Theatre
1 Things I Know to Be True
This collaboration between physical theatre company Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company of South Australia is a delicate look at family dynamics and how even apparently golden families have their problems. Love doesn’t always inoculate against unhappiness, and parents can’t stop worrying about their children – or confining them by expectation – even when those children are grown up. Part soap opera and part exploration of conscious and unconscious impulses, this is an imaginative and tender evening full of joy and melancholy.
The Oxford Playhouse, 30 September; The Lowry, Salford, 3-7 October; touring to 3 February
2 Palmyra
Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas’s cleverly constructed two-hander – named after the ancient Syrian city – offers a playful and universal look at how conflicts happen and escalate, creating cycles of violence. Part of the Orbit festival, this is a vividly realised piece that works on many levels, as initial larkiness turns to a spectacle of destruction. If you get a chance, also try to see the duo’s companion piece, Eurohouse, a comic look at the EU’s founding ideals.
HOME, Manchester, 3-4 October
3 How to Win Against History
Heading to London’s Young Vic this Christmas, this daft but very deft piece of music-theatre focuses on Henry Cyril Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, who turned his life into a performance, lost a fortune and was written out of family history. A wonderfully camp but ultimately moving chamber opera, written by and starring Seiriol Davies, it doesn’t let the silver-spooned, Eton-educated toff off the hook, but it does give him a chance to take his revenge. It’s a delightfully weird one.
Pontio, Bangor, 5-6 October; touring to 30 December
4 Girl From the North Country
Your last chance to catch Conor McPherson’s haunting play, which uses Bob Dylan’s back catalogue to tell a story of small-town American life during the Great Depression. Not all the critics have raved, but the combination of McPherson and Dylan is an inspired one. Don’t think twice.
Old Vic, SE1, to 7 October
5 Thebes Land
You don’t want to miss out on Daniel Goldman’s brilliantly conceived staging of Sergio Blanco’s metatheatrical play, which investigates what leads a son to kill his father. In fact, this is less about the Oedipal impulses of such acts and more about the way we construct and tell stories. It plays on that idea with a twisting and slippery narrative that may seem tricksy but it’s not: just totally gripping.
Arcola theatre, E8, to 7 October
Dance
1 Company Wayne McGregor: Autobiography
At the heart of this highly personal work is McGregor’s discovery of his personal genome, sequenced for him by geneticists, and refracted through the prism of his own dance imagination.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, 4-7 October
2 A Celebration of Kenneth MacMillan
As British ballet marks the 25th anniversary of MacMillan’s death, Northern Ballet tests itself against the narrative and musical intensities of Concerto, Las Hermanas and Gloria.
Alhambra theatre, Bradford, 5-7 October
3 The Little Mermaid
David Nixon joins forces with composer Sally Beamish to adapt the Hans Christian Andersen tale for the ballet stage.
Norwich Theatre Royal, 30 September, touring to 5 May
