Monday
There are lots of enticing shows in the London international mime festival (LIMF), which gets into full swing this week and runs until 5 February. From tonight, the excellent Ockham’s Razor play the Platform theatre at King’s Cross, London, with a new show, Tipping Point, that uses metal poles to explore order and disorder. Kali Theatre’s Talkback season at the Tristan Bates theatre, Covent Garden, begins tonight with a season of performances and readings written by South Asian female playwrights.
Tuesday
The mighty Oily Cart take up residence at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, Wales, with Land of Lights, a magical show for three- to five-year-olds. Brecht’s rarely seen Fear and Misery of the Third Reich is at the Union in London until 30 January. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s King and Country is a four-play cycle comprising Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V at the Barbican in London. Timothy Sheader’s revival of Lord of the Flies is at the Theatre Royal in Bath. Dirty deals and mistaken identity are the subject of Wolf Meat, directed by Mick Barnfather, at the Pleasance London until Saturday. And Then You Kissed Me from Footlights considers domestic abuse at the Met in Bury tonight and tomorrow (and is then on tour). Rob Hayes’s triptych of monologues This Will End Badly is at Southwark Playhouse in London. Ridiculusmus are at London’s Battersea Arts Centre with a new show about mental health, Give Me Your Love. At the King’s Head in London, Imogen Stubbs stars in Paul Minx’s The Long Road South, which is set in the US in the 1960s as the civil rights movement gathers pace.
Wednesday
You only have until Saturday to catch the unsettling The Haunting of Hill House at the Liverpool Playhouse. It’s a shocker, but not in the expected ways. And it’s your last chance for La Soirée on the Southbank Centre in London until the end of the week. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is still flying high at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, while Show Boat still sails in Sheffield at the Crucible, and Robin Hood & Marian hits the bullseye at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Thursday
Tate Modern plays host to David Espinosa’s Mi Gran Obra, a colossal spectacle in miniature, as part of LIMF. West Midlands theatremakers try out new ideas in Pilot Nights at the Belgrade in Coventry tonight. Manchester Push festival’s two weeks of enticing new theatre experiences begins at Home with the talk Making Theatre in a Cold Climate, about the challenges ahead. Check out the full programme, which includes new shows from Square Peg, Sheep Knuckle and Babel. Lip Service are terrific fun and their Sherlock-inspired spoof Move Over Moriarty is at the Unity in Liverpool. Abuelo, at Birmingham Rep until Saturday, is written and performed by Amahra Spence and tells the story of a Birmingham native with an identity crisis. Camden People’s Theatre’s Whose London Is It Anyway? season continues with This Is Private Property, looking at one woman’s journey through the London housing crisis. Alistair McGowan is a man who has lost a chunk of his memory in the play 4,000 Days at London’s Park theatre.
Friday and the weekend
At the Crucible studio in Sheffield, the wonderful Third Angel take up residence with Partus, a show about the moment of birth. Simon Stephens’ early play Herons is revived by Sean Holmes at the Lyric Hammersmith. The fractured mind of a shell-shocked soldier is explored in Al Seed’s Total theatre award-winning Oog at Jacksons Lane in London on Friday and over the weekend. Conor McPherson’s haunting The Weir is revived at the Lyceum in Edinburgh until 6 February. Diane Paulus directs Amaluna, the latest from Cirque du Soleil, at London’s Royal Albert Hall, opening Saturday. It’s a Tempest-inspired show with a mostly female cast.
