pension333: What to see: Lyn Gardner's theatre tips

Jonathan Miller revives the feminist classic Rutherford & Son, A Chorus Line previews at the London Palladium and The Animals and Children Took to the Streets heads out on tour

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Nice to see lots of new shows this week, including the start of the Manipulate Visual Theatre festival at the Traverse and Summerhall in Edinburgh, as well as the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen and the Lochgelly Centre in Fife. Shows include Paper Cinema's The Odyssey, a new full-length show about the victims of natural disasters, After the Wave, and a piece set in Bluebeard's Castle, To the End of Love. Well worth checking out. David Leddy's work is always distinctive and ambitious, and his latest piece, Long Live Little Knife, a show about forgery and castration, is at Film City in Glasgow from next Thursday.

Pilot present Julia Donaldson's story of teenage runaways, Running on Cracks, at the Tron in Glasgow from Wednesday. My Name is Rachel Corrie, based on the writings of the American peace activist who died in Gaza in 2003, opens at Mull theatre Tobermory on Saturday before moving to the Tron on Tuesday.

Birds of Paradise's premiere of Danny Start's In an Alien Landscape, a story of brain injury and creativity, is at the Beacon in Greenock tonight. Perth theatre has teamed up with the Lyric in Belfast to stage Conor McPherson's tale of demons and ghosts, The Seafarer; it's at Perth from Thursday, and moving to Belfast at the end of the month. Meanwhile, the Lyric stages St John Ervine's classic of divided loyalties and love in Belfast, Mixed Marriage.

North

Sheffield Theatres are on a roll at the moment and there are two new shows: The Full Monty in the main house and Mike Bartlett's tale of office politics, Bull, in the Crucible studio. Rutherford & Son, a tale of family divisions, capitalism and feminism, is directed by Jonathan Miller at the Viaduct theatre in Halifax. Also in Yorkshire: Hitchcock Blonde, Terry Johnson's story of sexual obsession, is revived at Hull Truck, and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists returns to Harrogate theatre. A man tries to explain to his daughter why he abandoned her as a child in Imitating the Dog's 6 Degrees Below the Horizon at the Lawrence Batley in Huddersfield.

In Manchester, Queer Contact celebrates the best in LGBT art and culture. Lots of performance, comedy and cabaret. The moving first-world-war drama, The Accrington Pals, continues at the Exchange. A new adaptation of David Copperfield begins at the Oldham Coliseum next Friday. Birdsong heads into the Blackpool Grand. In Lancaster, at Lica Andy Smith asks how to change the world in All That Is Solid Melts into Air, and Commonwealth. The Arc in Stockton on Tees plays host to the ambitious circus show, Backgammon for Beginners, from rising young company So & So Circus.

Wales and south

This week Cardiff offers David Mamet's early play of bedroom politics, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, at the Sherman and Driving Miss Daisy at the New theatre. Anyone for an all-female Hamlet? Then head to the RWCMD's Bute theatre from next Tuesday.

1927's brilliant subversive parable, The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, is at the North Wall in Oxford. The Ockham's Razor circus show, Not Until We Are Lost, is a real pleasure and is at Harlow Playhouse from Tuesday. Laura Mugridge's Running On Air, a tale of her expeditions in a VW campervan, was charming ? and her latest, The Watery Journey of Nereus Pike, an epic tale of love and sea creatures, sets off on tour from South Street in Reading on Wednesday. Priestley's Dangerous Corner continues at Salisbury Playhouse.

Version Control at the Arnolfini in Bristol is an ongoing exhibition with performance interventions exploring the relationship between exhibition and performance. The Little Angel's A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings is well worth a look at Bristol Old Vic. If you like ghost stories, head across to the Tobacco Factory for Count Magus by that master of the English ghost story, MR James. Nichola McAuliffe's Maurice's Jubilee, about one man's longstanding date with the Queen, is at Bath's Theatre Royal; it's old-fashioned, improbable and yet unexpectedly touching too. I haven't seen the production, but Wedekind's Spring Awakening can be both shocking and heartbreaking, and it's at the Brewhouse in Taunton next Wednesday and Thursday.

Central and east

Nikolai Gogol's story of matchmaking, Marriage, opens at the Belgrade in Coventry tomorrow. Cheek by Jowl's staging of Ubu Roi is at Warwick Arts Centre until tomorrow before moving to Oxford Playhouse. Staying in Warwick, Imitating the Dog's tale of Berlin at the end of the war, The Zero Hour, plays from next Friday. The effects that scents have on us is investigated in Pigeon Theatre's The Smell of Envy at the Arena in Wolverhampton on Wednesday. Hetain Patel's dance theatre piece, Be Like Water, about what determines the people we become stops off at Lakeside in Nottingham on Tuesday. The Ladykillers is at the Curve in Leicester, Willy Russell's One for the Road is revived at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton.

Looking eastwards, the Manipulate Visual Theatre festival begins at Norwich Puppet theatre on Wednesday. There's a terrific lineup of UK and international work. It's a last chance for Propeller's all-male Shakespeare productions, Twelfth Night and the Taming of the Shrew, at the Theatre Royal in Norwich, and there's a brand new thriller, And Then the Dark, staging its world premiere at the New Wolsey in Ipswich.

London

With Jonathan Miller reviving Rutherford & Son in the Halifax for Northern Broadsides, all eyes are on early 20th-century playwright Githa Sowerby. The Orange Tree has one not seen before ? a 1924 play, The Stepmother, about a woman defying expectations and defining who she really is; from Wednesday. The big news this week is the arrival in London of A Chorus Line at the London Palladium and Robert Lepage's latest, Playing Cards: Spades, at the Roundhouse. The latter is set in the desert city of Las Vegas at the time of the US invasion of Iraq.

On the musical front, Glasgow Girls, a story of teenage friendship and a human rights campaign, arrives at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, Ivor Novello's Gay's the Word is at Jermyn Street and the UK premiere of Jerry Herman's surreal Dear World opens at the Charing Cross theatre with Betty Buckley as the countess facing the destruction of her home.

That very fine Irish actor Brid Brennan leads the cast in Desolate Heaven, a new play about two Irish teenagers, at Theatre 503, and Welsh language drama gets a slot at the Finborough, where Gwenlyn Parry's 1966 classic Saer Doliau will be performed in Welsh with English surtitles. The Audition at Baron's Court explores the highs and lows of actors trying to get a job. Prophesy at Blackall Studios is a devised piece about two children called Helen and Paris who see what the future holds for them.

Head to the Unicorn for A Thousand Slimy Things, Tangere's terrific take on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and also for 1,001 Nights, a modern reimagining of the ancient stories. There are two shows for adults at the Little Angel this week: Passing On, about deaths in hospital, and the outrageous Boris and Sergy's Vaudevillian Adventure. The rather wonderful Miniaturists are at the Arcola on Sunday with new plays by Glyn Maxwell, Vanessa Wilkins, Michael Ross, Poppy Corbett and Gemma Langford.

Things we've previously mentioned but which demand to be seen: the brilliant Metamorphosis at the Lyric Hammersmith, the promenade piece In the Beginning was the End at Somerset House, Out of Joint's revival of Our Country's Good at the St James, and Feast at the Young Vic, which is all about Yoruba culture.

As ever, do share what's hot ? and what's not ? and tell us about the shows you're planning on seeing.

Lyn Gardner

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2013/feb/01/theatre-tips-jonathan-miller-chorus-line

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