As I said in my previous post, I was in Northern Stage yesterday meeting Esther Fearn from Alphabetti to talk about their great new season, which is showcased on their shiny new website.

There’s an array of great shows (I was excited to FINALLY manage to book tickets to Bonnie and the Bonnettes, whom I had started to think I was fated never to see as I always seem to be away when they are performing (I’m missing their new show at Northern Stage, which sounds fab). But they are doing a Halloween show at Alphabetti that I can actually go to, so I nabbed tickets (The BonBon’s Cabaret: The Haunted House of Love – tix here.)

As well as the regular events (Shakespeare Speakeasy, Film Nite, Write Faster, Comedy Night that Passes the Bechdel Test), they have some real treats lined up. I’m a bit gutted I will miss the first of these, Three Shorts – which is basically what it says on the tin, three short plays – but other promising shows include Steve, a pleasingly bonkers sounding show about a dead robot, The Art of Cuddling and Other Things (a show I reviewed when it was being developed, and which showed a lot of promise), Camisado Club’s Bluebeard, which has one of the best blurb’s I’ve read (“Camisado Club take aim at patriarchy and power structures in a colourful, glitter-splattered cocktail of high art and low morals”) and Awkward Conversations with Animals I’ve F*cked [asterisk theirs], which definitely sounds… interesting. I’m also really keen to see Isolation, which got rave reviews when it was staged at Customs House.

Many of the shows are pay-what-you-feel, and all of them are on the cheap side compared to what most theatres charge, so it’s definitely worth checking out what’s coming. If nothing else, get yourself along to the bar – you might see the theatre’s resident dog!