Classic comedy at Lowry

Hannah Waterman, Martin Marquez, Samuel James, Katie Lightfoot and Emily Raymond star in the stage adaptation of one of the most popular TV plays ever created.

Mike Leigh’s comedy became an instant classic when it first appeared as a BBC Play For Today in 1977. It is a ruthlessly accurate observation of the pretensions of suburbia, a world obsessed with class and taste, and ruled over by the monstrous Beverly.

Comedy, drama and tragedy combine in this iconic piece of theatre.

Donna Summer is playing on the stereo. Dishes of cheese and pineapple are on the coffee table… the social get-together from hell is about to begin.

Waterman is best known for her role as Laura Beale in EastEnders. Martin Marquez was most recently seen in the West End in Billy Elliot and in the hit film version of Les Misérables.

The party runs from Monday to Saturday.

Box Office: 0843 2086005 or www.thelowry.com

Cush Jumbo, an Olivier Award and Manchester Theatre Award nominated actress, is set to star in a major revival of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre from Wednesday to June 1.

She has just played Mark Antony in the Donmar Warehouse’s all-female production of Julius Caesar. Previous Royal Exchange credits also include Pygmalion and As You Like It – for which she won the 2012 Ian Charleson Award.

This new production sees her play Nora, the young wife and mother who is married to Torvald, recently promoted to a high level position in banking. Life seems content and settled until their marriage is threatened when a terrible secret comes back to haunt her.

Ibsen’s ground-breaking play is widely regarded as a landmark of the modern stage. A story of domestic revolution, female empowerment and the journey towards self-liberation.

Cush is reunited for this production with Royal Exchange artistic director Greg Hersov.

Box Office: 0161 833 9833 or www.royalexchange.co.uk

The national tour of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice reaches Manchester Opera House next week.

It stars Beverley Callard as Mari Hoff, Ray Quinn as Billy, Duggie Brown as Mr Boo and Jess Robinson as Little Voice. The cast also includes Simon Thorp as Ray Say and Sally Plumb as Sadie.

It’s a Northern fairytale, in which shy Little Voice spends most of her time immersed in her late father’s record collection and perfecting her astonishing impersonations.

Overheard by Ray Say, a hapless talent scout, Little Voice is propelled towards stardom . . .

The play features songs from some of the world’s most iconic divas including Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey and Judy Garland.

It runs here from Monday to Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3018 or www.atgtickets/manchester.

That Is All You Need To Know is the first production in The Lowry’s new Accelerate programme in Salford.

It has its world premiere from Thursday to Saturday, telling the story behind wartime Bletchley Park and the untold secrets of the remarkable men and women who cracked the Germans’ Enigma code.

Theatre company Idle Motion takes audiences back to 1940s England, to the eccentric country house whose grounds, filled with chess champions, Oxbridge graduates and young debutantes, was the melting pot of Britain’s greatest minds.

Accelerate is a new relationship between the venue and The Jerwood Foundation, building upon the success of The Lowry’s award-winning Developed With The Lowry programme to further support emerging to mid-career theatre companies.

Box office: 0843 208 6010 or www.thelowry.com.