Forever Plaid is Upstairs at the Gatehouse

CHARLES Entsie’s debut play No Strings Attached will be staged at a site-specific location within Islington Square, just minutes from the King’s Head Theatre, offering audiences an exciting and atmospheric live experience. Within the charged confines of a car at midnight on a dark street, a clandestine encounter between Boy (Shak Benjamin) and Man (Razak Osman) leads to far more than either had bargained for… No Strings Attached exposes the reality of the lengths men go to keep their secrets hidden. Tue-Sat, May 25-June 19. Book: kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/no-strings-attached

• Theatro Technis is reopening its doors with a production of Eugène Ionescu’s Exit the King. The king is dying but will not admit it. Four hundred years ago he could control the weather and move people’s minds. Now he is truly an old man refusing to accept the inevitable, whose first wife wants him to face the madness and decay that come with death looming over him. His second wife offers the comfort of pretence that it is not happening. From May 25-29 at 7.30pm theatrotechnis.com/production/exit-the-king/

• The Cockpit Theatre reopens with the Bridge Theatre Training Company’s streamlined version of Hamlet, directed by Mark Akrill. Film noir meets the Great American Songbook in this 1940s-inspired production. Set in a nightclub and framed by performances of classic jazz numbers, the Bridge’s production plays with the boundaries between art and life – as Hamlet, Claudius, Ophelia, Gertrude, Polonius and the rest struggle to convince the world of their own versions of reality. Thu-Fri May 20-21 and Tue-Sat May 25-29, 7.15pm. Visit: thecockpit.org.uk

• Jermyn Street Theatre is reopening with the Footprints Festival, 43 productions encompassing drama, music, poetry, and comedy available to watch at home or in the theatre. First up is Biyi Bandele’s Two Horsemen until June 5. Flatmates Banza and Lagbaja blissfully fritter the hours away regaling each other with nonsensical stories. Today, however, something else is in the air: confusion; déjà vu; fragments of past memories. Has this happened before? Visit: jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/two-horsemen

• Ovation is delighted to reopen Upstairs at the Gatehouse with Forever Plaid, written, originally directed and choreographed by Stuart Ross, Music by James Raitt. Set in the 1950s, this uplifting revue is chock-full of classic quartet harmonies and pitch-perfect melodies. June 1-27. Visit: www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com

• Covent Garden’s cabaret restaurant Circus has reopened. The bar/restaurant is known for its exorbitant pop-up circus acts that entertain diners in between courses of pan-Asian food. Visit: circus-london.co.uk