Five of the best… theatre shows this week
1 Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
This Olivier-winning improvised show has deservedly won itself a real cult following thanks to sheer invention and a monthly Monday night slot in the West End. Taking suggestions from the audience for scenarios and musical theatre styles, the cast think on their feet and with their vocal chords to create original material that often both pays homage to the great musicals and also sends them up with a wicked wit.
2 Love, Lies And Taxidermy
Teenagers Valentine and Ash meet on the steps of a research unit in Merthyr Tydfil, convinced the only way to raise urgently needed cash in a dead-end town is to become medical guinea pigs. Valentine wants to send his estranged parents on a cruise so they get back together, and Ash is desperate to save her dad’s ailing ice-cream van business. No typical romcom, Alan Harris’s hilarious comedy is a delightful piece of popular theatre.
Theatr Clwyd, Mold, Sat; Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Tue to 19 Nov
3 My Mother Medea
We all think we know the story of Medea, the discarded wife of Jason who took revenge on him for deserting her by slaughtering their children. But maybe that’s not the whole story. Holger Schober’s two-hander reframes the tale so we see it from the children’s point of view – two stroppy and distressed refugees who are very much alive.
Unicorn Theatre, SE1, to 25 Nov
4 Blue Heart
Caryl Churchill is riding high at the moment, with the brilliant Escaped Alone shortly to return to the Royal Court before heading to New York. So here’s a chance to see one she made earlier. In fact, it was almost 20 years ago that she wrote this double bill of plays in which miscommunication is rife and language doesn’t just break down but starts to disappear entirely. Heart’s Desire focuses on a daughter’s long-awaited return to the family home, while Blue Kettle offers a very different reunion.
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, to 19 Nov
5 The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide To Capitalism And Socialism With A Key To The Scriptures
Tony Kushner’s look at the American political left premiered in the US in 2009 but didn’t have the same success as his brilliant epic Angels In America. Now it’s been substantially rewritten with a sharp intelligence as it takes us into the family of an Italian-American former Brooklyn longshoreman. A long evening, but a rewarding one with terrific performances from a cast led by David Calder and Tamsin Greig.
Hampstead Theatre, NW3, to 26 Nov
Three of the best… theatre shows this week
1 Giselle
Akram Khan deepens his artistic relationship with English National Ballet with this potent and poetic reinvention of the romantic classic, created with composer Vincenzo Lamagna and dramaturge Ruth Little.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Tue to 19 Nov
2 Yama
The excellent Dundee-based Scottish Dance Theatre in a revival of Damien Jalet’s obsessive, hypnotic and fiercely physical show.
3 Lady Macbeth: Unsex Me Here
Kally Lloyd-Jones is one of Scotland’s leading choreographic talents, and in her latest work she uses the complex character of Lady Macbeth to explore the fluidity of gender.
St Andrews, Sun; Portree, Tue; Inverness, Thu; touring to 19 Nov
