Top 5 openings of the week: 4 – 10 September
© Patrick Baldwin
5. Reasons to be Cheerful
Belgrade, Coventry, 8 and 9 September and then touring
Well, if there's one reason to be cheerful this week, it's that disability-led Graeae's high-energy production is back on the road. This time, the show – which features songs by Ian Dury and the Blockheads – carries a brand new track, written especially for the production by members of The Blockheads. Directed by Jenny Sealey, the show is a raucous coming-of-age story which also includes songs such as "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick".
See our full casting announcement here.
4. Doubt
Southwark Playhouse 6 to 20 September
Legend Stella Gonet takes on the role of Sister Aloysius Beauvier in John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play which was turned into the film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. The play itself – which won the Tony Award for Best Play – follows Gonet's character who is headmistress of a church school in the Bronx and has to deal with a question of innocence over a parish priest.
Read our casting announcement here.
3. Thebes Land
Arcola Theatre, until 7 October
Thebes Land originally opened at the Arcola Theatre last year and tells the story of a playwright struggling to stage the story of a man serving life for killing his father with a fork. Reviewing it for WhatsOnStage last year, Matt Trueman wrote "What a sharp, satisfying watch this is – a play that runs rings around its audience". The production returns this year as part of CASA Festival.
You can read our review of Thebes Land here.
2. One Day Maybe
KASANG Corporation, Hull, until 1 October
Hull has been impressing the rest of the country during its UK City of Culture year, and the latest offering is Dreamthinkspeak's One Day Maybe, a site responsible piece inspired by the 1980 Democratic Uprising in Gwangju in South Korea. As is usually the case with Dreamthinkspeak, One Day Maybe uses new technology, video and soundscapes to take the audience on a journey, this time around a place called the Kasang Corporation in the centre of Hull.
1. Follies
National Theatre, until 3 January
It's finally here. The hotly anticipated revival production of Stephen Sondheim's classic opens this week at the National Theatre starring Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Tracie Bennett, Zizi Strallen, Philip Quast, Adam Rhys-Charles, Peter Forbes and many more. Directed by Dominic Cooke in the Olivier Theatre, tickets are selling like hotcakes, but there is an NT Live Broadcast scheduled for 16 November. More tickets are available later in the run.
