Edinburgh, Bristol and Brighton are the places to be this week, in seven days when very little is opening in London except Dundee Rep's Peer Gynt, which has a press night at the Barbican tonight, Time and the Conways at the Lyttelton on Tuesday and, of course, Waiting For Godot at the Haymarket. I wonder if director Rupert Goold is in the slightest bit intimidated by the memory of that other great National Theatre Priestley revival, An Inspector Calls, which is currently out on the road – although not perhaps in great nick according to a couple of reports. Good too that so many have had a chance to see Godot before it hits London.
In Edinburgh Gregory Burke's long-awaited new play, Hoors, opens at the Traverse. This, of course, is the festival season with Mayfest in Bristol and the Brighton Festival both underway. Walk the Plank have a big free outdoor show in Queen's Park tonight and tomorrow which should be glorious as the weather is so balmy. Stay on and you can catch the UK premiere of Ashes by les ballets C de la B. Two other things of interest theatre-wise include a debate on the creative economy on Tuesday and the first UK appearance by German radicals Rimini Protokoll, a company that specialises in creating documentary theatre with non-professional performers. Breaking News looks at the way the news is brought to us and how we receive it.
Lots and lots of great stuff in Mayfest in Bristol this weekend and beyond. Check out the local talent on Sunday and Monday, when companies get a chance to show their wares in the platform event, Taste, sign up for the hotel show Black Tonic, and get tied up for The Smile Off Your Face. John Moran, Cartoon de Salvo, Inspector Sands, Paperweight and Paper Cinema are also all on hand to entertain you.
Leicester has the European premiere of Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza and Druid is reviving its production of Playboy of the Western World. Aaron Monaghan, who was so brilliant as Billy in The Cripple of Inishmaan, plays Christy in a production that will then tour the UK. Cyrano de Bergerac begins in Chichester, with Joseph Fiennes as the man with the nose. Simple Girl heads to the Ustinov in Bath, Return to Akenfield has dates in both Norfolk and Suffolk and The House of Bernarda Alba at the Nuffield in Southampton is a great play with a terrific central performance from Ann Mitchell.
Cheek by Jowl's Andromaque and Proto-type's visual foley show, Virtuoso, are both at Warwick Arts Centre. Caryl Churchill's 1987 play Serious Money, about City wheeler-dealing, is revived at Birmingham Rep. It will be fascinating to see how it stands up.
Back in London, I've got my beady idea on Daniel Kramer's Pictures From an Exhibition, am looking forward to the revival of Che Walker's The Front Line at the Globe, will be seeing Strange Resting Places (part of the Festival of First Nations) and am catching up with Vanishing Point's Interiors at the Lyric. Kneehigh's maddening but seductive Don John continues at BAC. The end of the week also sees Tim Crouch's England arriving at the Whitechapel Gallery, where it should be right at home.
