Lyn's Picks: Oct 24

A Dead Body in Taos (Wilton’s Music Hall)

David Farr, who adapted both The Night Manager and the Midwich Cuckoos for TV, is the pen behind this piece of near sci-fi which explores how artificial intelligence is shaping our lives and deaths. Sam hasn’t spoken to her mum, Kath, for three years when she hears that her mother has walked into the New Mexico desert where she has been found dead. If mother and daughter couldn’t resolve their differences in life, how can that be possible when one of them is dead? Rachel Bagshaw directs a story, produced by Fuel and telling a tale about second chances and asking whether technology gives us the chance to rewrite our lives and our endings.

Mary (Hampstead Theatre)

Rona Munro proved herself a wily and entertaining raconteur of Scottish history in The James Plays, which toured Scotland and were seen at the National Theatre in 2014. Now she turns her attention to Mary Queen of Scots in a political thriller about the life and times of a woman surrounded by intrigue and plotting. Can James Melville (Shetland star, Douglas Henshall) save the troubled queen? Or will the loyal diplomat find himself outwitted, or having to make choices that lead to disaster? Intriguingly, Mary herself is the centre of the play but never appears in a story in which heads and hearts will be lost. Roxana Silbert directs.

Frankenstein’s Monster Is Drunk and the Sheep Have All Jumped the Fences (Omnibus)

Fresh from the Belfast International Festival, Big Telly’s take on the Frankenstein myth and the idea of the monster as outsider draws its inspiration from Owen Booth’s brilliant short story to offer a very funny but also sad exploration of different ways of monstering. It begins with the exhumation of a corpse from a glacier which when it is fully defrosted gets the spark of life (and love) that is needed to come alive. But will true happiness be possible in a community which likes to ostracize anyone who is different? Zoe Seaton’s production piles on the laughter and comes from a company which over the last few years has won itself and international following.

Cover photo from A Dead Body in Taos at Wilton’s Music Hall, image by Manuel Vason.