Monday
Lizzie Nunnery’s wartime love story with songs, Narvik, is at the Marlowe in Canterbury and on tour this week. Ad Infinitum’s Bucket List, about the relationship between Mexico and the US, starts a run at Battersea Arts Centre. Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party is the inaugural show at London’s new home for musical theatre, the Other Palace, previously known as the St James theatre. It has a terrific cast including Frances Ruffelle, Donna McKechnie and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt.
Tuesday
The Queer Contact festival in Manchester includes Joan, an alternative retelling of the Joan of Arc story. The five-star family show Black Beauty is at the Tron, Glasgow, as part of the final week of its tour. Adam Pownall’s touring show Getting Better Slowly, based on his experience of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which affects the nervous system, is at the Lawrence Batley, Huddersfield. Lost Watch have a new show, Flew the Coop, about love in Europe in 1943, at the New Diorama in London from tonight. The actor Arinzé Kene, so brilliant as Sam Cooke in One Night in Miami at the Donmar, is also a talented writer and his latest, Good Dog, at Watford Palace is inspired by the 2011 UK riots. At the Arcola, Oladipo Agboluaje’s New Nigerians considers political unrest in Nigeria. The Yard’s Now 17 festival continues with Rachael Young’s Out, challenging homophobia in Caribbean communities.
Wednesday
Tamsin Greig plays Malvolia in Simon Godwin’s revival of Twelfth Night at the National Theatre. Mark Thomas’s terrific story of memory and activism The Red Shed is at the Sherman in Cardiff. Zodwa Nyoni’s Weathered Estates, produced by emerging Hull company The Roaring Girls, tells of women seeking refuge and is at the Donald Roy theatre as part of the UK City of Culture 2017 programme. Red Zone’s September 11th at Camden People’s theatre deals with issues of identity and radicalisation through the eyes of refugees. Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic gets its first major revival for 30 years at the Orange Tree, Richmond.
Thursday
Andrew Scott plays Hamlet at the Almeida, London. Elsewhere in the capital, Thomas Ostermeier’s monstrously entertaining Richard III is at the Barbican, and Joe Hill-Gibbins’ revival of A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins at the Young Vic. The annual Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory season kicks off with Richard Twyman’s revival of Othello in the Bristol venue. You shouldn’t miss Toot’s exquisitely crafted and often painfully funny Focus Group, based on a David Foster Wallace story, at South Street Arts, Reading. Male depression is explored in Tortoise in a Nutshell’s Fisk at Eastgate Arts Centre, Peebles. David Aula and Simon Evans’ The Vanishing Man is a confounding cracker about magic and performance at the Phoenix, Bordon.
Friday and the weekend
The Sick of the Fringe begins in London today with a programme of performances and discussions. (I’m taking part in one, Starring Your Pain, at the Wellcome on Saturday.) There are performances over the weekend, at venues ranging from Conway Hall to the Place, from Le Gateau Chocolat, FK Alexander, Brigitte Aphrodite and more. Orpheus and Eurydice, performed beneath Bristol’s Clifton suspension bridge, is brought to you by the company Insane Root who did Macbeth in Redcliffe caves. At Nottingham Playhouse, Stephen Lowe’s Touched is a strange, wonderful play set in Nottingham during the 100 days between VE and VJ Day. The Misfit Analysis, Cian Binchy’s fascinating and wildly creative glimpse into the autistic mind, is at Derby theatre. Funny Girl goes out on tour with Sheridan Smith as Fanny Brice. Gameshow’s look at how men and women relate, Dancing Bear, Dancing Bear, is at the Arena, Wolverhampton.
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