That Day We Sang, Manchester
Regrets? Most of us have a few as the golden promise of youth gives way to middle age, our bodies sag and we realise we haven't pursued our dreams. For Tubby, an out of condition insurance agent, and Enid, a shy, unfulfilled secretary, standing in 1969 on the stage of the Manchester Free Trade Hall where ? 40 years before ? they were part of the Manchester School Children's Choir recording of Nymphs And Shepherds, there are plenty of regrets. Can they recapture the thrill of that day back in 1929, and find their voices one more time? Victoria Wood's new play with songs, commissioned by the Manchester International Festival, is billed as a Manchester love story as two people make one last grab at happiness.
Opera House, Wed to 17 Jul
Lyn Gardner
As I Like It, London
Amanda Eliasch is a pretty driven woman. She's been a photographer, poet and fashion editor and is friends with the likes of Tracey Emin and Kay Saatchi. Now's she's added playwright to her CV with As I Like It, which started out as a task set by her father (the journalist Anthony Cave Brown; her mother was opera singer Caroline Gilliat) to write 5,000 words in a weekend. He died five years ago but Eliasch decided to revive the piece, which is partly autobiographical, last year. She's had a complex life ? not least when she was married to a sportswear tycoon and having an affair with a top cosmetic surgeon ? and this is clearly writing as therapy for the 51-year-old, whose 19-year-old son Charlie is in the three-strong cast. Lyall Watson, her drama teacher at Rada 28 years ago, directs, and sets are by Nicky Haslam.
Chelsea Theatre, SW10, Mon to 14 Jul
Mark Cook
Treasure Island, Bristol
The Old Vic has already had a big hit with a story about mucking about in boats with Swallows And Amazons, and now it turns its attention to Robert Louis Stevenson's original pirate adventure featuring Long John Silver. While work is done on the theatre's auditorium, the company is setting sail right outside its own front doors in King Street. It's another example of how so often necessity breeds invention in the theatre, and the theatrical vessel is under the watchful eye of director Sally Cookson, whose rough and ready Ali Baba was such a joy at the Tobacco Factory a couple of years back. Legend has it that Stevenson first heard the seafaring songs and stories that inspired his novel in a Bristol inn, and Bristol's long seafaring connections should make this a summer blockbuster.
Bristol Old Vic, Thu to 26 Aug
LG
Singin' In The Rain, Chichester
Under Jonathan Church, Chichester has always taken its musicals very seriously. It should have a hit with this stage version of the classic Hollywood musical, with Adam Copper taking on the role of Don Lockwood, the silent movie star at the height of his fame, played by Gene Kelly on celluloid. Like The Wizard Of Oz, this is a show that's proved hard to transpose from screen to stage in the past and banish the heretical thought that you might actually prefer to be watching the movie. But Church could be the man to bring this story of the early days of the talkies to life and allow audiences to wallow in what is a real song-and-dance show which boasts a heart-lifting score that includes such golden classics as Good Moring and Moses Supposes.
Festival Theatre, to 10 Sep
LG
Park Avenue Cat, London
Former Corrie serial killer Gray O'Brien (Tony, the Scottish one with the weird bulgy eyes) and Tessa Peake-Jones of Only Fools And Horses fame form half the cast of a four-hander about a love triangle with four corners: two men, one woman and a therapist. Park Avenue Cat, a Los Angeles-set comedy by US writer Frank Strausser, gets its world premiere here and is also being adapted for film. It looks at the impossibility of having it all given the complexity of 21st-century living, where ties of family and friends have become eroded and more and more people are single. In a world where there is too much choice, loneliness is rife. This is a comedy, though, based on the notion that these characters are kidding themselves as well as each other. Gwen Walford, who last year directed Meera Syal in Shirley Valentine to some acclaim, is at the helm of the cast that also includes Josefina Gabrielle and Daniel Weyman.
Arts Theatre, WC2, to 20 Aug
MC
BE Festival
Nottingham's European Arts Festival has only recently finished, and now Birmingham presents another tray of cultural delicacies. Now in its second year, BE aims to offer work from here and abroad that blurs the boundaries between art forms as well as between national, cultural and linguistic borders. There is plenty to savour, including the premiere of the latest piece from veteran performance maker Anne Bean. Made with Iraqi artist Poshya Kaki, The Un-Knitted Lives Of Young Girls (Fri) tells the story of Iraqi women imprisoned for refusing arranged marriages. Other highlights include a performance called The Focus (9 Jul) from mysterious Russian physical theatre company Kotorogo, who keep their identities secret; a retelling of Greek myth from Kindle (Wed); as well as work from Greece, Spain, Italy and France.
AE Harris Factory, Mon to 10 Jul
LG
Entitled, Manchester
Who says technicians never take centre-stage? They do in this latest piece created by Quarantine, the superb Manchester-based company with an international reputation for making work with real people that draws directly from their lives. Heading to the British Council showcase at the Edinburgh fringe in August before touring to Northern Stage, Sadler's Wells and The Curve, Entitled brings together the technicians with three dancers and a writer to ask questions on privilege and disappointment, the choices we make and those which are thrust upon us.
Royal Exchange, Thu to 23 Jul
LG
Dear Uncle, Scarborough
Alan Ayckbourn claims Chekhov's great tragi-comedy about love, desire and regret among his favourite plays, so it's a brave move to take it on and give it an English twist. Set in the Lake District in 1935, it offers up the unrequited love of Marcus for Eleanor, complete with a family doctor and a lovesick niece in a story of summer madness that turns to winter chill. Clearly this isn't a traditional version of the masterpiece nor an original play, but if Ayckbourn can walk the tightrope between the two, it should offer a satisfying new take on an old classic.
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Thu to 30 Sep
LG
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jul/02/this-weeks-new-theatre
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