It's the work staged in a theatre rather than the building itself that has always interested me. However, I've just come back from my first trip to the exquisitely restored Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds, where the combination of the space and Colin Blumenau's light-touch revival of Thomas Holfcroft's He's Much to Blame is a seductive one.
Shunt, of course, have been one of the great players with space in recent years, first in the railway arches in Bethnal Green and then under London Bridge station. A new home on Bermondsey Street brings a new show, Money, inspired by Emil Zola's L'Argent and a 19th-century banking scandal. Expect to be surprised and disorientated.
Ever since Masque of the Red Death, BAC has used its building in increasingly inventive ways. There will be work all over the Lavender Hill town hall over the next three weekends for the Scratch festival, which also includes performances of Little Bulb's Crocosmia. Punchdrunk, by the way, are currently in Boston with a revival of their Macbeth-inspired Sleep No More and there are indications that It Felt Like a Kiss will come to London next year. Goat and Monkey, another company experimenting with space, have a premiere, Little Neck, at Hampton Court Palace this week.
The big openings of the week are the Fiona Shaw and Deborah Warner Mother Courage at the Olivier, in a new translation by Tony Kushner, and the John Tiffany-directed The House of Bernarda Alba at the Citizens in Glasgow. But my eye was caught by Jack Thorne's 2nd May 1997 at the Bush. Punk Rock is a hot ticket at the Lyric (remember that the play is moving north to the Royal Exchange next month) and Enron comes into the Royal Court. Apparently it's sold out, but don't forget that there will be day tickets available and all the indications suggest that it's West End bound. Lenny Henry's Othello comes into Trafalgar Studios and, in case you had failed to notice, Ben Hur Live is at the O2 arena. Though if you really want spectacle, Mark Dornford-May's South African version of the Chester mystery plays, The Mysteries, is probably a better bet.
With so many new shows opening, it's easy to overlook things that have been around for a while. I'd definitely recommend Deep Cut, which is back at the Sherman Cymru before going out on tour; Orphans at the Door in Birmingham (and at Soho next month); and Pornography at the Theatre Royal in Bath this weekend. Vanishing Point are a fantastic company and I reckon that their version of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera will be worth your time. It's at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh before heading out on a short tour; its only English date is at the Belgrade in Coventry. The RSC's Other Russia season is now under way in Stratford-on-Avon, and Northern Stage in Newcastle has a revival of Githa Sowerby's amazing Rutherford and Son. Share what you are seeing and why.