Five of the best… theatre shows this week
1 One Night In Miami
It’s 1964 and the young boxer Cassius Clay, soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali, celebrates winning the heavyweight title in a Miami hotel room with Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and American football star Jim Brown. There’s thrilling acting from all concerned in this production by Kwame Kwei-Armah, which packs a knockout punch. It’s a fascinating, combative yet warmly drawn account of change in the making; although – as the production makes clear – recent events in the US highlight the racism that endures more than 50 years on.
Donmar Warehouse, WC2, to 3 Dec
2 Ockham’s Razor: Tipping Point
This quietly enthralling and unflashy circus piece scooped a Total Theatre award in Edinburgh this summer, and deservedly so. As the title suggests, it’s a carefully crafted show following the performers as they negotiate an ever-shifting world where a number of white metal poles are used as seesaws, balancing beams and more. The pleasure comes from watching a physically skilled cast test themselves and their relationships, but it’s also a treat to witness the way they cope with gravity and a changing sense of space.
Lancaster University: The Great Hall, Tue to Thu; touring to 26 Nov
3 The Red Shed
What happens when we start to misremember the past and the events that shaped our present? It’s a question asked in Mark Thomas’s solo show, a love letter to the unassuming red shed that is Wakefield’s Labour Club, a place that played a significant role in the miners’ strike and in shaping Thomas into the activist that he is today. Heartfelt, angry and funny, this is a piece that uses theatre as a way to change minds.
4 Portraits In Motion
Some shows are impossible to categorise: Volker Gerling’s quirky Portraits In Motion is one such. In it, he tells us about his walk across Germany and shares photographs he took of people along the way. On the one hand it is much like looking at someone’s holiday snapshots, but the trick is that Gerling shows the portraits by holding them under a video camera: as they come alive you start to feel an intimate connection with these strangers.
Home, Manchester, Thu to 5 Nov
5 The Suppliant Women
Aeschylus’s work centring on 50 women who flee from Egypt to Greece is one of the world’s oldest plays. But this new version from the team behind the superb The Events – writer David Greig and director Ramin Gray – couldn’t be more potent or relevant.
Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne, Thu to 5 Nov
Five of the best… theatre shows this week
1 Nitin Sawhney
This staged concert of Sawhney’s music features the superb dance duo Wang Ramirez as well as guest vocals by Joss Stone.
2 Under Siege
Hip-hop, ballet and traditional dance are fused to dramatic effect in Yang Liping’s recreation of a historic Chinese battle. Set and costume designs come courtesy of Tim Yip.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Wed to 5 Nov
3 The Happiness Project
Didy Veldman’s choreography has been widely showcased by companies such as Rambert. Here she works with her own dancers to explore the tragi-comic effects of our obsession with happiness.
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