Brighton is abuzz with the festival and the fringe, the superb Imaginate festival for children gets underway in Edinburgh and The Winslow Boy is revived at Mold in Wales
Scotland and Northern Ireland
Pirates of the Carabina fly into Eden Court in Inverness with the aerial show Flown. Also at Eden Court this weekend is Right Lines's multimedia story of the impact of terrorism on one man, Be Silent or Be Killed. It then moves to the Brunton and Perth theatre next week. The backstage farce, Noises Off, stops off at the His Majesties in Aberdeen from Monday. The Sash, a story of sectarianism, is at East Kilbride, Motherwell and Stirling this week. Details here.
Hairspray goes into the Kings in Glasgow. At the end of the week, Tramway hosts Rob Drummond's The Riot of Spring, a response to Stravinsky's 100-year-old The Rite of Spring as part of the Behaviour festival. Behaviour also continues at the Arches tonight and tomorrow with contributions form Gob Squad and the incomparable Taylor Mac. The Seagull is thrilling at the Citizens. Catch Daniel Bye's brilliant The Price of Everything and Jena Watt's show about bystander theory as part of Mayfesto at the Tron this weekend. Davey Anderson adapts and directs the contemporary Chinese play, Thieves and Boy, at Oran Mor next week.
The superb Imaginate festival of children's theatre is at the Traverse and venues throughout Edinburgh. Lots of terrific shows, including the Unicorn's beautiful Something Very Far Away and NTS's The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. The Factory Girls is revived at Mac in Belfast and Graham Reid's Love, Billy continues at the Lyric in Belfast.
North
Lots of terrific work in the GIFT festival in Gateshead this weekend. Tonight, look out for work by Third Angel and Getinthebackofthevvan, then over the next couple of days take a chance on companies and artists you haven't heard of. They are the future. The gorgeous Love Letters Straight From Your Heart is at Arc in Stockton on Tuesday. It's beautiful work from Uninvited Guests. On Wednesday they are performing Make Better Please, which I didn't like but which is likely to have evolved further since I saw it. Blue Remembered Hills continues at Northern Stage in Newcastle.
There's only a week left for the wildly inventive Around the World in Eighty Days at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme. The Royal Exchange in Manchester offers Cush Jumbo in A Doll's House and Alistair McDowall's story of science and siblings, Brilliant Adventures. Imitating the Dog are at Contact with the film and live-action hybrid, 6 Degrees Below Zero. The Cell at Unity in Liverpool has been developed with staff and inmates at a young offenders' institution. Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory's fine revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona starts a tour at the Dukes in Lancaster next week.
Mikron's romp through five centuries of postal history, Don't Shoot the Messenger, is at the Georgian theatre in Richmond. The Count of Monte Cristo continues at Harrogate. Run to the Theatre in the Mill in Bradford tonight for Daniel Bye's provoking and cheering The Price of Everything. Propeller's all-male The Taming of the Shrew is at the Lyceum in Sheffield. The Hoarder is at SJT in Scarborough this weekend and is followed by two-handed version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
Central and East
The artists' muse Henrietta Moraes is the subject of Sue MacLaine's clever Still Life at Warwick Arts Centre. The audience gets to do the drawing. Also at Warwick: Caroline Horton's Mess about her experiences of anorexia. It's lovely to see Derby theatre full and the audience having a great time at Cooking With Elvis, Lee Hall's deceptively farcical play about despair. The Kite Runner may not be a great adaptation, but nonetheless it's moving theatre at Nottingham Playhouse. Daniel Bye is all over the country this week with The Price of Everything, at Lakeside in Nottingham on Thursday.
Heading east, the week begins with Dan Canham's dance theatre piece, Ours Was the Fen Country, at the New Wolsey in Ipswich tonight and tomorrow. Laura Mugridge's charming The Watery Journey of Nereus Pike stops off at the Garage in Norwich – info here. The Girl with Iron Claws stops off at Norwich Playhouse. The High Tide festival continues in Halesworth. Eastern Angles continue to tour their shows about John Clare (I've seen it and it's lovely) and Peterborough, and the brilliant Norfolk and Norwich festival opens with an outdoor extravaganza next Friday. Much more about the festival next week.
South
The Brighton festival gets underway tomorrow. Theatre highlights this week include Peter Reder's The Contents of a House at Preston Manor, The Disappearance Project, Table Manners and Major Tom and Cique Éloize's Metropolis-inspired Cirkopolis. And don't forget the Brighton fringe which has plenty of impressive shows including Bitch Boxer, Chapel Street, Buzzcut, Mess, La Clique and more.
The delightful and steely fairytale The Girl with Iron Claws stops off at the Point at Eastleigh tonight and from Tuesday you can see English Touring theatre's irreverent and funny take on The Misanthrope at the Nuffield in Southampton. Lee Hall's hugely enjoyable and thoughtful The Pitman Painters is a must at the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford. Criminality and anger are under the microscope in film noirish thriller The Bear, which is at the North Wall in Oxford on Tuesday and at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol at the end of the week. Also at the Tobacco Factory this week: Murray Lachlan Young's The Incomers. Check out the ambitious circus-cum-theatre piece Backgammon for Beginners at Circomedia tonight. Dan Canham's dance-theatre piece 30 Cecil Street was a ghostly delight, so high hopes for Ours Was Fen Country which is at BOV from Tuesday. The story of the Moscow theatre siege is told in Nordost at the Egg in Bath. Head to Exeter and the Bike Shed for Lucifer Saved, a verse drama by Peter Oswald.
Wales
Terry Hands directs Rattigan's little gem The Winslow Boy at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, where you can also catch the final performances of Matthew Bulgo's Last Christmas this weekend. Northern Irish company Happenstance arrive later in the week with The Boat Factory, about Belfast's Harland and Wolff shipyard. Tim Price's acclaimed family drama Salt, Root and Roe transfers to the Sherman in Cardiff. Also a last chance at the Sherman for the brilliant love story, Something Very Far Away. Also in Cardiff until Saturday is National Theatre Wales' Praxis Makes Perfect, a collaboration between Neon Neon, playwright Tim Price and director Wils Wilson which takes the form of an immersive gig. It's at a secret location, and it's touring throughout the summer. Info here. NoFitState's lovely circus show Bianco is at the Wales Millennium Centre tonight and tomorrow. Dennis Kelly's brilliant, slippery Love and Money winds up its tour at Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea on Thursday.
London
David Harrower's new version of Ibsen, Public Enemy, opens at the Young Vic in a production by Richard Jones. How does an ordinary person become a mass murderer? The question is examined in Nicholas Wright's A Human Being Died That Night about South Africa's most notorious assassin of the apartheid regime. At Hampstead Downstairs. Peter Nichols's Passion Play is revived at the Duke of York's and Stephen Unwin's fine revival of Nichols's A Day in the Death of Joe Egg transfers to the Rose in Kingston. It's not often that a brand new purpose-built theatre opens in London, but the Park in Finsbury Park is just that. The first show is Melanie Marnich's These Shining Lives, which tells the stories of the radium Dial workers of the 1930s.
There's a two-day festival devoted to the work of Howard Barker at the Print Room today and tomorrow. The Accidental festival starts at the Roundhouse next week and offers a chance to see emerging theatre-makers. Check out the ongoing programme at the Yard, where two young companies – Switchback and the Unhidden Collective – are in action. It's a last chance for the Forest fringe residency at the Gate this weekend. The provocative Ontroerend Goed are in town at the Unicorn. It's also the last chance to see Amanda Whittington's The Thrill of Love about Ruth Ellis at the St James and on no account should you forget to see Little Bulb's fabulous, heartbreaking Orpheus at BAC. Have a great weekend and tell us all about the shows you've seen.
Theatre
Lyn Gardner
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