Shakespeare's great tragedy and Radiohead's seminal album collide for a feverish experience that fuses theatre, music, and movement. In this frenetic distillation of Shakespeare's masterpiece, Elsinore has become a surveillance state and hectic runs in the blood of its citizens. Hamlet Hail to the Thief centres on Hamlet and Ophelia's awakening to the lies and corruption revealed by ghosts and music. Paranoia reigns and no one is spared a tragic unravelling. In this adaptation, music becomes an integral part of the narrative. Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has reworked the band's critically acclaimed album into a deconstructed score that illuminates the text and is performed by live musicians.

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.