King Lear, Guildford
The latest show from the thriving Guildford Shakespeare Company – which is now regularly producing in the town and building itself a following – is very much a local affair. Brian Blessed takes on the title role, and, in an inspired piece of casting, his daughter, Rosalind Blessed, plays Goneril – which is sure to lead to some interesting conversations around the tea table in the Blessed household. Mr Blessed, of course, is well known for his booming voice, ruddy appearance and performances in everything from the original production of Cats (he played Old Deuteronomy) to many of Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare movies, including Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. He has been on three expeditions to Everest, but Shakespeare’s mountainous role is likely to be his greatest challenge to date.
Holy Trinity Church, Sat to 14 Feb
LG
Hello/Goodbye, London
Shaun Evans is best known for playing the young detective Morse in the period TV series Endeavour. He now makes his first London stage performance since 2009, when he appeared in Kurt And Sid, playing Kurt Cobain to EastEnder Danny Dyer’s Sid Vicious. This time he teams up with former Spooks star Miranda Raison in Hello/Goodbye, a piece described as a modern metropolitan guide to falling in and out of love. Peter Souter’s play – first seen at Hampstead’s downstairs space – opens, appropriately, at the start of the new year, with sassy and smart Juliet making a fresh start in a new flat, only to discover a mix-up at the agency means there’s a handsome, if slightly geeky, stranger moving in too.
Hampstead Theatre, NW3, Wed to 28 Feb
MC
Fleabag, Bristol
Fleabag is her own worst enemy. She sort of knows it but her self-awareness only goes so far. She can’t stop herself bounding from one disaster to another, even when she knows that she’s on a self-destructive odyssey. The casual sex and threesomes have got to stop. Eating home delivery pizza and masturbating to internet porn is a dead-end. What she’s got in her favour is an astonishing fearlessness. This girl could take on the world and win, so why is she self-destructing in such a firework fashion? A huge hit at the Edinburgh fringe in 2013, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s monologue is painfully sad but also very funny.
Brewery Theatre, Tobacco Factory, Tue to 7 Feb
LG
Institute, London & Poole
Gecko’s latest piece, a dance-theatre show exploring memory and how we care, plays in the London international mime festival before relocating south-west. Four people are trapped in a labyrinthine institute, where memories pour out of towering filing cabinets and flow down corridors. They must fulfil the tasks they’ve been set before they can be released into the outside world. But is all quite what it seems? And if they do make it out, will anybody care for them – or will they simply become disconnected like everyone else? The show has taken two years to make and it should be well worth the wait from a company capable of delivering visual poetry.
Linbury Studio Theatre, WC2, Sat to Tue; Lighthouse, Fri & 24 Jan; touring to 31 Jan
LG
The Hard Problem, London
If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? Answers on a rather large postcard… or you could just go and see The Hard Problem, Tom Stoppard’s new play at the National Theatre. It’s his first new work since Rock ’N’ Roll at the Royal Court nine years ago. The long wait is no surprise since his plays are fairly stuffed with intellectual debate, this time in the field of pure science and psychology. Hilary (Olivia Vinall) is a young researcher who is wrestling with conflicting issues and personal grief. Stoppard’s plays are often big in range and scale, though this is in the intimate Dorfman Theatre. It’s also the final production from Nicholas Hytner before he hands over the top job to Rufus Norris.
National Theatre: Dorfman, SE1, Wed to 16 Apr
MC
The Money, Exeter
There are no actors, only a playing audience, in Kaleider’s ingenious show. A group of people, called benefactors, must all agree how to use the pot of money their ticket price has raised. They can spend it on anything, including themselves, provided it’s legal. If they fail to come to an agreement, the money is rolled over to the next performance. Both self-interest and altruism rise to the surface, and people can behave very badly indeed. What at first seems relaxed and jokey becomes passionate and sometimes fraught. And there’s a twist that means that those who’ve paid a cheaper ticket price to be silent witnesses can buy their way into the decision-making process for a tenner as the evening unfolds.
Exeter Guildhall, Thu to 27 Jan
LG
