The mystery at the centre of Lucy Kirkwood's play, transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre after a lauded opening at the Almeida, resides in one of the most evocative photographs of the last century: that of the unidentified Tank Man in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The last words of the actor Edmund Kean are alleged to have been “dying is easy, comedy is hard.” He passed away (with relative ease) in 1833, more than a century before the outbreak of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. One can only envy his good fortune and wonder what he’d make of the mayhem that unfolds every August in Scotland’s capital.

Eyre is directing plays at the National and Almeida, along with a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about the Profumo scandal set to open in December

Independent columnist Terence Blacker makes his Edinburgh Festival debut this week with a show of storytelling and songs. He reveals the pain and pleasure of creating a work for the stage rather than the page

In this final report, Michael Volpe is overjoyed to finally see Alice on stage

It has been described as everything from a dog's dinner to an iceberg of terrible and awarded a desultory one-star by some of the most respected theatre critics in town. Could Wag! The Musical take the crown as the worst musical ever to hit the West End?

The actor Simon Callow has promised to take audiences to a “dark, murky, unsettling place”, with a new one-man stage show that explores the composer Richard Wagner’s “toxic” and “disgusting” anti-Semitism.

Unlikely magician Piff the Magic Dragon is set to fire up this year's Edinburgh Festival. Brian Logan meets him and his lovely chihuahua assistant

The Events is set to cause a stir at the Traverse (traverse.co.uk, Wed to 25 Aug): David Greig's new play contemplates a politically motivated attack and the limits of forgiveness.

Dance Odyssey is a new scheme whereby you can see a clutch of performances, films or talks on one ticket. Worth a look is Christopher Hampson's Rite of Spring (Festival Theatre, eif.co.uk, 18 Aug), and Scottish Ballet's world premiere of a work by king of speed, Édouard Lock (16 Aug).

A funny thing happened on the way to the limo …

"My agent says, "Turn stuff down". But I always think someone's going to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Your time's up"

Written by actor-turned-playwright Oliver Cotton, the third production to appear at the new Park Theatre is set in New York, 1986, and stars Harry Shearer and Maureen Lipman as married Jewish immigrants in their 70s.

I was hooked on ballet from an early age I was five, watching a class all dressed in pale-pink led by a thin, beautiful teacher dressed in burgundy. She was so different from the other teachers at my school, who were nuns. My parents didn't want me to do ballet, so I insisted until they gave up: I used crying and all the manipulative tricks little kids have.

Fire performer, stilt-walker, rigger and, foremost an aerialist renowned for the art of counterweighting – the process of lifting people or objects by using a pulley system or their body weight – Barnz Munn wants to make everything fly, from his girlfriend Shaena, to Chinese poles and drum kits. “We use counterweighting for most of the lifting so when one person goes up, someone else comes down,” explains Munn, artistic director of nine-strong circus company Pirates of the Carabina,whose show Flown was first commissioned to headline the Big Top tent at Glastonbury two years ago. “It's become our trademark and we fly the equipment as well as the people.”