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Award-winning performer George Dillon is part of a stunning season of Edinburgh previews at The Nightingale Theatre with The Man Who Was Hamlet writes Andrew Kay

Who really wrote Hamlet? Award-winning performer George Dillon returns to The Nightingale with his new play, The Man Who Was Hamlet, which tells the comical, tragical, romantic and utterly scandalous history of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, the leading alternative candidate for the authorship of the works of William Shakespeare.
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Lost siblings, rich sexuality and infinite compassion: actor Simon Callow talks to Bella Todd about the real William Shakespeare

Shakespeare: The Man From Stratford follows the success of your one-man show about Charles Dickens. You’ve written that it is Shakespeare’s treatment of sex and love that elevates him above Dickens…
I think it’s what you don’t find in Dickens. Of course, Dickens is always interesting, even in what he doesn’t do. But with Shakespeare you have this astonishing garden of delights – and, of course, of disgust sometimes. Whether Dickens would allow himself to be really overwhelmed by another human being I doubt. He was too frightened of the black waters inside himself to let that happen.
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Wondering what to do with the kids this holiday? Latest 7 surveys the dynamic summer schools on offer from Crawley Community Arts

Each year, Crawley Community Arts stage a hugely popular programme of summer schools specifically for young people. Forget homework – here kids can learn everything from unicycling to freerunning, and many of the courses culminate in performances for friends and family.

A mark of the calibre of this year’s programme is the inclusion of a brand new Parkour Summer School run by Urban Playground (Mon 23–Thur 26 August, Bewbush Parkour Training Area, Crawley, 10am–12noon, £15). These guys have been blending contemporary and urban dance with parkour – or freerunning – for six years.

They came up with the world’s first specifically designed parkour structure, collaborate with two of the French inventors of parkour – Charles Perriere and Malik Diouf – and in May premiered their Brighton Festival commission, The Next Level in a fantastic free show at Brighton Marina.

Anyone who saw them – leaping from their white transit van and defying both gravity and the hard pavement beneath to a soundtrack of urban beats – will probably have caught the parkour bug. Urban Playground offer training sessions for all levels of experience, but the intensive four-day programme is specifically for experienced ‘traceurs’ – that’s a skilled runner and jumper – aged 12 and over. All applicants will be invited to a free training session with Urban Playground before they’re awarded a place on the course. (For more information, contact Liz Hart at liz.hart@crawley.gov.uk, 01293 438156, or Lucy Adams at lucy.adams@crawley.gov.uk, 01293 585350).

Budding thespians can sign up for Drama Summer School (Mon 26–Fri 30 July, 10am–4pm, The Hawth Studio, £85/£65), a drama course for 8 to 13 year olds incorporating games, team building and improvisation, culminating in a performance.

For 8 to 16 year olds who dream of running away with the circus, Circuswurx Summer School (Mon 2–Fri 6 Aug, 10am–4pm, The Hawth Studio, £85/ £65) is a one-stop shop for learning juggling, stilt-walking, unicycling and even balloon-modelling. The week will end with a show for friends and family where students perform their newly developed skills.

And finally, Dance Summer School (Mon 9–Fri 13 Aug, 10am–4pm, The Hawth Studio, £85/£65) will be tapping into the Britain’s Got Talent-stoked craze for busting moves with a class for 8 to 10 year olds that teaches all the latest dance styles, accompanied by the latest sounds.

Most courses will require advance booking, a packed lunch, water and comfortable shoes. For more information visit www.thehawth.co.uk or call 01293 553636.

As he prepares to play Henry Higgins in Pygmalion for Chichester Festival, Rupert Everett meets Andrew Kay in the West End to talk Hollywood, acting and coming out

What is your balance of screen and stage work?
I don’t know, life is so unpredictable. Last year I was on Broadway in Blithe Spirit with Angela Lansbury. It’s nice to catch up as I haven’t done much in the last 15 years and I like it. But I don’t plot in advance, you don’t know what is going to happen and mostly nothing happens, you sit around doing nothing.

Did Chichester approach you to do Pygmalion?
No, I went to them with Philip Prowse, the director.

Was there ever confusion, a worry whether you could sing and dance?
[Laughs] No, if I thought that there was singing and dancing… I initiated this, Henry Higgins will be a great part for me if I pull it off. I say if because I’m vaguely brain dead and partly amnesiac.
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