monday 2 october The Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch presents a new production of John Godber's Bouncers, opening tonight (following previews from 29 September) for a run to 21 October. Set to a classic 80s soundtrack of songs that include Michael Jackson's Thriller and Banarama's Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye), the cast features James Earl Adair, Richard Brightiff, Philip Reed and Steve Simmonds.
Box Office: 01708 443333
 | | Jake Nightingale and Harry Dickman |
ALSO TONIGHT: the West End play Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane, written by the TV programme's original creator Ray Galton and fellow comedy writer John Antrobus, comes to Richmond Theatre as part of a national tour from tonight (to 7 October), with Jake Nightingale and Harry Dickman reprising their title performances.
Box Office: 0870 060 6651 tuesday 3 october Yeah but no but: Matt Lucas and David Walliams perform Little Britain Live for a season from tonight at Hammersmith Apollo, to 11 November. All the favourite characters are here - with guest appearances from Anthony Head (who plays the Prime Minister that Walliams' PA Sebastian becomes obsessed with) and Ruth Jones.
Box Office: 0870 606 3400 ALSO TONIGHT: Coronation Street's Sally Lindsay - who played Rovers Return landlady Shelly Unwin for five years, for which she was voted Best Actress at the 2005 Inside Soap Awards - appears in Roy Smiles' The Ho-Ho Club, opening tonight at the King's Head (following previews from 26 September). Described as a comedy about stand-up, it is set both onstage and backstage at a South London comedy club. Karl Howman directs a cast that also features Roger Kitter.
Box Office: 020 7226 1916 AND: Pied Piper receives its world premiere at Stratford East's Theatre Royal tonight (following a preview on 30 September). Described as a contemporary hip hop street dance interpretation of Robert Browning's poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin, the show features 36 dancers in an original 90-minute piece directed and designed by Ultz (who staged Stratford East's production of Da Boyz) and choreography by Kenrick 'H20' Sandy.
Box Office: 0800 183 1188 wednesday 4 october
 | | Kafka's Metamorphosis at the Lyric |
The Lyric Hammersmith's artistic director David Farr joins forces with Gisli Orn Gardarrson, artistic director of Iceland's Vesturport, to direct a new adaptation of Kakfa's Metamorphosis, opening tonight (following previews from 29 September), about a travelling salesman who finds that he has transformed into a repulsive insect. Gardarrsson, who was last seen at the Lyric in Nights at the Circus, appears in a cast that also features British actors Kelly Hunger and Jonathan McGuinness alongside Icelandic actors.
Box Office: 08700 500 511 ALSO TONIGHT: Southwark's Union Theatre presents three diverse programmes of new plays under the umbrella title "shortcuts 2006", opening tonight (following a preview on 3 October). Showcasing new short plays by writers including Matt Harley (winner of the Bruntwood Playwrighting Competition 2006) and Sarah Sigal (recent graduate of the MA in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths), the season runs to 21 October.
Box Office: 020 7261 8876 thursday 5 october Martin Sherman's landmark 1979 play Bent, originally premiered at the Royal Court with Ian McKellen and Tom Bell and subsequently seen the same year on Broadway with Richard Gere and David Dukes, is revived at the Trafalgar Studios, opening tonight (following previews from 22 September). The cast of this gay love story set in a Nazi concentration camp features Alan Cumming and recent RADA graduate Chris New amongst a company that also includes Richard Bremmer, Hugh Ross, Kevin Trainor and Benjamin Wilkin.
Box Office: 0870 060 6632
 | | Kung Fu Masters: a smash hit spectacle |
ALSO TONIGHT: the Shaolin Monks return to the Peacock Theatre with their smash-hit spectacle Kung Fu Masters Live, opening tonight (following a preview on 4 October) for a season to 29 October. Featuring a cast of 25 ordained monks who demonstrate extraordinary abilities including breaking iron bars with their heads and splintering wooden staves with their bodies, the show combines the elegance of dance, the spectacle of the circus and the extreme thrill of live martial arts.
Box Office: 0870 737 0337 AND: Harold Finley writes and performs Rhymes, Reasons and Bomb Ass Beatz, a comic play that covers three years in the interconnected lives of 10 Britons and Americans from drag queens to rappers, drug dealers and preachers, opening tonight at Kennington's Oval House Theatre (following previews from 3 October), for a run to 21 October.
Box Office: 020 7582 7680 friday 6 october The Actors Company present their 11th annual season at London's Jermyn Street Theatre, with two classic texts being presented in repertoire: Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade, directed by Andrew Visnevski, opening tonight (following previews from 4 October), and Howard Richardson and William Berney's Dark of the Moon opening on 13 October (following previews from 12 October).
Box Office: 020 7287 2875 saturday 7 october
 | | A new cut-off point for Les Mis |
Les Miserables inherits the mantle of the West End's longest running musical of all time when it celebrates its 21st birthday tomorrow, and to mark the occasion, at tonight's performance a specially devised finale will see the mantle handed over from Cats.
Box Office: 0870 890 1110 monday 9 october The Phantom of the Opera is right behind Les Mis in the longevity stakes: tonight the show - which in January became Broadway's longest running musical of all time - celebrates its 20th London birthday.
Box Office: 0870 890 1106 ALSO TONIGHT: another record-breaker: Peter Hall, who staged the original English language production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot fifty-one years ago, finally brings his anniversary production of the play - first seen at Bath Theatre Royal last year - to the West End's New Ambassadors Theatre (opening tonight, following previews from 3 October), with a cast that includes James Laurenson, Alan Dobie, Richard Dormer and Terence Rigby.
Box Office: 0870 060 6627 AND: Mel Smith and Belinda Lang star in a new touring comedy, An Hour and a Half Late!, co-written by Gerald Sibleyras (whose play Heroes was adapted by Tom Stoppard for the West End last year and is also now on a national tour) and Jean Dell, running at Richmond Theatre from tonight to 14 October.
Box Office: 0870 060 6651 tuesday 10 october
 | | Cabaret's Anna Maxwell Martin |
National Theatre actress Anna Maxwell Martin makes her West End and musical theatre debut as Sally Bowles in a new production of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, opening at the West End's Lyric Theatre tonight (following previews from 22 September). Rufus Norris, whose production of Festen transferred to the same theatre from the Almeida, directs a cast that also features Michael Hayden, James Dreyfus and Sheila Hancock.
Box Office: 0870 890 1107 ALSO TONIGHT: the Maly Theatre of St Petersburg brings their first Shakespearean production, King Lear, to the Barbican Theatre as part of BITE06. The company, seen here last year with Uncle Vanya, features Petr Semak (who played Doctor Astrov in Vanya) in the title role. Lev Dodin directs the production which runs from tonight to 14 October.
Box Office: 0845 120 7550 AND: writer and installation artist Michael McMillan's new play Master Juba, based on the true story of William Henry Lane - father of black British dance - comes to Deptford's Albany Theatre from tonight (to 12 Oct, box office 020 8692 4446) as part of a tour that also goes to Edmonton's Millfield Arts Centre (13-14 October, 020 8807 6680), Harrow Arts Centre (16 October, 020 8428 0124), Barking's Broadway Theatre (18 October, 020 8507 5607) and Hackney Empire (31 October, 020 8985 2424). wednesday 11 october
 | | A Waterloo reprise for the Young Vic |
The Young Vic returns to its Waterloo home after its extensive rebuild, with a reprise for Jonathan Dove and David Lan's community opera Tobias and the Angel with which the Young Vic began their 'Walkabout' exile. Running to 21 October, it features an orchestra, company of singers, a choir and two choruses from Lambeth and Southwark to accompany Tobias across mountains towards love and self-knowledge.
Box Office: 020 7928 6363 thursday 12 october Will Adamsale, 2004 Perrier Award winner, performs Eric Bogosian's Notes from Underground, opening at the Trafalgar Studios 2 tonight (following previews from 10 October), for a run to 4 November. This tale from the city's edge, in which a New York recluse who is obsessed with becoming a better and more productive person, is directed by Adrian Osmond, who previously directed the first UK production of this play at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1999.
Box Office: 0870 060 6632 ALSO TONIGHT: Jeremy Lion, former Perrier Award nominee on the Edinburgh Fringe and one-third of The Consultants, brings his latest show Jeremy Lion - For Your Entertainment, to London's Menier Chocolate Factory, opening tonight (following previews from 10 October), for a run to 11 November. This autobiographical story follows a children's entertainer as he embarks on a new chapter in his chequered career.
Box Office: 020 7907 7060 AND: Broadway in the Shadows, a new play adapted from the short stories of prolific American author O. Henry, opens at Dalston's Arcola Theatre tonight (following previews from 10 October). Set in a brutal, violent Ohio prison, a group of inmates attempt to survive its rigours by telling each other stories. The cast of David Salter's production includes American actor Ted Van Griethuysen.
Box Office: 020 7503 1646 friday 13 october
 | | Stormforce: fusion yes, filler no |
Stormforce, a fusion of Irish and African dance and music, opens at Riverside Studios tonight (following previews from 11 October), for a run to 4 November. Just as Riverdance was originally conceived as a filler for the Eurovision Song Contest, so this was a filler for the St Patrick's Day celebration for the Irish Ambassador in Canary Wharf; now, two years of development later, a new show has been conceived fusing two of the most popular music and dance genres in the world.
Box Office: 020 8237 1111 saturday 14 october Harold Pinter makes a rare return to the stage to perform Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, a play in which a man sits alone on his last birthday listening to the past, opening at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs tonight (following previews from 12 October), for a run to 24 October only. Royal Court artistic director Ian Rickson directs.
Box Office: 020 7565 5000 ALSO TONIGHT: performance artist Ursula Martinez presents her highly personal trilogy of shows, A Family Outing, Show Off and OAP, under the umbrella title Me, Me, Me! at the Barbican's Pit, opening in a single press night tonight (following previews from 11 October), and continuing in rep to 21 October.
Box Office: 0845 120 7550 (Interested? For more details and to book direct, go to the Useful Links in the right-hand column. You can find part two of October's diary by following the link below) | 
