GLASGOW MUSICAL

Strike a Light

Govanhill Baths

Calder Street

19-23 May

Written by Fatima Uygun, Colin Poole and Jim Monaghan, with music by Gavin Livingstone, Strike A Light is a musical extravaganza based on the matchgirls’ strike of 1888 in London’s East End.

It tells the story of how young female workers took on their bosses and won in a rich mix of music hall songs, dance, drama and politics. Bet they didn’t have to worry about getting 40 per cent backing — there’s a lesson in there somewhere. Go. brownpapertickets.com

LONDON EXHIBITION

Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation

The British Museum 

Great Russell Street, WC1

Until August 2

This is the first major exhibition in Britain to present a history of indigenous Australia through objects, celebrating the cultural strength and resilience of both the aboriginal peoples of the continent and the Torres Strait islanders.

The magnificent works on display range from practical objects such as spear-throwers — the “Swiss army knife of the desert” — to stunning works of art such as Ta Uta Tjangala’s Yumari (1981), which now features on the Australian passport. britishmuseum.org

MERTHYR TYDFIL THEATRE

Mother Courage and Her Children

Merthyr Tydfil Labour Club

Court Street

Until May 22

This bold new production of Bertold Brecht’s classic anti-war play by National Theatre Wales is performed in and around Merthyr’s Labour Club by a nine-strong female cast.

Described as a “defiantly 21st-century version” it mixes Brecht’s world with the Saturday-night spirit of the town in a period of war. “According to the bigwigs, this war’s being fought in the name of God and all things lovely. But I think that’s bollocks. Everybody in this war is out for what they can get, including a small businesswoman like me. I wouldn’t be here otherwise,”

Mother Courage says. Would the great German dramatist have approved of such adaptation?

Almost certainly.nationaltheatrewales.org

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE EXHIBITION

The Endeavour

Tyneside Cinema

Pilgrim Street

May 22-July 12

Mikhail Karikis’s The Endeavour is an evocation of the north-east’s industrial past, forgotten trades and dialects and a lyrical homage to historical protest and resistance.

A video and sound installation, it records a boat being repaired in the region’s last boatyard in the weeks before the boat builder’s retirement.

Karikis observes in intimate detail his carefully choreographed craftsmanship, while the rhythmic soundscape of the boatyard is interrupted by a local choir performing a roll call of seminal industrial protests since the beginning of the last century. Should be well worth a visit. Free.tynesidecinema.co.uk