Monsters, sprites, humans, love and angst, sound like a delightful mix of intrigue and mystery. When in fact, you’re witnessing one of Shakespeare's works of art, produced by Tom Dixon and Will Orton. The Handlebards, a group of inspiring thespians who have made it their mission to bring environmentally friendly theatre on a journey to make it accessible for all.

For one night only, ‘On The Go Theatre Company’ bring their production of “Power Cut’, a new play by Josie Byrne and Lynda Gray, to the salubrious surroundings of Olympus Fish & Chips in downtown Bolton. Unfortunately, what aspired to be a character-based situation comedy with a political edge proved to be more of a broad 1970s farce with a muddled script, both poorly staged and executed.

On a night when Storm Amy lashed Leeds with wind and rain, Opera North’s Susanna offered a different kind of tempest — one of moral reckoning, emotional intensity, and artistic boldness. Handel’s oratorio, reimagined through opera and dance, became a mirror for society’s treatment of women, power, and truth. The audience, braving the elements, were rewarded with a production as courageous in its staging as it was timely in its themes.

At the start of the performance Chisato Minamimura introduces herself as a deaf Japanese woman. She is also a beautiful contemporary dancer and mime artist. Using dance, mime and sign language (with a pre-recorded audio) she explores and celebrates the history of women and tattooing. The show also uses something called woojer straps, a vibrating belt designed to offer an additional sensory experience.

Troilus and Cressida is a lesser-known play by Shakespeare influenced by Grecian context and features characters from Greek Mythology. It centres and draws on the Trojan war.” Inside the walls of Troy Prince Troilus, Kasper Hilton-Hille tells Pandarus he loves Cressida her niece”. In a sequence of match making events by Pandarus the deed was done made simple by the fact, that Cressida confessed she had secretly betrothed herself to Troilus.

What would you do if you knew explicit photos of a young schoolgirl were being leaked? Would you do anything? Have you done anything? We’ve all witnessed situations like this before—it’s an all-too-common scenario, so common in fact that most people wouldn’t bat an eye. HER, produced by Strange Town and written by Jennifer Adam, confronts the audience directly, urging us to stand up and take action.

Based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo which was later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg in 2011, the show was adapted for the stage back in 2007, on which it has been more or less ever since (factoring in for Covid). The eponymous War Horse is Joey, young farmer Albert’s beloved equine companion, who gets sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France in 1914 during mobilisation.

The Deacons are a respectable middle-class Catholic family living in an English town, doing their best to raise a family and earn a living. But this is 1969. There is a social transformation going on in England. The permissive society is well on its way, women's voices are becoming increasingly strident, skirts are getting shorter, and pop music is embracing the youth movement.

An enjoyable evening at Winter Gardens, Blackpool. A very talented cast led by Sidonie Smith (Chicago, Sister Act) as the central character, vocal superstar Rachel Marron. Alongside her bodyguard, Frank Farmer, the role made famous in the movie version by Kevin Costner, this evening played by Olivier award nominated Adam Garcia (Wicked, Coyote Ugly) a man with a wealth of industry experience If anything slightly disappointing that we didn’t get to enjoy his amazing vocal, or highly skilled tap dancing.

On a wet and blustery autumnal evening, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Alpesh Chauhan, delivered a programme rich in colour, rhythm and emotional depth. Yet despite the brilliance of individual works and performances, the evening’s structure felt somewhat episodic — a sequence of vivid tableaux rather than a unified narrative. One couldn’t help but wish for a meaty Romantic symphony to provide a longer-form canvas for Chauhan’s storytelling instincts.

Gareth Farr’s 2011 Bruntwood Prize winning play is a brutal and gritty account of a young man’s journey from the cold, wet beaches of Blackpool to the dry, burning deserts of Afghanistan and it takes no prisoners along the way. It’s a tough but important story to listen to and a sad reflection on society that its message still resonates so strongly some fifteen years on.

When you see a cast list inclusive of Stephen Fry and the players of The Importance of Being Earnest, you know you are in safe hands. This production brings joy, silliness and exquisite delivery of an old classic. The witty puns and charm don’t disappoint, and the extravagance of the set and costumes throws you into high society elegance. This Oscar Wilde play first performed in 1895, is the last of his drawing room plays.

Director Oliver Mears triumphs with this modern-day interpretation of Puccini’s full-blooded three-act drama of politics and power with its many allusions to global current affairs to the fore. In a war-torn Rome, Floria Tosca (Anna Netreba) and Mario Cavaradossi (Freddie De Tommaso) live for each other and for their art. But when Cavaradossi helps an escaped prisoner, Cesare Angelotti (Ossian Huskinson), the lovers make a deadly enemy in the form of Baron Scarpia (Gerald Finley), Chief of Police.

Nima Taleghani’s Bacchae is an explicitly pro-women reading of the Euripedes’ tragedy, if one that feels slightly dated (and not because of the Ancient Greek setting). It flips the focus of the play to its Greek chorus: the women of the Bacchae narrate, while the traditionally leading Dionysos, Agave and Pentheus become funnier, more ridiculous and more pitiable characters. The chorus of Bacchae is led by Vida, brought to gritty and sparkling life by Clare Perkins.

Ken Ludwig’s stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, directed by Lucy Bailey at The Lowry, is a real masterclass in theatrical storytelling, full of intrigue and suspense. From the very first moment, the audience is swept into Christie’s world of glamour and danger, all delivered with precision delivery that makes this show a genuine five-star triumph! What strikes you immediately is just how slick and cinematic the staging feels.

Irving Berlin’s Top Hat taps into the Edinburgh Playhouse this week with more sparkle than a sequinned gin palace, and, in a rare feat, manages to float for two and a half hours without ever feeling heavy. Not just that, the sound is also extraordinary, and for a venue sometimes dogged by poor acoustics, this is a revelation: sound clear as a bell, band fizzing with verve, and an audience leaning in from overture to curtain.

Have you ever wondered how The Beatles became THE BEATLES? If so, get yourself down to the Epstein Theatre for the fantastically toe-tapping 'Shake It Up Baby' written by Ian Salmon and directed by Stephen Fletcher. Dive into the 1960s on a musical journey which spans Liverpool, London and Hamburg. A multi-talented and creative cast take to the stage to delight and entertain you with outstanding vocals, a story of determination and energetic choreography (Carrie-Anne Ingrouille and WOW LIVERPOOL), making you feel that you want to get right up and dance with them.

Francis Beckett's new play takes the very topical theme of a right-wing political party having assumed power in the United Kingdom and speculates on its possible consequences. There is certainly plenty in our present political discourse to provide the raw material for such a narrative. The play starts with a dialogue between King Charles III and Max Moore, the Prime Minister of Briton's First, a recently elected right-wing minority government.

What really shouldn’t work as a concept for a musical, really does. A musical based on the book that Mormons use, or even Mormons in general? And it was written by the duo who created South Park? Everything just shouldn’t work about this show, yet it has a huge following and is so funny, that you ache from laughing. Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s musical follows Elder Price – the top missionary in his class and his missionary partner, Elder Cunnigham, who is the bottom of the class.

FIASCO by Cryptids Improvisational Theatre is a longform improv show based on the tabletop roleplaying game of the same name. In the tabletop roleplaying game, players roll dice and consult tables to come up with a collection of storytelling prompts, linking characters together through “relationships”, “needs”, “locations”, and “objects”. This provides the framework upon which the players collaboratively tell a story, usually of normal people finding themselves drawn into increasingly violent situations the likes of which you might find in a Coen Brothers movie.

When C S Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, he couldn’t have envisaged that the second in the series, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, would still be entertaining folk 75 years after it was first published. To celebrate the anniversary, this week Hull New Theatre plays host to the West End smash-hit production and, taking my seat on Tuesday night, I noticed theatregoers of all ages in attendance.

Ana is the foreign girl, a Belarusian living in the UK, attempting to get herself the Global Talent visa in the field of theatre. On realising that mere song and dance isn’t going to be enough, she calls her agent for help in deciding on what kind of professional theatre piece could make her eligible. They go through options – Marina Abramovic (too abstract), Chekhov (but he’s been cancelled), Shakespeare (Lady Macbeth with a Belarusian twist could work) – until they hit the right one.

Being a standup comedian already requires a certain level of bravery. In his latest comedy special at Lambeth Fringe, Sam Dodgshon takes this vulnerability to new extremes by giving the audience control over what happens in the show. The concept is simple but smart. We’re presented with a PowerPoint that resembles a flowchart, with slides prompting the audience to choose between various options that influence the direction of the show.

The Congleton Players’ first production of the 2025/26 season opened last night and it’s the hilarious One Man, Two Guvnors, directed by Louise Colohan, delivering a gloriously chaotic and endlessly entertaining evening at the theatre. Richard Bean’s modern adaptation of Carlo Goldini’s The Servant of Two Masters has been delighting audiences for years, but in the hands of the spirited Congleton Players company, it feels fresher and funnier than ever.

Once more Manchester’s Opera House hosted another World Premiere last night in the latest show where Manchester gets it first! 13 Going on 30 is adapted from the 2004 romantic comedy about Jenna Rink, a 13-year-old girl who wishes to skip her awkward teenage years and be “thirty, flirty, and thriving.” After making her wish, she wakes up as her 30-year-old self, a successful magazine editor.