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Spring is here, the sun is shining and the flowers are out in all their splendour. But when you think about it the sun’s terrible for your skin and flowers just give you hayfever so instead why not avoid the hassle and expense of sun cream and antihistamines by celebrating April with a show or two inside one of Glasgow’s UV protected and pollen free theatres.

The Arches, as usual, have a packed and diverse programme this month with ThickSkin Theatre, last year’s Arches Brick award winner, who bring the powerful and thought provoking Blackout back, running as part of a ticket package with two winners of the venue’s Platform 18 Awards for new theatre – Clare Duffy’s Money…The Game Show and Gareth Nicholl’s Pause with a Smile.

Another Brick award winner the interactive and sensory stimulating When We Meet Again (Introduced As Friends) by Me and the Machine will play with and confuse your perceptions and definitely test your threshold for intimacy.

Talking of perceptions, few performers tackle them and our prejudices better than Claire Cunningham. Mixing acting, dance, circus skills and sculpture, using her own crutches, to create intoxicating and hypnotically beautiful shows Cunningham’s new piece Mobile/Evolution should add lustre to what is an already growing reputation.

Dance of a different kind continues over at the Tramway with The Michael Clark Company’s next installment of the Bowie themed Come, Been and Gone. Also at the Tramway this month is The Veil a collaboration between Glasgow Arts International dancers, The Tramway Theatre Arts Group and musicians from ArtForm.

The Citizens Theatre provide three contrasting pieces of theatre this month with a two revivals: Brian Friel’s classic and touching Dancing at Lughnasa from The Original Theatre Co. and Tom McGrath’s Laurel & Hardy from Mull Theatre. Also on show are kids favourites Charlie and Lola in their Best Bestest Play.

Also in the classics, The Giffnock Theatre Players take to the stage of the Eastwood Park Theatre giving their take on Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and also at the same venue are Catherine Wheels Theatre presenting Caged a reworking of the Beauty and the Beast story also showing later in the month at the Tron. With musical treats in the form of a celebration of Rogers and Hammerstein and Opera Della Luna’s production of Die Fledermaus making up the rest of April’s programme Eastwood Park continues to provide an impressively diverse mix for their community.

Alongside Caged, the Tron has its usual packed programme including Clockwork a wonderfully Gothic sounding fairy tale from the pen of Philip Pullman presented by Visible Fictions in collaboration with Scottish Opera.

Always a venue that likes to mix things up The Tron also plays home to Falling Flying from Hand on Heart Theatre an intense true story of a transgender pioneer which confronts issues of biology and identity full on. Identity and change is also at the heart of two of the venues other productions with Ovid’s Metamorphoses with the actor musicians of Pants on Fire relocating this Roman classic to wartime Britain and the Tron’s own Skillshops taking on what it means to be an individual in Project Branded.

April at the King’s brings music, ballet, dance, and hard core violence. The last of these supplied by a revival of Tom McGrath’s 1977 play The Hard Man.

On a lighter note Britain’s Got Talent dance troupe Flawless present their skills live on stage as do Scottish Ballet with their unique and magical interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

Sticking with the dancing theme Strictly Come Dancing’s Craig Revel Horwood is in the directors chair for the touring version of Time Rice, Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson’s Chess – a musical I’m sure you know so well.

Finally, commemorating 70 years since the Glasgow Blitz the Pavilion are putting on the good natured wartime comedy Paras over the Barras – You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be grateful that rationing’s not around any more.

So another month of the weird, the wacky and the sublime inside Glasgow’s vibrant theatres. Sure you could enjoy the longer evenings the smell of blossom and the warmth on your skin but this is Scotland and it’s only giving you false hope before the rain pours down, so instead just grab your umbrella and come inside.

The Arches:

Money…The Game Show: Tues 5th – Sat 9th April @ 20:30 (19:00 on Wed 7th)

Pause with a Smile: Tues 5th, 6th & 8th April @ 19: o0 7th & 9th April @ 20:30

Blackout: Wed 6th & Fri 8th @ 20:30 (no show on 7th) Sat 8th @ 19:00

When We Meet Again (Introduced As Friends): Fri 8th: Every 10 mins from 17:30 – 19:00, 20:00 – 20:30,  21:20 – 22:30 // 9th: Every 10 mins from 17:30 – 19:00, 19:50 – 20:30, 21:40 – 22:30

Claire Cunningham: ME (Mobile Evolution): Wed 20th April @ 19:30

The Tramway:

come, seen and gone : Thurs 7th – Sat 9th April @ 19:30

The Veil: Wed 20th – Thurs 21st April @ 19:30

Citizens Theatre:

Charlie & Lola’s Best Bestest Play: Wed 13th – Fri 15th April @ 11:00 & 13:30. Sat 16th April @ 11:oo, 13:30 & 16:00