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Published: 12 May, 2011
by JOSH LOEB

• She was the star of the show when the Tower Theatre company staged Anne Frank in 2005. But where has Belsize Park and Kilburn actress Lucy Danser been since then? Her gran, Joyce Terry, tells me she has been running a comedy club in Kent after performing in America. But now the 24-year-old is back in Camden for The Female of the Species at the Bridewell Theatre. Meanwhile, the Tower Theatre Company opens Macbeth at St Leonard’s Church in Shoreditch on May 19.

• I’d heard of warehouse raves but have only recently become acquainted with the concept of a warehouse opera. The resident company at the King’s Head Theatre in Upper Street have proved Londoners have a thirst for the melodramatic art form and now a new company, Go Opera, seem keen to get in on the act. Their version of Verdi’s La Traviata will see an East London warehouse transformed into a Parisian salon. Performances will take place at a secret, as yet unspecified location, and the run starts on June 1. For details see www.goopera.co.uk  

• The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn is never one to shy away from examining knotty conflicts in foreign lands, but be quick if you want to catch the current show. Comedian Mark Thomas has had his Extreme Rambling show extended by popular demand. Mark decided to go rambling in the Middle East and walked the entire length of Israel’s “separation barrier” – the controversial wall that snakes across the Holy Land and which was built, according to Israel, to stop terrorism. Six arrests and one stoning later, Mark recounts his adventures. The show has been extended until May 28. Tickets on 020 7328 1000. 

• Kentish Town’s Giant Olive theatre company have been a staple of these pages since the group formed in 2008 – and now they’re back following a refit of their base in the Lion and Unicorn, Gaisford Street. Upcoming productions at the venue include sci-fi drama The Borrowed Earth Foundation, Tom Jones and The King’s Face, which centres on the story of Henry V’s assent to the throne. For tickets call 08444 771 000. 

• Holloway writer and actress Lucy Foster has devised a playful and experimental journey through 20th-century history. Epic unearths the secrets of a run-in with Arthur Scargill in the Northern mines, a French family caught between colonialism in Cameroon and Paris in May 1968 and a grandfather on a torpedoed boat at the close of the Second World War. Well worth a trip to the Soho Theatre on May 26, 27 and 28.