It's not that I'm a Scrooge or anything (although I am successfully resisting the government's insistence that it is my patriotic duty to get out there and shop), but after last week's flurry of Christmas show recommendations, I'm keen to point you in the direction of non-festive entertainment. It may be our last chance before we are all dispatched through wardrobes, out into the forest or deposited in Victorian wonderlands. Actually there's a surprising amount out there, ranging from August: Osage County at the National through to Spectacular and Otter Pie at Glasgow's Tramway.
The weekend is looking good with Black Market at The Bluecoat in Liverpool and the Threshold season in Kent featuring Curious' On the Scent in Folkstone and Breathe's Just To(o) Long in Ramsgate. Other interesting performance-related work over the next fevered seven days includes Andy Field's game-based Rear Window, which takes place on Tuesday as part of the Delfina Foundation's With a Small P season of commissions and events. Tuesday also sees Bobby Baker and Kira O'Reilly discussing how artists represent, challenge and engage with the "medical gaze". It's at Tate Modern as part of the Performing Medicine season.
Ed Hall has done some of his very best work with his all-male company, Propeller, which was nurtured by Jill Fraser at the Watermill. The company is out on tour with The Merchant of Venice and a revival of its exquisite Dream. Performances begin at the Lighthouse in Poole this week and continue around the country from the end of January. Volcano are out on the road too, with the WG Sebald-inspired I Witness at the Point in Eastleigh and Bristol's Tobacco Factory next week. The Brothers Size tour winds up in Birmingham. And after a long tour, 1927 come to rest at BAC for the next month with Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
I didn't rave about State of Emergency at the Gate when I reviewed it last month, but it has stayed humming in my head, so I reckon you should take a look. And although I haven't seen it, everyone including the notoriously hard-to-please Whingers are raving about La Cage Aux Folles. (Personally I'm a sucker for Hairspray.) Looking towards the end of the week, Sunshine on the Leith are about to settle into the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh for a month. The excellent Maria Friedman is at Trafalgar Studios, and of course A Little Night Music opens at the Menier.
Me? I'll be spending the upcoming week resisting the lure of witches and gingerbread houses both in Newcastle and at the Barbican, venturing into the rainforest for the Young Vic's Amazonia and taking in some Dickens. But the show you really mustn't miss is Fevered Sleep's Brilliant at the Lyric Studio. It's another lesson in how companies creating work for the very young (3-6 years in this instance) are producing some truly sensational theatre. Anyone with an interest really should go, even if you haven't got a child in tow.
