There's no shortage of shows to keep you sated this week. I'm off to Lenny Henry in Othello tonight, catching up with Punk Rock at the Lyric on Saturday, which I'm very much looking forward to, as well as seeing the revival of Philip Ridley's The Fastest Clock in the Universe at Hampstead. There's also Enron (sold out at the Royal Court but transferring to the West End apparently), Victoria Wood's Talent at the Menier and Githa Sowerby's astonishing early 20th century indictment of patriarchy and capitalism, Rutherford and Son, at Northern Stage in Newcastle.
But it's one of those weeks when I wish I could be in several places at the same time. Out of Joint's Mixed Up North is proving a talking point at the Octagon in Bolton (where former Young Vic artistic director, David Thacker, will be staging All My Sons and Ghosts later in the season), and Deep Cut – a brilliant verbatim play about the unexplained deaths of young soldiers at the Deep Cut army barracks – cries out to be seen at the Sherman in Cardiff before it heads out on tour (dates include the Ustinov in Bath).
You could also slip into previews of Andrew Bovell's Speaking in Tongues, which stars John Simm (so brilliant in Elling) or Prick Up Your Ears. Although, quite honestly, the presence of Simon Bent as writer interests me much more than the presence of Matt Lucas as Orton's murderous lover, Kenneth Halliwell. Tim Crouch's The Author which starts at the Royal Court upstairs, sounds unmissable too.
But what else is there? Well, I'm a big fan of Crocosmia by Little Bulb at BAC. It is the kind of whimsical piece —adults playing children, operating at that point when charm could so easily slip into tweeness — that could get right up your nose, but I found it breaking my heart despite my initial resistance. Another show that probably shouldn't work but which does (triumphantly) is the Bette Bourne/ Mark Ravenhill conversation piece, A Life in Three Acts, which is at Soho this week. Talking of Soho you should be booking your tickets for Dennis Kelly's Orphans that comes in from Birmingham the following week. Meanwhile, the astonishing Pitman Painters heads for Newcastle.
Blast Theory's Rider Spoke will be fun in Bristol, and it will be interesting to see how well Charlotte Keatley's 1987 play My Mother Said I Never Should has stood up when it is revived at Watford Palace next week. Depot, which sounds slightly Wildworks-like, is being produced by the Mercury in Colchester, and the RSC's Other Russia season will be reviewed by Michael Billington later in the week. If you missed Peter Gill's The York Realist when it was at the Royal Court a few years back, you can catch a revival at Riverside. Theatre Zar's Gospels of Childhood, part of the Barbican's BITE season, sounds terrific too. I just wish there were more nights in the week.
