Lots to cheer about ... Cheerleaders in High School Musical, the stage show. Photograph: Tristram Kenton / PA
Next week looks fun. It used to be the case that July was pretty sleepy before the onslaught of Edinburgh, but not any more. The theatre calendar is full all year round. I've got a weekend of contrast: I'm heading off to see Fin Kennedy's refugee drama Unstated at Southwark Playhouse tonight and then tomorrow I'm going to see High School Musical, so I hope that I'll be in the pink.
During the week I'll be at the Court to see the Edinburgh-bound Free Outgoing and heading off to Leeds Castle to see the Globe touring production of The Winter's Tale. But there's plenty of note elsewhere including the continuing Hotbed new writing festival in Cambridge, curated by Menagerie. Menagerie will also be in Edinburgh during August with Steve Walter's Out of Your Knowledge and Correspondence, a new piece by former Impact member Claire MacDonald. Look out for them.
Interesting things happening over this weekend include the street arts festival Hat Fair in Winchester which has a terrific small and large scale programme. Christopher Green, Marisa Carnesky and Dominic Johnson will be just some of those taking place in the Duckie-produced Gay Shame at the Coronet in SE1 on Saturday night. All the fun of the fair is promised in an evening of sideshow entertainment designed by Robin Whitmore and hosted by Amy Lamé. One year, Nicholas Hytner was to be found wandering around stretching his theatrical boundaries. In Colchester four artists including Mem Morrison and Julia Barclay will be making work for a Routemaster bus in Rules and Regs. The National's free outdoor festival of work Watch This Space kicks of this weekend in style with Home, who on Saturday will be holding an Alternative Village Fete in which Morris dancing, cake stalls and outsize marrows will be given an urban twist.
It's your last chance for ... Sisters at the Gate and Rosmersholm at the Almeida. If the sun comes out you could have fun at The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe tonight where over the weekend there are also previews of Che Walker's new Camden town comedy, The Front Line. I just loved Walker's last play, the Paines Plough-produced Crazy Love.
There's plenty of site responsive stuff around next week. Tim Crouch and Hannah Ringham are in England, last year's Edinburgh hit about art, heart, transactions and transplantations, which is at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford on Tuesday and Wednesday. From Wednesday you can head to Felixstowe and The Landguard Fort where ghosts will walk in Where Soldiers Sleep courtesy of The Heritage Arts Company directed by some people who have been involved with Punchdrunk in the past. At the end of the week Pentabus and Kindle theatre will be colonising Clearwell Caves in the Forest of Dean with a mythic performance, Underland. Three nights only. Peeping at Bosch sounds fantastic at Tramway where it will create a complete environment.
Looking for something more traditional? The hugely underrated Phil Willmott has a hit with Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi at Liverpool Playhouse, the Peter Hall season has Catherine McCormack and Finbar Lynch in A Doll's House at the Theatre Royal, Bath and in London you will have to queue for returns for Black Watch and The Chalk Garden, but it should be worth it.
