel tunnel shaft in Rotherhithe, London. EH Gombrich’s A Little History of the World is adapted for the stage by Toby Hulse at the Watermill theatre in Bagnor. Lucy Prebble’s The Effect is just what the doctor ordered and it’s at Sheffield Crucible Studio until Saturday (18 July). The revival of To Kill a Mockingbird really is very good at the Barbican in London. If you don’t see it this week, you will miss Robert Icke’s brilliant Oresteia at London’s Almeida theatre. Also, you’ll need to get on your bike to catch up with Maxine Peake’s Beryl at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Or you can catch the woman herself in The Skriker at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, as part of MIF.
Wednesday
Francesca Millican-Slater considers why Gold has such a power over us, in the new show joining the lineup of the Hoard festival at the New Vic theatre, Staffordshire. Andrew Keatley’s The Gathered Leaves is a family drama about three generations trying to put the past behind them. It’s at the Park theatre, London, from tonight (15 July). Personal freedom and identity is explored in Nahda, at the Bush theatre in London, as part of the Shubbak festival which offers a window on contemporary Arab culture. Check out the full programme here.
Thursday
Head to London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for Ellie Harrison’s This Is What Democracy Looks Like, a round-table discussion on a bicycle built for seven, as part of the Yard theatre’s Walkie Talkie season in Hackney, London.
Friday and the weekend
Tonight, Lucy Skilbeck’s Joan offers another view of Joan of Arc, in Derby theatre’s Retold series. Sally Cookson’s staging of the Jacqueline Wilson favourite, Hetty Feather, will be fun at Bristol Old Vic this weekend. On Saturday, Pentabus go out on tour with their latest, Alice Birch’s adaptation of Malcolm Saville’s children’s series The Lone Pine Club, about children founding a secret society. You can rediscover your lost childhood at Carding Mill Valley in Shropshire, this weekend. Details of full tour here. Also, Nigel and Louise take kids on a mission in Be Bees, on Saturday and Sunday in London’s Olympic Park, as part of the Yard’s Walkie Talkie season. Also on Saturday, Matthew Poutney and Jess Thom (of Backstage in Biscuit Land fame) explore Jess’s relationship with a lamppost at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange. More information here.
