Plan your week’s theatre: top tickets
David Tennant’s Don Juan saunters into Soho, Cardiff hosts a Cock and Bull story and Mark Thomas’s tale of activism and memory heads to Newcastle
Monday
Jack Thorne and Stephen Warbeck’s loveable musical Junkyard is at Bristol Old Vic all week. Richard Twyman’s cracking staging of Othello continues at the Tobacco Factory, Bristol. Marius von Mayerburg’s dark satire Plastic is well worth your time at Bath’s Theatre Royal. Breach Theatre’s Tank, a sharply funny and unsettling story of colonisation, is at Battersea Arts Centre, London. Also at BACthere’s another chance to see the gloriously messy and heartfelt E15, about how a group of teenage mums took on Newham council.
Tuesday
Zendah’s Transport, about families torn apart by politics and borders, is at the Traverse, Edinburgh. Theatre Ad Infinitum’s Bucket List, about a Mexican woman’s fight for justice, is at the North Wall, Oxford. Cardiff’s brilliant pub theatre the Other Room has Hywel John’s Seanmhair, a story of two children bound by blood and fate. At the Bike Shed in Exeter Paddy Campbell’s verbatim play, Leaving, is about children brought up in the care system. Stephen Sondheim’s The Frogs gets a rare croak at Jermyn Street Theatre. Lucky Cambridge Arts theatre has Caryl Churchill’s superb Escaped Alone. Kieran Hurley’s terrific Cassandra-like storytelling show, Heads Up, which reminds us to look up and take note at what is happening around us, is at Dundee Rep.
Wednesday
Alison Matthews and Leo Burtin make a song and dance about their financial woes in The Best of Both Worlds: A Busker’s Opera at ARC, Stockton. Sick! festivalin Manchester has some very juicy stuff this week including Theatreclub’s The Game which is about paying for sex. At the Lowry, Claire Cunningham’s Guide Gods considers how different world religions view disability. Eastern Anglesrevive David Greig’s foot-stomping The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart for a tour of the eastern counties, starting at the John Peel Centre in Stowmarkettonight. A British east Asian cast re-imagine Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine at the Arcola, London.
Thursday
Robert Lepage’s infinitely layered and thoughtful The Far Side of the Moon is at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth. Third Angel explore the act of giving birth with Partus at South Street, Reading. Nic Green’s Cock and Bull, in which three women hold their own alternative party conference, is at the Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester, until Saturday. It’s almost your last chance to see Mark Thomas’s tour of The Red Shed, a tale of activism and memory, which is Northern Stage, Newcastle, tonight.
Friday and the weekend
David Tennant stars in Patrick Marber’s Don Juan in Soho, which starts previews tonight at Wyndham’s theatre, London. Toneelgroep’s Roman Tragedies, directed by Ivo van Hove, is up there with the best Shakespeare I’ve ever seen and it’s at the Barbican from tonight. What happens when your family work at Faslane and your friends are opposed to Trident? Jenna Watt explores in the thoughtful Faslane which goes out on tour tonight from Platform at Easterhouse. The Velveteen Rabbit is really fab and it’s back at the Unicorn. Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, a play that works backwards and is all the better for it, is revived at Derby Playhouse. On Saturday Liz Aggis refuses to act her age in Slap and Tickle at the Trinity Centre, Bristol.