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Chariots of Fire, Hampstead Theatre, London Children's Children, Almeida, London In the Next Room (The Vibrator Play), Ustinov Studio, Bath

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Adapted from the award-winning film, Edward Hall's staging of Chariots of Fire is just out of the starting blocks at Hampstead. Yet this homage to Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell – Britain's triumphant Olympic sprinters of 1924 – already has a West End transfer confirmed for mid-June. Is Chariots merely hitching a ride on the London 2012 bandwagon? Is it a winner, theatrically?

Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures, Sadler's Wells, London; Ballo della Regina/La Sylphide, Royal Opera House, London

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

It's not just the humour of Matthew Bourne's early work that makes it so remarkable. It's also the gayness. Emerging from dance training in the late 1980s, Bourne set up his fledgling company in a world still sniggering behind its hand, pre-Section 28, at the notion of male love.

First Night: Posh, Duke of York's Theatre, London

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

"Posh off!" was the headline in The Sun when, in the wake of the last Budget, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries described her own Prime Minister and Chancellor as "two arrogant posh boys" who don't know the price of milk and who show "no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others". Both the headline and the comment must have been music to the ears of Laura Wade, whose Royal Court play Posh, revised to keep abreast of events, was readying itself to transfer to the West End after a two-year gap.

Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures, Sadler's Wells, London

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:39:08 GMT

We're already in classic Bourne territory, with comedy masking yearning and repression, woven through with sharp movie references. For all the wit, this revival is hit and miss. At its best, it’s funny and touching at once. Elsewhere, you can tell that it should be.

The Jolly Folly of Polly the Scottish Trolley Dolly and Other Mini-Marvels, Brighton Fringe, Brighton

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:18:29 GMT

In a tiny upstairs theatre, a man in a wig and kimono asks us to imagine we’re in the Albert Hall. We never discover his name though, in his role in a glittering production of Madame Butterfly, he is known as “Second Japanese villager on the left”.

What the Butler Saw, Vaudeville Theatre, London The Sunshine Boys, Savoy Theatre, London Detroit, NT Cottesloe, London

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Vintage comedies are all the rage. The West End can't get enough of them since One Man, Two Guvnors (an 18th-century classic that was rejigged as a Sixties seaside caper) proved a roaring, award-winning success, alongside Noises Off and The Ladykillers. Are theatreland's latest additions to this retro craze going to raise the roof, though?

Rambert, Sadler's Wells, London François Testory, Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place, London

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Next year Rambert really will have something to celebrate, when it moves to gleaming new premises on London's South Bank. But for the moment it has the 100th birthday of the world's first piece of modern dance to toast, and 10 years of able leadership from Mark Baldwin, who offers his own choreographic answer to Nijinsky's strange, feral L'Après-midi d'un faune.

DVD/Blu-ray: Haywire (15)

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:12 GMT

Martial-arts champion Gina Carano is convincing as lethal Mallory, a black ops commando who is assigned by her slimy boss (Ewan McGregor) to “babysit” Michael Fassbender's agent in Dublin.

Top Hat, Aldwych Theatre, London WC2

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The producers of this irresistible show, a freely adapted version of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, don't subscribe to the precept of deferred gratification. Once the deliciously orchestrated overture is over, Matthew White's production unleashes a knock-'em-dead account of "Puttin' on the Ritz".

Mother Adam, Jermyn Street Theatre, London

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:21:49 GMT

Resplendent in a tangerine toque and monitoring her middle-aged son with a manipulative, faux-beaten-dog wariness, Linda Marlowe's marvellous Mammles looks like the lost love child of Gloria Swanson and Albert Steptoe in Gene David Kirk's revelatory and richly entertaining revival of Mother Adam (1971).

First Night: The Sunshine Boys, Savoy Theatre, London

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Put the diminutive Danny DeVito in anything and it's virtually impossible to avoid visual jokes about scale. This was seen at its purest in the movie that had DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the eponymous twins that had been produced by a botched genetic experiment.

Wings of Desire, Victoria Square, Birmingham

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:28:04 GMT

Wings of Desire starts with angels roosting on rooftops, white-clad figures silhouetted against a darkening sky. It ends with an astonishing blast of digital imagery, Birmingham’s Town Hall transformed as the performers move across it.

Interiors, Brighton Festival

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:39:00 GMT

There’s domestic drama at Brighton's Theatre Royal where the stage is filled with a large window, behind which twinkles an invitingly lit dining room. This is the setting for Interiors, first seen at Edinburgh’s Traverse in 2009 and now, thankfully, revived.

Domestic, Brighton Festival

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:36:52 GMT

Strange things are happening in The Basement, Brighton’s buzzy home for avant-garde theatre.

A World I Loved, Brighton Festival

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:38:55 GMT

Among the many heartening aspects of last year’s Arab uprisings was the visible role of women in the protests. These women might easily have looked to the writings of Wadad Makdisi Cortas for inspiration.

Top Hat, Aldwych, London Babel, Caledonian Park, London The Rest is Silence, Malthouse Estate Warehouse, Shoreham, West Sussex

Sat, 12 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Out of work and forsaken in love, Mia Farrow wanders into a cinema in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. There her Depression-era grief melts away as she's drawn in by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, dancing on the silver screen, in Top Hat.

Motor Show, Black Rock, Kemp Town, Brighton

Sat, 12 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Superstore access roads are built, you imagine, with one function in mind, but the slip road to Asda at Brighton Marina does surprisingly well as a backdrop to theatre. Curving up and away on concrete stilts, it supplies a steady cavalcade of headlamps. Beneath are garlands of graffiti, above it gulls idle, stars come out.

Babel, Caledonian Park, London

Fri, 11 May 2012 23:00:35 GMT

There’s a gathering of tribes in the city. “Our languages, our backgrounds, our cultures are different, but together we have been drawn to this place…” No, it’s not the Olympic village – we’re in Caledonian Park, and Babel isn’t part of any Olympic fandango (though it is brought about by World Stages, a project between eight theatres celebrating ‘London in the world’.)

Dip Your Toe, Brighton Fringe

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:42:14 GMT

Just outside the Brighton Grand, on the shingly beach, sits a barnacle-encrusted, sea-green hut on wheels.

The rest is silence, Brighton Festival

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:35:52 GMT

Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? But for a rain-battered Brighton Festival banner on the gate you'd never guess that the nondescript lock-up on a industrial estate in Shoreham-by-Sea was playing host to one of the most eagerly anticipated theatre events of the year.

The rest is silence, Brighton Festival

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:35:52 GMT

Breakin' Convention, Sadler's Wells, London

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:20:33 GMT

The May Bank Holiday may have been wet and bitterly cold, but Breakin’ Convention hasn’t lost its bounce. Now in its ninth year, the festival of hip hop dance theatre has a solid history, covering everything from rising youth groups to international acts. The weekend festival will be followed by a UK tour; today’s performance will be streamed live online.

Ballet Revolution, Peacock Theatre, London

Sat, 05 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Cuba's got talent – that much is established. Any country of only 11 million souls that can produce Carlos Acosta and field more than 50 dance companies, one of them world-renowned, does not have a lot left to prove.

Enquirer, The Hub at Pacific Quay, Glasgow Richard III, Shakespeare's Globe, London Making Noises Quietly, Donmar, London

Sat, 05 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

They used to be impaled. In days of yore, when journalists clattered away on typewriters, articles ditched by the editor were literally "spiked" – on a metal prong. Now, the National Theatre of Scotland is asking whether the entire British newspaper industry is in its death throes. Its keenly awaited docudrama, Enquirer, is "a theatrical investigation into the current crisis". It's staged as a promenade in an office in Clydeside media quarter, a vast open-plan room scattered with desks and bundled newspapers.

The Impending Storm, Patrick Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome

Wed, 02 May 2012 08:50:13 GMT

David Toole sits in the centre of a bed, arms reaching out. Born without legs, Toole is an extraordinary performer, charismatic and precise. There’s a sumptuous flow of movement through his powerful shoulders, while his hands are delicately articulate. Walking on his hands, he seems to caress the floor.