Welcome to Cranford: a small town where gossip travels fast and traditions run deep. But in the 1840s, change is coming – whether anyone likes it or not. Tamsin Greig leads an ensemble cast as Matty Jenkyns, who lives at the centre of a close-knit community of formidable women. Their lives are governed by a web of peculiar customs and unspoken rules. But as the outside world rushes in, the residents of Cranford must navigate troubled friendships, lost love, and the challenge of holding on to what matters most. Elizabeth Gaskell's 1853 novel celebrates the complexities of everyday life with humour, heart, and extraordinary insight.

A young man from Wythenshawe has been sent on a ten week therapy via poetry course to work through something he would much rather leave alone. He doesn't like therapy. He definitely doesn't like poetry. But he would like everyone to stop asking him how he feels. Facing him, a therapist with one question: are you telling the truth or have you told this story so many times you now believe it? So they talk. They play chess. He makes jokes, changes the subject and, once a week, brings in a poem. The trouble is, the poems start getting harder to hide behind as he realises he's “not f*cking Oscar Wilde”. Act of God is the debut play from Manchester writer Jacob O'Connor, exploring masculinity, class and what happens when a man who can talk his way out of almost anything, suddenly can't.

Harriet Walter reprises her role as Brutus in Phyllida Lloyd's groundbreaking 2012 Donmar Warehouse production. From the back of a prison van, Ancient Rome is brought to the stage. Reflecting their own preoccupations with freedom and justice, a group of female prisoners present a 90-minute version of Julius Caesar. Soon, story and reality collide, and the impact of power politics feels very close to home. Caesar's creeping dominance in Rome risks democracy. A collective of conspirators secretly recruit the popular senator Brutus and they assassinate Caesar to reclaim the republic for the citizens. As terror and chaos rule the streets, Shakespeare's politically-charged play exposes how the overthrow of a tyrant by violent means seldom leads to a peaceful outcome.