The weekend kicks off with one of the major events of the theatre calendar: Devoted and Disgruntled, your chance to talk about all the things that make you passionate about theatre and all the things you wish you could change. I do hope there will be a strong Arts Council presence. Wouldn't it be good if Barbara Matthews and Alan Davey turned up?
The London international mime festival begins on Saturday and it's a cracker this year. Whether your yen is for the post-industrial cabaret of Akhe Engineering Theatre or the strange surreal world of Buchinger's Boot Marionettes, there really is something for everyone. I was at Shunt earlier this week and caught a glimpse of some of the junk metal constructions that figure in Sharmanka's Gothic Circus and now can't wait to see it. By the way, Shunt is open again and has a full programme of work that is well worth checking out, but make sure you take picture ID with you. You won't get in without it, thanks to new licensing arrangements.
LIMF begins at the Purcell Room on Saturday night with juggling ensemble Collectif Petit Travers. UK representation at the festival comes from Faulty Optic with their premiere of Fish Clay Perspex and The Idiot Colony, directed by Andrew Dawson and winner of a Total Theatre award last year; some of you might have caught it in Edinburgh over the summer. The Idiot Colony, which is at the Phoenix in Exeter and the Ustinov in Bath this week, is based on the true stories of women who were locked away in mental hospitals for decades, often for simply defying their parents or getting pregnant. It is material that was also examined in Charlotte Jones's first play, the infinitely touching Air Swimming, which I notice is getting a revival at the Courtyard at the end of the month.
It's an interesting week at Oval House, where the 33% London festival, which celebrates the work of 16-25-year-olds, will show seven short plays written by Paines Plough's young writers group, performed in nooks and crannies around the building.
From Wednesday, you can catch Stephen Dillane reading The Four Quartets (directed by the newly honoured Katie Mitchell) at the Donmar, but you'll have to queue for standing and day seats. It could be well worth it. I still recall with a shiver Fiona Shaw's performance of The Waste Land at Wilton's Music Hall many moons ago.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is in previews at the National and John Dove's revival of Arthur Miller's unsuccessful first play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, is in previews at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh from the end of the week. John Tiffany's production of Andrew O'Hagan's Be Near Me (adapted by and starring Ian McDiarmid) is at the Palace Kilmarnock, before transferring to the Donmar.
Out of Joint's The Convict's Opera, a version of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with an Anglo-Australian cast, begins a nationwide tour at Salisbury Playhouse. It premiered in Sydney in the autumn where it didn't exactly go down a storm. It's almost your last chance for Great Expectations at the Library in Manchester and those who can't wait until next Christmas can indulge their inner child with Dick Turpin at the Theatre Royal in York.
